Everywhere Ryan Farrelly and Chris Salvador rolled, people stopped and stared. In San Diego, often found near the top of the list of cities with the most beautiful people, this was no easy feat.

Grabbing people’s attention was actually not that hard for Farrelly, Salvador and their friends-turned-business partners. A little downhill race here, a backside flip there – all without a board. They called it freelining.

In 2006, when conventional wisdom in the skating world said you needed either a board or shoes with wheels to do crazy stunts and tricks, Farrelly used his engineering background to turn an extreme sport on its head. He took away the board and the shoe, took two wheels and made a set of skates rely on the body of the rider.

Freeline Skates are the brainchild of Farrelly, who co-founded Freeline Skates, Inc., with Salvador. The new, aerodynamic skates offer the best of skateboarding, rollerblading, surfing and skiing all in a single, small apparatus that can fit in a backpack.

Farrelly’s inspired and breakthrough product did not just take away the board, he made his new set of skates aerodynamic. With two small boards (one for each foot) no wider than the sole of your average shoe, the wheels are angled in such a way that the rider’s swaying motion moves the skates in a forward direction.

With this design, the rider can drive the skates on uphill slants. Also, since the wheels are not connected to each other as they are on normal skateboards, handling is much easier. The rider can now carve sharper, niftier turns that could not be achieved on skateboards.

For more information, call (877) RIP-IT-UP or visit www.freelineskates.com.