Sk8er boy

Last night I had my first inline skating lesson with city skate at Spitalfields.

It’s been almost 20 years since I last skated on pavement. That in itself is kinda scary, I’m not sure I have something that I did 20 years ago that I’ve suddenly started doing again. Oh, the joy of getting older.

Last time I skated I was on roller skates; same number of wheels, half the number of axels. In-line skates (I wont dilute the Rollerblade trademark by referring to them in that way*) feel more natural, smoother, they have less ‘hard edges’ when turning…

It came back pretty quickly and it was worth paying someone to tell me what to do. At the start I could just about roll around. By the end I could stop after going reasonably fast, and turn, and stuff…

The deal is pretty good. You can hire the skates for the course and keep them between lessons. The hire isn’t much, around fifty quid, and for that you can skate for 5 weeks (I wish…).

Back in the day I used to have skates that had front brakes (or stops, as I remember them being called) and, because I was a geek, and had to have the newest stuff, I also had back stops… Now, I have one back brake on the right skate. I miss the left one. I think I’ll get brakes on both when if I get my own skates, hmm, does that mean I’m hooked… Front brakes, nobody seems to have these anymore, were great for getting some speed - you could pretty much run on them… That was good…

The balance thing is good. Michelle and I are doing this for something to do outside in the summer. We ski in the winter. The lack of all round stops means that you have to remain pretty central on your skates, which is good, I need to get more central on my skis. The movements feel natural. The feeling of your legs struggling to balance, all the small muscle movements, is good. I think it will be useful.

Falling doesn’t hurt. Which is good. The pads work, and my comical fall yesterday resulted in me landing on my hands, rather than my arse. Even onto concrete it was less painful than a snowboard fall, so, result…