roadskater.net

Some of you that know me have heard me rave on and on about this new health club I've been going to, Lifetime Fitness. If you're in the Cary area, and you have not seen this place, it is worth going to - over in Regency Park in Cary. It has everything, sauna, whirlpools, swimming pools, water slides, a climbing wall, basketball, racquetball, extensive group fitness classes, excellent child care, a nice Cafe, and most of all, a _great_ vibe! (And no, I don't work for the club or get anything for saying this)

I hope this is okay to post here, and if it needs to be moved somewhere or not posted, let me know. I thought I would just say Hi to those who haven't spoken to me, and let everyone know I went out after work today, braved the cold and decided hills be darned, I was going to skate on the road and start practicing.

I got my gear on and headed out the driveway. I was skating on smooth flat road and felt a little wobbly but managed to start gliding after awhile, then a car.

I love music maybe more than anything else, both playing it and listening to it. I always have something playing when I'm at my desk or reading or in a car, and there's an unplugged electric guitar leaning against the desk 18 inches from my right elbow right now, in case I hear something that I want to play along with. But I've never liked carrying music when I skate or run or ride a bike.

What a crazy day. After a meeting in the early morning, I came back to check on an order I was trying to fill for a company who needed several dozen Robin Safety Boy Emergency Scissors. Changes in shipping, locations, quantities and availability had me trying to juggle a combination of calls and emails.

What another satisfying, smooth and sufficiently challenging Tour de Lions event! We arrived for registration at 7.30am, grabbed some bananas and other carbs, plus coffee, all provided by the event and its volunteers. The weather was sunny but brisk at about 50 deg F.

Melanie recently asked on InlineNC yahoogroup. I think:

• K2 inline skates (rollerblades) are a great option,
• probably bigger wheels (90 or 100) for smoother roll over rough stuff, and/or
• a longer frame for point to point roadskating, or
• for tricks of course, shorter frame length makes arcs and spins easier.
• Salomon makes great inline skates and has seemed to support them well, but there were some frames a few years back with problems and I think the company has been sold so it may be wait and see time.
• Rollerblade is making some interesting inline skates but I note they still liked heavy kits when last I looked. The Problade boot looks pretty good if you get the kit with the box frame that's Mogema-ish rather than the earlier, thinner model we've seen bashed.

Those are my quick thoughts on that. i'll post this to rsn2 also.

We roadskaters have at times had social skates at Country Park and elsewhere (NYC Central Park in Manhattan, Philly, Miami, DC). These events are great fun but it is always hard for us to find a true sweep who doesn't mind being at the back. In Manhattan, I have fond memories of a man a bit older than even myself who rode his bike quite happily at the back of several hundred skaters. He was always smiling, wearing his Aqueduct tee, with his nice easy way.

 I've been knocking these rather trivial, large-scale thoughts around my head for some years now and wanted to write something about them. Last night, whilst watching 20/20, was the final straw! This post might complement KJG's questions in Monotony of Training.

I recently purchased a recumbent exercise bike to ride after my daughter goes to bed, as it is hard to get out as much as i would like with a 2.5 year old.  Its nothing fancy, a Proform XP110 from Sears.  I had a magnetic trainer for my road bike, but it's noisy and it just feels unnatural to be in that position on a normal road bike and not move for 30 minutes to an hour. 

I've been cooking this up for a little while now and want to make the announcement even though the website isn't quite polished yet....

I will be teaching a skating workshop in Raleigh, NC the weekend of March 24, 2007.  This workshop is targetting beginner speedskaters and recreational/fitness skaters.  The workshop is part of my fundraising for Tour to Tanglewood, which benefits Multiple Sclerosis Society.

We'll be having a Greensboro Eddy Matzger Roadshow Inline Speed Workshop this Easter weekend, April 6-8. I hope that you'll come and have some bunny weekend fun with us while getting a serious workout with some great dryland and skateland drills.

I have just published 785 edited photos from the Philly Freedom Skate, June 16-18 to this address:

http://roadskater.net/phl2006

If you have any comments, please use "add new comment" below to place them here. I hope you enjoy the photos. Once again, there are lots of tourist shots because I'm a tourist, and I hope you like the shots of buildings, art objects and, of course, people!

I have just published 420 edited photos from the SkateDC Weekend, May 6-7 2006 to this address:

http://roadskater.net/wdc2006/

If you have any comments, please use "add new comment" below to place them here. I hope you enjoy the photos. There are lots of tourist shots because I'm a tourist, and I hope you like the shots of buildings, birds and people!

Any skaters who find themselves amongst the lonely mansions and shiny metal boxes of Gwinnett County, GA, might want to check out Tribble Mill Park as a little piece of heaven plus hills.

How do these hills compare to the Silver Hill at Athens to Atlanta (A2A)?

This question refers back to eebee's post about the US10K in Atlanta: 

http://roadskater.net/index.php?q=us10k-classic

Elizabeth and I missed the chance to travel to Winston-Salem for the T2T training ride last weekend, but we did a couple of fun things instead.

On Saturday we went out to Tribble Mill Park, near a great intersection non-town named New Hope (as the GPS map and church names nearby confirm) which we had been to before, but some time ago. It is now a nice place to skate if you don't mind some twisty hills on multiuse pathway! We made our way fine going counterclockwise, but think we'll try clockwise next time to see if it might be better due to the route and elevations. If you're willing to brake or scrub wheels, it's an awesome 3.2 miles, in fact. There is some roadway there that might be interesting too, particularly a way hilly loop, but we'd need to look at it again to see if it's safe enough to try. I'm sure we'll have more on this later.

Absolutely. The Anniston Star gets it right in their opinion that shows their excitement about the "bridge in the middle of nowhere" and the paving of the last sections between Anniston AL and Smyrna GA hopefully in 2007. We've been there and we've seen the growth in ways we love and hate, but have to look upon with awe.

This post is partly for people out there on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) who want to find out more about getting sufficient and efficient carbs for marathon, or extremely long-distance training and events. This means no sugar, wheat, gluten, grains, corn, or potatoes. I put "marathon" in the title for the benefit of any SCD runners who might stumble across this. Obviously what I'm gearing up for, the 87 mile Athens to Atlanta Roadskate, is three and one third times marathon distance. A Google search didn't turn up anything useful for marathon training and SCD. So I thought I'd put my experience out there for anybody else searching.

This sounds like a major commitment from a leading metropolitan area to boost cycling. I can't tell you how good that could be for all of us if cycling can start to be taken seriously (again?), and particularly if law enforcement will support the efforts of roadsharers everywhere. It's a long way before auto drivers will see inline roadskaters the same as roadcyclists, even, but the more it improves for cyclists, the better for all human powered transportation modes. Of note in this article is increased funding. Hope it turns out great! Blake