The Coolest Ride on Wheels Through History » Design You Trust

Roller skating’s attractiveness has fluctuated with each passing decade, with roller discos fading away in the 1980s and roller-blades generating a resurgence in the 1990s.

h/t: vintag.ws

However, pedal skates have continually been hailed as the epitome of interesting transportation for the modern period. The Atlantic notes that Charles A. Nordling from Suisun, California, secured a patent for this innovative twist on classic roller skates in August 1913. Nordling’s creation aimed to limit the skater’s work by employing pedal action to rotate the wheels, thus doing away with the have to have for extreme bodily exertion. This layout significantly diminished the likelihood of skaters dragging their toes or needing to carry the skates off the ground, facilitating larger speeds.

The U.S. Patent Office has the patent drawing for Nordling’s pedal skates.

Nordling’s revolutionary patent laid the groundwork for the development of future mechanical roller skates, which include the self-propelled roller skate by Hyman Suroff in 1983 and Zygmunt Piotrowski’s step action wheel skate in 1991.