Despite the lack of a proper roller-skating facility in the Coachella Valley, deeply passionate people have come together to form a group focused on roller skating.
Check that: They’ve come together to form at least four groups focused on roller skating.
Whether they’re skating on a basketball court, on the streets of Palm Springs, or inside a hangar at the Palm Springs Air Museum, these (mostly) women on wheels have found ways to explore their love for skating.
Just Us Girls Skating
If you’re looking for a good introduction to roller skating, look no further than Just Us Girls Skating (aka JUGS). The group focuses on roller-skating basics, as well as an intro to dance skating. The group meets at 7:30 p.m. most Wednesdays at Freedom Park, at 77400 Country Club Drive, in Palm Desert—and on Wednesday, Oct. 30, they’ll hold a special Halloween skate. For more information, visit www.instagram.com/justusgirlsskating.
JUGS representative Frances Olalde said the group started during the COVID-19 shutdowns.
“Obviously you want to look for something to do, because there’s nowhere to go, nothing to do—so I just started skating here in my backyard,” Olalde said. “A couple of girls who we were all friends with got their skates, and then we just kind of just started skating together, just us girls. Little by little, we started getting more friends to join our group, and then before you knew it, it was starting to kind of grow on its own.
“I’m a registered nurse. My friends were probation officers, police officers, teachers, so they were all career-goal-oriented, and they wanted to still roller skate, but they didn’t want to roller skate too hard, where you have to drop down in bowls. Since we don’t have a roller rink here in the desert, we just do it at basketball courts.”
As the group began hosting meetings with other new skaters, they attracted the attention of some more seasoned roller veterans.
“Our group of skaters really caters to a lot of beginner skaters—people who used to skate maybe when they were younger, but haven’t done it in years, or they are intimidated to do the park skating or the street skating,” Olalde said. “We were very beginner skaters, and then some other skaters who were more advanced said, ‘Hey, we’ll help you guys; let us come over and we’ll help you out.’”
The JUGS group started traveling out of town to meet other skaters and gain experience at venues better suited for them than a basketball court.
“Those people at the other roller rinks would find out we were coming an hour and a half or two hours to the roller rink, and they started to take us under their wings, and they’re like, ‘We’ll come down to the desert, and we’ll help you guys,’” said Olalde. “We were wanting more dance skate, because there’s nothing in the desert for dance skating. Little by little, we started having a lot of people come down and teach. People from Chicago, from Santa Monica, they all come down and give us classes. Word got out, and then we just started to get bigger. … Little by little, you start to see that there are a lot of people who really want to roller skate.”
Olalde said she’s proud of how people have gotten their start in the roller community through JUGS, and then branched out to the more advanced groups in the desert.
“As they start to come with us every Wednesday, you start to see their development, how they’re building their confidence, and they’re starting to get more brave,” Olalde said. “Some of our skaters started off not knowing how to skate … and they’re now derby skaters; some are now doing park skating. … All the other girls from the other groups skate with us and invite us to skate with them, so we’re a mixture of everything. We have beginners; we have advanced; and everybody helps out one another—because we all start out beginners.”
JUGS will participate in Skate El Paseo Pink at 7 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 19.
Coachella Valley Derby Girls
Adrenaline-seeking skaters and fans of high-impact sports need to check out the Coachella Valley Derby Girls, the desert’s flat-track, full-contact roller-derby team. Sometimes they travel to face teams around Southern California; other times, they play home games at the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam Hangar at the Palm Springs Air Museum. Their home season finale is at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 26. Tickets are $10, and kids 10 and under get in free. For more information, visit www.instagram.com/coachellavalleyderbygirls.
President and team member Ginny Broderick said the lack of a proper roller rink in the desert led to the team’s partnership with the Air Museum.
“I joined in 2018, and we didn’t have a home venue then, so all of the games were away games, because finding a place to skate and play bouts because of the amount of room you need is really hard,” Broderick said. “We were able to partner with the Palm Springs Air Museum, and they gave us one of the hangers. That has been such a blessing for us, because it’s big enough to lay down the track.”
The local roller community grew significantly during the pandemic—as evidenced by the massive crowd at last year’s season opener.
“The line was out the door, and there were hundreds of people I had never seen,” Broderick said. “The valley just shows up for us every game, and there are always at least a couple hundred people, usually 200-300 people, who come to the games, and they’re very excited. They wear our merch; they have cheers, and it’s so exciting. They’re the biggest games I’ve ever been a part of. Whenever we travel and we go to away games, the venues never seem to be quite as big as the one we have here. I have heard the teams who come to play against us, and they’re just amazed: ‘I cannot believe your crowd; I can’t believe your venue. This is the coolest ever. Please invite us back.’”
Every member of the Coachella Valley Derby Girls is also a promoter, an advertiser and a derby-track installer, in addition to being a skater-athlete.
“The team does all of the work,” Broderick said. “We set everything up ourselves, and we promote on social media; we sell tickets; we do pre-sales for the crowd. … We recruit the vendors, and we have merch for the team. Just (recently), we were able to set up a track crew, so we’ve got a whole crew now that we’ve trained to lay down the track before the game, and that’s just going to be their job now, to help us out so that the team doesn’t get so exhausted before the game.”
Broderick said the Coachella Valley Derby Girls are happy to be a part of a growing and diverse group of local skaters.
“We all try to mutually promote each other,” Broderick said. “I know some of our girls skate with the JUGS girls, and Frances’ husband was actually a sponsor for the derby team last season. They do come to the games, and we give shoutouts on social media to each other.
“There is no competitiveness between this group and that group; we just want to promote roller skating in the valley. If recreation is your thing, and that’s what you want to be a part of, please do it. If you like to hit people and get a little feisty, come over and see us.”
Cruise N’ Coffee
Roller skaters looking to hang out with like-minded desert folks, explore the beauty of Palm Springs on wheels and enjoy some great local coffee should check out Cruise N’ Coffee, which usually meets once a month for a skate around town. For more information, visit instagram.com/cruisencoffee.
Cruise N’ Coffee’s Deserae Gomez explained how her group’s distance-skate differs from the other events the CV roller scene has to offer.
“We like to cruise around in Palm Springs, and it’s basically my way of just getting people to meet each other, so that they can make those connections,” Gomez said. “As you get older, you do start to realize that you don’t always hold on to the same friends, because we grow as human beings, and we change our likes and change our hobbies, so it’s nice to have this monthly meeting where people can meet, and friendship blossoms.”
Gomez, like many others, got her start with the JUGS crew.
“That was such an awesome experience to meet those girls who wanted to bring Venice vibes here in the desert, because everybody wants to learn how to jam-skate,” Gomez said. “I started doing that, and then I transitioned once I felt comfortable in building my fundamentals. I transitioned into the skate park, and I got a lot better and more comfortable with speed. … I would go to work, and sometimes, before I would go to work, I would throw my skates on and cruise around Palm Springs. I had done that a few times just to get some physical activity in, because it’s really good cardio, and the architecture in Palm Springs is just so beautiful that you can’t help but want to skate around in the neighborhoods and look at everything. I started doing that, and then a few times, I started taking people with me. I started getting my friends to come out with me, and I had a few girls who I would go to the skate park with … and they started joining me.”
The meetups became monthly, and Gomez began teaching amateur skaters about street awareness and community.
“The most important thing is learning how to be safe while doing this activity in the street, and give you the confidence to be like, ‘Hey, I’m tired of being inside all day; I’m just going to throw my skates on and go for a little cruise really quick around my neighborhood,’” Gomez said “People who started with saying, ‘I’m so nervous,’ are now constantly saying, ‘Thank you so much for showing me how to do this; I just cruised my neighborhood.’ … It’s been a wonderful experience, and I’ve enjoyed contributing to our community, because the end goal is for everybody to be happy. I feel like we’ve pretty much accomplished that, and I absolutely love it.”
Cruise N’ Coffee’s diverse attendees have added even more vibrancy to the growing community of desert skaters.
“It has brought people from all creeds and colors and from different locations,” Gomez said. “We get people from the Inland Empire and the high desert. We’ve had people from Murrieta drive down to come and cruise with us. It’s been super-beneficial, just to our community, and it’s something that I personally wanted to do to help people—because at the end of the day, I love hanging out with people.”
Cruise N’ Coffee is planning a Halloween cruise, starting at the downtown Palm Springs Park at 9 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 26.
Community in Bowls
Drop into a bowl with Community in Bowls (CIB), a group focused on skating in empty pools, half pipes and bowls. Their next scheduled meet is their fifth annual Ghouls in Bowls Halloween event on Friday, Oct. 24, at La Quinta X Park, at 46170 Dune Palms Road, in La Quinta. For more information, visit www.instagram.com/cib_palm_springs.
CIB administrator Gabriela Pallini said the local Community in Bowls group formed as a chapter of a worldwide organization.
“CIB stands for Community in Bowls, but originally it was Chicks in Bowls, and it started in New Zealand,” Pallini said. “You can find chapters worldwide in most major cities. A little over a year ago, CIB as a company disbanded, so we no longer have a boss telling us what we can do and what we can’t do, but we decided to keep the name, because we felt like Communities in Bowls best represented us, because everyone in our group is so different. We’re mostly focused on skating at the skatepark, and doing transitions like skateboarders would—bowls, grinds and things like that. We do have meetups pretty regularly, at least once a month, to get everyone together, and sometimes they’re focused on teaching brand-new skaters how to get comfortable at the skate park, and etiquette, and things like that.”
Pallini runs CIB with Casey Keding, someone she credits with helping grow the local roller scene.
“She works over at the La Quinta X Park and Palm Springs Skate Park, and she’s in charge of the quad events over there,” Pallini said. “She kind of took me under her wing and taught me very basic stuff, and then when I felt comfortable enough, we both were teaching people, and it was fun. We’ve had a bunch of people filter in and out, and not just roller skaters, but rollerbladers, skateboarders, scooter kids and bike people. We’re trying to be cool with everybody, and everybody’s growing, and everybody’s having fun. It’s cool to support everybody out there.”
CIB, like the other groups, has experienced an increase in participation.
“Right now, we’ve probably had the most turnout that we’ve ever had, even though I would say that these action sports are kind of on a decline,” Pallini said. “We have a pretty good group of people who meet up and attend our meetups. Collectively, Deserae (Gomez, who is also part of CIB) and a couple of the other girls we skate with have traveled to other places to connect with other groups. Earlier this year, we went to something called Moxi Camp at Woodward West. It’s a huge indoor and outdoor skate park facility (in Tehachapi, Calif.), and they host camps throughout the year. All wheels are welcome there, but at Moxi Camp, it’s quad only, and it’s run by Michelle Steilen, who owns the Moxi brand, which is a roller skate brand. We connected with a bunch of people, so we’ve actually collaborated with other skate groups in Los Angeles or in Phoenix. We have a bunch of friends in Arizona now, and we’ve had meetups with them. It’s a really cool way to connect and meet other people.”
As the scene has grown, so, too, has a sense of positivity and community.
“I feel like, for me personally, when I started skating, the community was so small and so spread out, so it felt not as welcoming as it does now,” Pallini said. “It’s a really positive environment, for the most part. Personalities are all different, and you occasionally get people who don’t like what you’re doing or don’t like how you’re doing it, but it never really has affected us. I feel like, for the most part, we’re a huge, positive addition to the roller-skate community.”
A Common Goal
While each of the local groups focuses on doing different things on roller skates, all of them have a common desire: Getting a roller rink in the Coachella Valley.
“We’re trying to get a lot of people together to support the dream,” Olalde said. “We’ve been to a couple of park meetings, one for Indio, and I think there was also one we went to for Cathedral City. We’re trying to get petitions to start a roller rink somewhere. It doesn’t have to be an indoor roller rink; it can be just an outdoor slab … for roller skating.”
The community has felt shut down by city governments, and priced out by insurance needs.
“I reached out to a lot of community leaders, the mayors for all the different cities, and no one’s really interested in it,” Olalde said. “They shut down the street in San Diego maybe once a month or something, and you can go down and skate. We’ve sent them a lot of things like, ‘Hey, this would be really cool if we could do this in the desert,’ like when they have Second Saturdays in Indio, and they shut down the street. … I’m like, ‘Since the street is already closed, do you mind if we went and skated there?’ And they’re like, ‘Well, no, because you need insurance.’ There are people who will welcome us in, but we don’t have the funding for insurance and liability insurance, and they want a lot of things like that, which we can’t do.”
Although the Derby Girls love their unique home court at the Air Museum, a permanent rink would be even better.
“I reached out to a lot of community leaders, the mayors for all the different cities, and no one’s really interested in it. They shut down the street in San Diego … and you can go down and skate. We’ve sent them a lot of things like, ‘Hey, this would be really cool if we could do this in the desert.’”
Frances Olalde, Just Us Girls Skating
“We’ve had people reach out to us and say they’d love to build a roller rink, and obviously we support that, but it’s been a while since anybody’s contacted us and said their intentions are to make a roller rink,” Broderick said. “We would love that, and obviously we’d be big supporters of it.”
Gomez said a desert roller rink would be a safe meeting place for a burgeoning community.
“There are so many benefits to just having something like that here,” Gomez said. “I love going to the skate park, and I love being there with my friends, but the skate park is also very crazy. When I’m at the skate park, kids want to go skate, but they’re too scared. I feel like something that’s flat ground, rink-style, would be perfect to accommodate those younger kids … but the only option they have is a skate park or a basketball court. … There are a lot of skaters here who just want to be safe and just want to practice. If we go to a tennis court, we have to be wary of when we go and if there are people there, because we might run into a situation where there is someone who’s very unhappy that we’re skating there. We do our best to respect what we can when it comes to the community itself, and we try to accommodate, but it seems very unfair to the skaters, because then we’re just like, ‘Well, what do we do? Where do you expect us to go?’”
Pallini said that if she won the lottery, she’d build “an indoor roller rink attached to a skate shop, and I’d put a ramp out back.”
“It would be great to have a place that is firstly indoor, so that the kids have a place to escape the heat and just exercise and get together and learn new things and build confidence,” Pallini said. “But that takes a lot of money, and the city is not going to help us with the rink. Having an outdoor rink would mean that there’s a safe place where they can do it. Just Us Girls Skating meets up on basketball courts, but … if people want to play basketball, then they’re kind of in the way, and basketball tends to be a male-dominated area, and it doesn’t feel safe when you’re mostly women trying to do something that mostly women do. There are plenty of men in the skating groups, too, and nonbinary people, but it’s harder when you’re invading a cis-man space.
“It would be nice to have a place where everyone can feel safe, and people can bring their kids—and you don’t have to be worried about being hit by a car when you’re skating in the street.”