TOP 5 STOPS on Inline Skates - Beginner to Beast

5 Ways to STOP on Inline Skates - Beginner to Beast

Heel Stop
T-Stop
Grass Stop
Power Stop
Slalom Stop

The heel stop is the most basic stop. Place the stopping skate a bit in front and lift your toes. That's it!

For some more power, bend your legs and push harder.

... Not good enough ...

The t-stop is more difficult but a good second stop to learn.

Keep almost all weight on the front skate. Gently drag the back skate behind.

... Too much weight on the dragging skate and you'll go for a spin.

The grass stop is the most important emergency break.

Stay low, keep one skate in front and more weight on the back skate.

... A grass roll often turns into a grass run.

The power stop looks much like an ice hockey stop.

However, it's very different. Make a sharp turn. On your outside skate, keep most weight on the heel.

Fall back on the inside skate.

Like this.

... NOT like this ...

The slalom stop is useful at high speeds and going downhill.

Make a sharp turn until outside skate loses grip. Fall back on the inside skate and repeat.

... It does requires some space ...

* Comments

I usually remove the heel break from my skates. Not using it is just my personl preference.

There are soom good reason to use the heel break even if you know other ways to stop.

First off, with the heel break on your wheels last longer.

The heel break is much cheaeper and easier to replace too, so it may be worth keeping it just for this reason.

It's also a lot easier on your joints. Knees and hips may suffer from other stopping techniques, especially if you do them wrong.

For me the reason to remove the heel breaks is partially that they may mess up when going backward or doing transitions,

and partially that removing the heels breaks save some weight.

Another important thing to keep in mind about heel breaks is that they are not very effective.

Going downhill it's very dangerous to rely on the heel break. Slalom turns are much better at controlling speed.

The t-stop is my most used stop. It's like my everyday stop.

It's more powerful than the heel break.

It does wear down the wheels quite a bit so I try to make it a habit to use my left skate, that's my weaker side,

more for controlled stops and my right skate in more challenging situations.

At higher speeds and going downhill it's a good idea to alternate between left and right to avoid flat spots.

The grass roll is mostly for emergencies. It's super useful to know. I recommend everyone, including beginners,

to practice it. It's not that difficult either. Just be aware that the wheels may get stuck.

Instinctively you then start to run so it's shouldn't be a problem.

The power stop is maybe the most difficult stop. I really need to focus every time I do it.

It's called power stop for a reason. A lot of energy goes into it.

I often start with a T-stop until the speed feels comfortable, and then I continue with a power stop.

Other times I do slalom turns, and finally when the speed feels right I do a power stop.

Actually it's by doing slalom turns I learned the power stop. Slalom turns are very much the same thing.

You can feel that if your weight balance is over your outside skate, and a bit toward the heel, you slow down tremendously.

You'll also notice the outside skate starting to lose grip. With the slalom turn I let my balance shift over to the insde skate.

With the power stop I just let the skate lose grip, then slide to a full stop and finally fall back on the inside skate.

Finally, I'll say a few words about skating on wet pavement.

First of all it's more slippery, so it's extra important to focus on when and where you may lose grip. Second it will kill your bearings.

I use my old skates with old bearings when I skate in rain. If I only had one pair of skates, I'd think twice before going skating in the rain.

[Hyan_Thatsit]

Hi, newbie here. Wish i found this video as the first one i searched when searching for ways to stop on skates. Not gonna say i wasted few last days, but this video has everything combined, that you would pick up piece by peace when watching some other videos. Very informative. Gonna watch it again probably few times later. Gonna bookmark it. Thanks dude.

[Endurx]

amazing how you dont give a f* about bad weather conditions outdoor :)

[peedee]

Excellent vid.

I disagree with your comment regarding the limited effectiveness of the heel brake, though. When I bought my second pair of skates back in the mid 90's the owner of the shop (New World Sports in SF, long gone) was a professional downhill skater, and he touted the heel brake as the quickest, most effective braking method. It's a matter of sitting back enough to be able to put full weight on the brake pad while using the front skate for steering and stability. He told me of a guy who actually tied a rope to the front of his brake skate. That rope went up the leg and was secured around the knee (with a string, perhaps?). On the end of that rope was a t-handle. The guy would actually reach down and grab the t-handle when braking in order to fully leverage his weight onto the brake pad. When you're going fast downhill (and we have serious hills here in SF) you can only really use the heel brake or T-stop methods. Slaloming is good, but that's really meant to control speed, and you need turning width in the road. T-stopping doesn't do much at higher speeds. The heel brake is the proper method, as you don't need any width in the road, and you can keep your skates parallel.

The only people, who don't believe in the effectiveness of heel braking, are those who've never tapped into its potential.

And yes, you do wear them down, very quickly, when you actually use them properly. Those guys would carry extra brakes with them when they would go on city skates bombing hills.

[dougstacy]

the most impressive part is all he does on a wet road

[skamidan]

Good video! :) Today I've got my first pair of Triskates. These days I will practice my Power-Stop on Triskates, making Slalom-Stops first might be helpful. Thanks for that!

[aliyaissunshine]

this was like ASMR. The audio was so soothing the whole video so relaxing and informative. Really great!

[dragoncult]

I like your videos because you demonstrate what to avoid doing too. thanks.

[fourcubed]

Very good video. For skating in rain and snow I have a separate set of wheels with bearings packed with automobile wheel bearing grease. Very cheap. Although the skates are a bit slower, your bearings will never seize up no matter how wet they get.

[JamesBrewerDJ]

Thank you. I am transitioning from quads (skating on quads for 35 years) to inline and really miss the stopper on front and doing hockey / power stops on four wheels. The skating, generally, is very similar but boy is stopping a totally different thing on inlines. It is the one thing I am struggling with and odd as I can do cross-overs, go backwards, salom, go on one foot no probs but stopping always gets my heart racing and makes me look like a knew born foal on ice. Thanks for these tips. Greatly appreciated.

[nicolesmith]

Such a great tutorial vid- all the big pointers, good examples to watch and learn from and very quick and to the point with no unnecessary tid bits. Really helpful, thank you!!

[cheshrektten]

Looked for something like this after wiping out pretty badly after taking up skating again after years of not skating at all. My t-stop really suffered (and as a consequence now I do).

First thing I noticed - I got way too used to the speed at which I can come to a complete stop both on the ice and a bike apparently - breaking will probably be a lot easier if I don't misjudged the distance I'll need in the first place.


Thanks so much for a very comprehensive and easy to understand video =)

[connect]

To the point, informative, thanks, great video. Answered all my questions in 5 minutes.

[kja]

Great video, especially for beginners. I am surprised you didn’t do a hockey stop. I just learned it and it’s the best stop by far.

[shokikuchi]

In the city, one of the easy options is to grab a light pole when going slow to stop. Also, not to stop but to slow down, you can use a V technique. Put weight on back wheels, push out, and point the front wheels inwards. Doesn't stop you but slows you down.

[lyra]

This was a great vid! I was practising the T stop over and over again until I got it right! Very helpful! 😃

[supertetramethylcyclohexan]

yay im the first view and the first thumbsup ! i think there is a better way than slalom stop, especially downhill. what you do is spread out your feet, and try to slow yourself down by bringing your feet closer to each other, with both skate on the ground. it sounds simple but you can really feel and get used to it to slowyour speed down. i dont know what's it called but just like slalom stop, its not meant for full stop, but for slowing down very high speeds, right before you do a T-stop. slalom stop requires a lot of space, left and right. you do not just casually spread feet and close while skating, you have to create the 2 opposing force of both your feet coming together to slow you down, and you can do this repeatedly. i learnt this technique before i learn how to do the T-stop haha, and yes i was going downhill before i properlly learn how to stop, and with rockered wheels !!! this saves a lot of tire wear too.

[haiderayub]

T stop is easy for me thanks man for making this video

[adamwest]

I would also suggest the magic slide as a great way of stopping downhill. Also the Bill Stoppard stopping technique where he does a T drag to parallel slide is also very useful for stopping quickly.

[HarmonicaMustang]

Good list of basic stops every comfortable skater should know. Interesting how you place your heel brake on your left foot (as opposed to the traditional right foot). I removed mine after a while for a few reasons; 1, I was using the T-stop more often than my heel stop, 2, I was getting into going backwards and slalom (and since my brake automatically lowered when I leaned my ankle backward, it was very dangerous if I lean back too far when going backwards), 3, the brake pads were horrendously loud, to the point where in a large club with loud music, you could still hear my brake go off on the other side of the room. It became more of an inconvenience than a useful stopping technique, and the only use I could find for it nowadays would be when demonstrating the heel brake to new skaters.

[davidnygaard]

By biggest issue is to control the speed downhill. any tips? using the heel brake is not very good at downhill