Originally Posted by ghettocruiser
I haven't had functional inline skates in almost ten years, but I have seen people on skates with the right skillz and equipment handle all the averse conditions mentioned. Except maybe snow, but I'm sure someone has tried it.
Bigger-wheel race skates are ridiculously fast.
To call them toys rather than transportation smells like something I hear motorists say of us.
For kicks I used to skate into Boston from one of the suburbs (Chestnut Hill) on old Rollerblade Lightnings. That involved a lot of curb-jumping, pothole avoidance, and just plain street craziness. No rear brake either; I wore out a lot of wheels power-sliding and toe-dragging. Hardest/scariest part was negotiating a traffic rotary with no sidewalk. Commuting in the city was easy compared to that.