Beginner roller skating
On Quads Outdoors, the Fall to Watch Is Backwards
A quad has a very short wheelbase, the front-to-back distance between its wheels. A certified coach says that is why beginners on quads tip over backwards far more easily when posture slips, and outdoor bumps make it slip. The answer is the same on every skate: knees bent, weight forward over the front of the foot, never upright. Technique from ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby.
Every skate has a fall it prefers. On quads, a certified coach names it without hesitation: backwards. Outdoors, that preference gets tested on every bump.
The reason is the wheelbase, the front-to-back distance between the wheels. On a quad it is very short, much shorter than on an inline skate. A short wheelbase gives poor front-to-back support: there is not much skate behind your heel to catch you if your weight drifts back.
Beginners on quads therefore tip over backwards far more easily when posture slips. On a rink, posture slips when you get tired or distracted. Outdoors, it slips because a crack or a pebble jolts the front wheels and the body reacts by straightening up, which is exactly the direction the skate cannot cover.
The answer is the one this site gives for every skate: knees bent, weight forward over the front of the foot, never upright. The site's own skater has already written that fighting a fall is what tips you backwards, and that the body should stay low with the back slightly rounded. On quads outdoors that habit is not a refinement; it is the difference between a bump you ride and a bump that sits you down.
Technique from Asha Kirkby of Skatefresh, an instructor certified by the Inline Certification Program who also teaches quad skating. This page is about QUAD skates outdoors: it comes from her comparison of quad and inline skates, and the site's own skater does not practise quads, so nothing here is vouched for by her.
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