Rediscover Roller Skating with Galactic Roller Disco

Ainsley Forness with one of the hundreds of roller skates she’s rehabbing for her mobile roller rink business, Galactic Roller Disco. Photograph by Dana Laverty

One day, Ainsley Forness hopes to own a roller-skating rink.

Until then, she’s busy with Galactic Roller Disco, her mobile roller rink that brings events, lessons and private parties — and yes, skates and gear — to spaces around the state.

“I want to bring skating back to adult skaters. A lot of skating rinks cater strictly to children — it’s very ‘Let’s grab glow sticks and listen to party music and skate with my friends,’” she says. “I really want to make a place for people over eighteen — a sober-focused, fun environment — because I think we need more of that.” 

Forness first got the roller-skating bug in her native Texas, skating every day after school at a rink owned by her elementary school teacher. In high school, she worked as a skating waitress at a Sonic, and at the Starlight Skatium in Fayetteville, Arkansas, during her college years. The owner, Tiffany Peek Caston, was a source of inspiration for the self-described “rink rat.”

“She was living my dream life,” she says. “She talked to her customers. She’d have a good time. She wore whatever she wanted. She stayed as late as she wanted to. I was like, ‘This is what I want to do the rest of my life.’” 

Forness started on Facebook Marketplace, buying skates from people who had tried the hobby during the pandemic (roller-skating was huge during those wacky years) and no longer used them. She held her first event, a rollout on the East Bay Bike Path, last October, bringing her small arsenal of rental skates and gear. She wasn’t sure what to expect.

Twenty-five people showed up. 

“I thought, ‘Hey, that’s pretty good for someone who just moved here.’ People came to support me,” Forness says. “It gave me the confidence I needed to pull the trigger on getting more skates.” 

In January, she bought 250 used skates from an old roller rink in New Jersey and a trailer to transport them. Since then, she’s been rehabbing the brown suede beauties with a small army of volunteers in her Riverside basement, offering skating lessons, T-shirts and free entry to Galactic Roller Disco events in exchange.

Each pair takes two hours to rehab. Most are at least twenty years old, with some so full of gunk that the wheels won’t spin. They wind their way through the assembly line that Forness, an engineer and scientist by trade, has set up. There’s a scrubbing station, a repair and paint station, a bearing removal station, a shoe sewing machine and a rollaway cart holding spare wheels, toe caps, trucks and nuts. 

The smallest skate is a children’s size 8. The largest, a 14 adult — but just the right shoe. 

She has three sets of her own: a pair for roller derby — she’s playing with Providence Roller Derby this season — a rink pair and an outdoor set. 

Look for her — and Galactic Roller Disco — at outdoor and indoor events this summer. She’s hoping to schedule rollouts and popups and looking for people, places and businesses to collaborate with, all while looking for a permanent place to call home. 

“It’s hard work, but I am living the dream,” she says. “Even if it’s greasy and smelly right now, future Ainsley will thank current Ainsley for going through all this.” @galacticrollerdisco