The quad squad
Adult skate nights, DJs and a passionate crew fuel local roller skating renaissance

With the return of the mustache and mom jeans, it was only a matter of time – roller skating is back, baby.

But don’t just take my word for it. According to the all-knowing Google, “roller skating is experiencing a significant, lasting comeback that began during the pandemic and has been sustained by social media, nostalgia and its appeal as a fun, accessible workout. Interest spiked in 2020 and has continued, with skating rinks reporting higher attendance and sales.”

So there. 

This resurgence of disco balls, rexing and (hopefully) feathered hair is not just confined to the big cities. Durango also saw a urethane revival of its own.

“During the tail end of COVID, roller skating was really popular, and although interest dipped for a bit, we now have a motivated group of adults helping bring it back!” Matt Nimetz, Recreation Facility Operations Supervisor for Chapman Hill, wrote in an email. 

That group, the Durango Roller Skaters, has worked with Nimetz to get the word out about the city’s rink rat options. These include adults-only skate sessions Tuesday nights from 6:30-8:30 p.m. as well as a newly added monthly adult DJ skate party, the first of which takes place this S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night, May 16, from 8:15-10 p.m.

(*While the members of DRS love kids, and have some of their own, their events are for adults only, to ensure that no little whipper snappers are inadvertently mowed over during a feelgood Kool & the Gang singalong. The city hosts all-ages sessions for the kiddos and families on Fridays and Saturdays from 6–8 p.m., and starting May 25, Monday-Wednesday from 4:15–5:45 p.m.)

Nimetz said the rink also upgraded the lighting and sound systems last summer. “The atmosphere is pretty groovy,” he wrote. “We typically play pop dance tunes with a mix of house, ’70s disco and ’80s alternative.”

As for the DRS, they got rolling last fall over a shared nostalgia for skating and the radical idea of socializing in person, and they are looking to grow the ranks of the quad faithful. (Yes, roller skating is a great quad workout, but in this case “quad” refers to the four-wheeled footwear.)

The group was started by Todd O’Toole and John Egesdal, two strapping sexagenarians – a ’70s-sounding word for someone in their 60s – who met at a yoga class. The two struck up a conversation, headed to coffee, and the wheels got turning.

“We were talking about growing up – John grew up in Massachusetts, and I grew up in Minnesota – and all the fun things we liked to do as kids, and we both said, ‘Oh, we loved to roller skate,’” said Egesdal.

Egesdal grew up in the 1970s in tiny Gaylord, Minn., outside the Twin Cities, where he learned to skate in a repurposed WWI pavilion. “It had these amazing wood floors, and someone had the brilliant idea, ‘Let’s get skates in here,’” he recalled. “They were literally playing records until they advanced to eight-track, and we would skate on Fridays and Saturdays. I have fond memories of that little roller rink.”

Alas, a relative newcomer to the area, Egesdal lamented to O’Toole that there was nowhere to roller skate in Durango. That’s when O’Toole clued him in to the weekly Tuesday adult roller nights at Chapman Hill during the summer. (Shout out for starting this goes to local roller skater Dob Robinson, a former national champ who puts us all to shame with his moves. If you’ve seen him skate, you know.)

Egesdal checked out the Tuesday night scene but was dismayed to see it so sparsely attended. Surely there were others, like him, who loved to skate but didn’t know about the options or just needed a little nudge to get out on the floor.

 “Todd and I met again, and we asked, ‘What if we were to help them market this,’” said Egesdal.

 The two put their feelers out, hanging flyers around town and hosting a meeting last November for those interested in jumpstarting the local roller skating scene. It was election night, yet 12 brave souls showed up, willing to give it a go. 

“People had different ideas and stories of where they skated from around the country. And that was pretty much our official beginning,” said Egesdal.

Since then, the group has been meeting monthly at O’Toole’s house, brainstorming ideas for roller nights and other events. “We talk about what made you fired up about roller skating as a kid and what we can do to make it as close to that. We also talk about music, lights, themes,” said Egesdal. And, they’ve also discussed how to go beyond the rink, to do outreach and get involved with the local community and nonprofit organizations. “Bottom line, we want to try to hit as many people in this community that love roller skating as possible,” he said.

One of those people is Jane Jaber, a longtime Durangoan, who grew up skating in Wisconsin and became involved with the group last fall. 

Jaber, who was a two-pompom skater – what we all aspired to be – began skating in 1977 when her town of West Dallas, a suburb of Milwaukee, opened a rink. “We all had the metal skates that we cranked on our shoes with that key … I was there three nights a week, easily,” she said. In fact, her brother was even a rink guard – yes, there was such a person, who was responsible for rink safety and cracking down on speed scofflaws. “He would blow his whistle to tell people to slow down,” she said. “It was Wisconsin, we were rule followers.”

Egesdal and O’Toole said they hear these kinds of stories almost any time they bring up roller skating. “As we’ve been getting the word out, I would say, nine out of 10 people, when we ask, ‘Hey, did you skate?’ Their eyes light up,” said Egesdal. “They have the same stories we do, and we believe if we start promoting this, more and more people are going to show up.”

They add that Nimetz has been great in efforts to help spice up the scene.

“Matt has been a big proponent of ours. He’s been telling us ‘Go market this, go get DJs, go do what you need to do,’” Egesdal said. 

O’Toole said the group, which has about 30 people on its mailing list, is also reaching out to other communities. He, Egesdal, Jaber and other members of DRS, all recently went to a roller skating fund-raiser in Ouray at the Wright Opera House. O’Toole said many of the people he talked to there had no idea Durango had a rink or any kind of roller scene. He envisions tapping into this larger regional skating community, with Durango acting as a hub to draw skaters from places without rinks or who just want to escape the  summer heat.

“We could create conduits to these other places, like Santa Fe, Ouray, Farmington, Phoenix or Albuquerque,” O’Toole said.

Jaber also said the size of Durango’s rink could be a big draw, especially after skating somewhere like the diminutive theatre of the Wright Opera House. “It was small. We had to change directions like 20 times,” she said. “But you get back here and go, ‘Oh, wow, yeah. We’ve got a nice-sized rink.’” 

Another goal of getting more bodies in the rink is to demonstrate to the city that there is interest in roller skating lest they get bumped by another user group (looking at you, pickleballers.)

And speaking of user groups, DRS said any and every one over the age of 18 is welcome to join, including pickleballers and yes, rollerbladers. Even newbies are encouraged to give it a whirl, with Tuesday night sessions being the more beginner-friendly option, with time and space for instruction.  

“We don’t want to just have a bunch of boomers out there listening to ’70s tunes,” said Egesdal. “I’m 62, so, point being, how cool would it be to have twentysomethings, FLC kids, thistysomethings – every generation out there.”

Jaber said she recently attended a skate night at the old Basin Printing building and was blown away by the number of younger people there, many of whom even had their own skates. “There are definitely kids in town who skate,” she said. 

Looking ahead, O’Toole said he recently visited an skating school in Phoenix with the goal of possibly bringing instructors to Durango for a clinic. He also checked out some rinks down there to “take notes” on ideas for Durango.

 Meanwhile, Jaber is heading to San Francisco, where she plans to skate at the Church of 8 Wheels, a former Catholic-church-turned-roller-disco where members refer to themselves as “Holy Rollers.”

After all, it’s things like this – going to other rinks, connecting with the rink faithful and converting the skate curious – that helps grow the ever-expanding rollerverse. 

“That’s really how it’s building, these little connections leading to the next thing,” said O’Toole.

The next thing, which, of course, is a new old thing. But there’s a reason it keeps rolling back around.

“Aging well is about doing things that bring you joy,” said Jaber. “For me, it’s the skating and the music.” She tells a story of a bartender in a gold lamé suit at the skate night in Ouray. “She came up to me and said, ‘I had so much fun watching you. You seemed so joyful,’ and I’m like, ‘I am, it’s so much fun!’”

Admission to Chapman roller rink is $7 for kids and $8 for adults, Skate rentals are $3. Punch passes are available and can be used for all public skating sessions year-round.