Local group fosters inclusive community among roller skaters

Caitlin Moscarito remembers joining Community In Bowls as a pivotal moment in her life. 

Last spring, she had been going to skateparks by herself without much experience in park skating. She said she had been trying to learn how to drop into the bowl on roller skates — a place that’s typically skateboard-focused, because the shape of the bowl allows for easier skateboard skill transitions. 

“I saw another quad skater, and I was so excited,” she said. “I went up to her like, ‘Oh my god, I'm so excited to meet another person on quads here.’”

After walking Moscarito through how to drop in, the skater invited her to skate with a group that was meeting up that week: Community In Bowls Raleigh. 

Brian Manning, one of the group’s administrators, said CIB’s mission is to be an inclusive, welcoming community for skaters of all ages and skills. It strives to spread the love of roller skating through hosting monthly events and workshops at various skateparks across the Triangle. Though it consists mostly of roller skaters, he said the group encourages anyone who wants to have fun in the park together, like rollerbladers, skateboarders, and even BMX bikers. 

“We welcome anybody on any wheels. Any skill level, any gender identity or just anything. Just as long as you have wheels on, that's all that matters,” he said. 

Founded in 2012, CIB originally began as a group of skaters in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Soon, Manning said there were over 300 CIB chapters worldwide, like CIB Raleigh. Each chapter usually has its own Instagram page promoting quad-skating events in the area, which means there is a community on wheels anywhere you go, Manning said. 

The original founders have since taken a step away from the organization, relinquishing administrative duties to the individual chapters. Though Manning said some have rebranded, most have kept the name CIB.

“Because it still stands for what we stand for, which is just spreading the love of roller skating in our community,” he said. 

In addition to the group’s monthly skate events, which are usually themed, members also meet up several times a week for more low-key skating sessions, typically communicating through the group’s Discord, Moscarito said. Now one of the group’s administrators, she said CIB is one of the best things she’s been a part of. 

“I've developed some of my closest friendships in this community, and I think that a lot of people would probably say the same,” she said. 

Manning said roller skating’s popularity, and park skating by extension, grew over the pandemic when people were looking for new activities to do outside. It is still a fledgling sport, however, and he said skaters are still experimenting, with hardware — the types of roller skates and their parts — and the names of skills, for example.

“But we don't really necessarily care about that,” he said. “We just really care about going out and rolling and having fun and spreading the community.”

The first quad skates were designed in 1863, and early forms of quad skating as a sport resembled ice skating, or speed-rolling around an oval rink. The 1940s saw the rise of roller derby, quad skating’s first professional sport, where a designated skater would try to skate past various members of an opposing team who would attempt to block or slow them down. 

Roller skating became a widespread recreational activity in the 1970s with roller disco, where skaters could skate around the rink and listen to the popular dance music. Today, CIB is just one embodiment of an ongoing roller-skating movement. 

In the three and a half years he has been with the group, Manning said it has been amazing to see members grow as skaters. He said CIB works to transfer knowledge of the park and skills to new skaters, helping one another grow. Member Andie Phillips said the group does not gatekeep tricks. Instead, they uplift each other, and it’s one of Phillips' favorite aspects of CIB. 

“I've come to realize that I'm a lot more capable of doing things that I see other skaters doing,” they said. “And thinking, ‘Oh, I would never be able to do that,’ and then just having somebody explain, ‘It's just this,’ or ‘You're overthinking it too much,’ and you're able to do things that you never thought that you would be able to do.”

Phillips said CIB is an opportunity to join a welcoming and supportive community who want to enjoy the park together. 

“We’re all each other’s cheerleaders,” they said. “And I think every single time I hear all of us go crazy for something that somebody does that's really amazing, it's really heartwarming.”

CIB Raleigh’s next meetup will be at Chapel Hill Skate Park on July 27 at 7 p.m. 

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