In July, cross-country skiers are as rare as Christmas ornaments. Unless they’re on roller skis like Lars Floras and his friends. No snow is no problem for these elite cross-country skiers. They just pull into a sno park, snap their boots into the bindings on a pair of roller skis and head off toward Mount Bachelor-on paved shoulders of roads. “This is the most specific training we can get for cross-country skiing without being on snow,” said Flora, 31, a Portland native who represented the United States in the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics.

But you don’t have to be a world-class athlete to enjoy roller skiing, or reap its conditioning benefits.

“If you can cross-country ski, you can do this,” said Torin Koos, one of Flora’s training partners. Koos, 29, was named to the U.S. National Team in May and is preparing for his third Olympics in Vancouver next year.

Bend residents in the off-season, Koos and Floras are frequently joined on the summer ski “trails” by two top female Nordic skiers, Kristina Strandberg and Evelyn Dong. Strandberg, 34, is the 2009 U.S. five-kilometer classic champion and silver medalist in the 15-kilometer pursuit. Dong won the 2008 American Birkebeiner race and finished fourth in the world’s largest ski marathon, the Swiss Engadine.

All are enthusiastic about roller skiing, going out for two-hour rolls several times a week.

“This is one of the more challenging roller skis around,” Floras said of the hilly countryside near Mount Bachelor. (There’s still snow on the slopes there, but it’s much too soft and slushy to ski).

Roller skiing uphill is not as slippery as one might imagine.

“When you do classic (diagonal stride) skiing, you have a skate that doesn’t roll backwards,” Strandberg said, demonstrating how the wheel on one of her skis turns in only one direction. “That allows you to kick going up the hills.”

Going downhill, stopping is a bit more challenging on roller skis.

“We can’t throw in a hockey stop on the pavement,” said Koos.

Some high-end roller skis come with “speed reducers” and even brakes, but most skiers rely on a modified snow-plow technique to stop.

“You actually can snow plow-you just don’t skid the way you do with a ski, but by creating friction in the rubber tires,” said Terry Smith of Eugene, who’s been a roller skier for about 30 years. “It takes some practice to figure all that out.”

Smith said roller skiing “is the most ski-specific dry-land training that you can do” for Nordic skiing.

“I find the sensation of skiing to be a really enjoyable motion,” said Smith, an analyst in the Eugene city manager’s office. “I tell people it’s about as close to ballet as old men will ever get.”

Roller skis “have many of the advantages of bikes in terms of being able to see scenery and you cruise at six to seven miles per hour pretty easily,” Smith said.

While cruising past South Eugene High School a couple of years ago, Smith drew the attention of the coach of the high school Nordic team, who approached him about incorporating roller skis into the team’s training program.

He implemented a roller ski program last year and the team won the girls state championship for the first time ever, although Smith is quick to add “I wouldn’t say roller skiing was the thing that made the difference.”

But the wheeled skis did allow team members to accurately mimic skiing motions in after-school workouts in the high school parking lot.

While accomplished cross-country skiers generally have no trouble taking up the wheeled version of the sport, Smith said, true novices need to exercise caution.

“The penalty for falling is a great deal higher on pavement than on snow,” he said. “You should not try to learn to ski this way, because part of learning to ski is falling down a lot.”

Ski team members stay off the streets, and always wear protective gear such as helmets, gloves and knee pads, he said.

Improved technology has made roller skis better and safer over the years, Smith said. In addition to braking devices, larger tires on today’s models make the skis less prone to slippage on small pieces of gravel or other impediments.

Prices have also come down as more companies have entered the market.

“A pair of skies now starts at about $170 and you can spend more than $450 for one with all the bells and whistles,” Smith said. “Add a pair of bindings, maybe 75 bucks, and you need poles with special carbide tips so they will hold in pavement” and you, too, will hold the keys to an endless winter.

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