Suiting up for Derby

The first time I heard about roller derby (back in Ohio, a few years back), I was really interested, but I was worried about injury. Then I saw a game, and it didn’t appear as aggressive as I had thought. I started seriously considering it.. until I heard that one of the pieces of necessary equipment was a mouthguard.

I don’t know what it was specifically about the idea of a mouthguard that scared me, but it did! Upon reflection, I think it could be because I’ve never had one before: even playing ice hockey in college with full pads, we didn’t have mouthguards. It was the idea that one may be needed that concerned me: it was what the mouthguard represents!

Once I moved to Colorado and embarked on the adventure of getting to meet people, I revisited the idea of roller derby. It was a different athletic activity, and I’d be meeting some different people and keeping myself busy.

As I mentioned, I made the league, and now I have the fun of equipping myself:

Knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, mouth guard (and nice sanitary case!)

There were no helmets that fit, so that’s still outstanding from a safety perspective. I also just ordered my skates!

Riedell Torq Skate

I ordered this basic-level skate, but upgraded to speed wheels. I had the important decision of what color wheels to get, between baby blue, light pink, and red. I went for red.

Yowza! After literally years of musing about derby, it’s hard to believe I’ll actually start practices in two weeks!