roadskater.net

Strange weather today: Cold and rainy in the morning, clear and sunny in mid-afternoon, and then a dark and mean-looking line of clouds rolled in just after 5 pm as I was walking across campus. I would have thought a thunderstorm was coming in the summer, but didn't know whether to expect rain or snow this time of year and in this particular (and peculiar) year. We got neither of those:

(Cribbed without shame from Wikipedia.)

Graupel. Not to be confused with Hail or Ice pellets.

Location

Eddy's coming back to Greensboro for his legendary skating workshop!  April 9-11.

Sign up now, before all the spots are taken!  The announcement email is below, with all the links you need...

We managed to get Eddy Matzger to add us to his schedule again this year (thanks to Skatey-Mark for the boost). in between trips to China he'll take the 2 and a half hour journey down from Floyd, VA for a roadshow outdoor inline speedskating workshop in Greensboro NC this year!

This image was uploaded with the post Carolina Century 2009: Fuzzy Llama Funny Llama, Llama Llama Duck.

As you can tell from the title, this is probably going to be an aimless and bewildering report. The past three days have left me in a daze!

Oh I just don't know where to begin! So many things have happened since Saturday that I am having trouble believing.

 

Unbelievable Thing # 1:

Location

This image was uploaded with the post Elevation-Speed Profiles and Speed-Heart Rate Profiles for Tour to Tanglewood 2009 Bike Ride Inline Skate.

This image was uploaded with the post Elevation-Speed Profiles and Speed-Heart Rate Profiles for Tour to Tanglewood 2009 Bike Ride Inline Skate.

This image was uploaded with the post Elevation-Speed Profiles and Speed-Heart Rate Profiles for Tour to Tanglewood 2009 Bike Ride Inline Skate.

This image was uploaded with the post Elevation-Speed Profiles and Speed-Heart Rate Profiles for Tour to Tanglewood 2009 Bike Ride Inline Skate.

Here is more data from the road between Volvo Trucks N.A., Greensboro, NC and Tanglewood Park, Clemmons, NC in the 2009 Tour to Tanglewood for Multiple Sclerosis. When I make elevation profiles, I like to force x and y to 0 because it helps me see how hilly the event is more accurately. You can make almost anything look hilly by setting the y-axis max/min to the elevation max/min. To make it better, I should probably plot all events on a 110-mile scale or some such (considering Carolina Century at 102 is usually the most I'd try in a day), but I don't yet really like how that looks.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Tour to Tanglewood 2009 Bike Ride & Inline Skate for MS Greensboro to Clemmons NC.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Tour to Tanglewood 2009 Bike Ride & Inline Skate for MS Greensboro to Clemmons NC.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Tour to Tanglewood 2009 Bike Ride & Inline Skate for MS Greensboro to Clemmons NC.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Tour to Tanglewood 2009 Bike Ride & Inline Skate for MS Greensboro to Clemmons NC.

This image was uploaded with the post Country Park Friends, Skate Fascination, Schwinn Logos, Making it Look Easy Without Realizing it.

This image was uploaded with the post Country Park Friends, Skate Fascination, Schwinn Logos, Making it Look Easy Without Realizing it.

On Sunday I was still feeling good after 35 miles with pals checking out the Carolina Century western loop. But it has been a bit of a struggle of late to get everything done (OK to get half of it done) that I would love to do for Tour to Tanglewood, roadskating and the Carolina Century, plus junk I just have to deal with in real life...like getting a little exercise and a host of other not nearly as fun tasks.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos of the 37th Annual Carolina Cup Bicycle Races 2009 in Greensboro Country Park Greensboro NC.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos of the 37th Annual Carolina Cup Bicycle Races 2009 in Greensboro Country Park Greensboro NC.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos of the 37th Annual Carolina Cup Bicycle Races 2009 in Greensboro Country Park Greensboro NC.

After an awesome Saturday morning roadskating the improved course for the 43-mile route of the Bicycle Toy & Hobby Tour to Tanglewood Training Ride in High Point, sleeping late Sunday was nice. But we knew the Carolina Cup Bicycle Races were going on at Greensboro Country Park, so we got going and made it up in time for the last three big events. I also had a phone call related to the NC Active Transportation Alliance (http://ncactive.org), so for a while I was on the phone and photographing at the same time. Yowee.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Carolina Century 2009 Recon 51-Miler Greensboro NC Tour to Tanglewood Training Bike Ride & Inline Skate.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Carolina Century 2009 Recon 51-Miler Greensboro NC Tour to Tanglewood Training Bike Ride & Inline Skate.

Here are photos from the 51-mile recon skate and bike last weekend. We did the 51 route to see how the markings and road surfaces were. We came away feeling some surfaces were slightly worse but some major ones were much better. Overall, I'd say I can live with some patching that was rougher last fall but has had some sealing done, and one of the roads I considered taking out of the route has been made into supersweet asphalt now. It was a fun day out with beautiful skies and great companionship with skatey-mark, northinsouth and timv joining in.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Cycles de Oro Greensboro NC 2009 Tour to Tanglewood Training Bike Ride & Inline Skate .

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Cycles de Oro Greensboro NC 2009 Tour to Tanglewood Training Bike Ride & Inline Skate .

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Cycles de Oro Greensboro NC 2009 Tour to Tanglewood Training Bike Ride & Inline Skate .

Four of the Roadskater.net team made it out, two on skates, two on bikes, to roll up and down with the penultimate T2T training ride of the year. We thought we might have four more at least, and did some route scouting to pick an alternative that would save some $80+ wheels or a chunk of $5 brake pad material and some time...no biggie on the latter. Unfortunately, early damp roads dissuaded some of our crew, understandably, from the trek to the skride.

This image was uploaded with the post Photos and Maps for Paceline Bicycles Greensboro Tour to Tanglewood Training Ride Inline Skate 2009 Plus Country Park.