Who all skates out there. Rink, outdoors, quad (roller) or in-lines. Agressive skating (riding rails, steps, extreme); speed or recreational. Do you skate on streets (does your city allow it), in the parks, on designated courses. I have heard that Tampa, Philidelphia, and San Francisco, and Paris are cool to street skating. Nashville is not.
LA is on the beach pavement, but not too cool on public streets.
Me, I like to skate fast and long, on the streets (legal in Texas-Houston) at night, taking beer breaks at bars. I like the social scene. Being able to work out and drink a beer and make good friends is fun. The fast nights we go 15 to 25 miles. The beginner night goes about 7 miles, but there is more people and a lot more socializing and drinking.
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
One week, one day, 19 hours, 57 minutes and 16 seconds.
353 cigarettes not smoked, saving $44.16.
Life saved: 1 day, 5 hours, 25 minutes.
Living in DC, I have a longboard that I use for transportation/fun on the weekends. Its much harder for muggers to catch you and is easily taken on the metro.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that its a “cool” city for skating, more like people don’t care one way or the other.
I ice skated once. Here’s the odd thing about that. When people are as unskilled at ice skating as I am, they tend to stick close to the walls, and grab them when needed.
However, when people are as tall as I am, they tend to find it easier to grab the top of the wall, rather than the middle part that sticks out a few inches.
The top of the wall is quite noticeably metal, and much sharper. This can oftentimes result in deep gashes in a person’s hand. Then, while skating off to find a bathroom, one may leave a trail of blood on the ice resulting in the need of a zamboni to help clean things up.
At least, that’s how I’ve heard it might happen to someone.
Coming soon to a sig line near you!
Relive the mundane highs, the flaming lows, and the pointless posts in between. Announcing the debut of the best of Mullinator.
I’m 6’2". I actually learned how to ice skate as a child. The original Houston Aeros complete with Gordy Howe and his sons played, and some of us down here learned. Jump ahead 15 years I get a pair of in-lines. Picked it right up, including stopping (never could do that on ice). I tried ice-skating again about a year ago. No problem except for stopping.
I’ve been skating my entire life…well since I could walk at least…literally!
I was born with an instep or whatever the doctor called it, when I started walking they put me in corrective shoes and the doctor suggested skating…now I’m an addict!
I went from regular roller skates to blades when they came out. I’ve done competition freestyle, competition speedskating, and competition endurance.
I love inline skating…its part of my life, I get home, I skate. 30 minutes to an hour every day!
5-wheel Bauer speed-skates…get some…you’ll never go back to your four-wheels for speed!
I have done inline skating for about 7 years now, and aggressive for about 3 years. And not to put a damper on things, but SF is not all that great for aggressive skating. There are not many rails or benches that you can grind on and the curbs are shit. The only fun thing to do is go to the wharf and run into people and piss them off. Also at the end of the wharf there is a big grassy hill that you can go down, pretty darn fast I might add. And the steep-ass hills run one heck of a number on your wheels, if you do power slides or hockey stops. Anyway, there’s my 2cents.
I live in Vermont. We have 7 months that are defined as “winter.” You have to do something with your time, and as my family has never been into downhill skiing (I’ve never been, hows 'bout them apples?), I passed many a merry hour attempting to teach myself to do fancy skating tricks on the pond. Didn’t get very far, I barely taught myself to skate backwards (you need speed to do that, and OUCH. Cat-tail.) and could glide about pretty well on one foot at a time.
I tried roller blades once. Important lesson for ice skaters looking to take up roller blading: THERE IS NO TOE PICK. I caught up speed, went for my trusty toe pick, and BOOM. Road rash.
Skate boarders have it really tough here, the cops are jerks about it, and they have been working on a skate park for 10 YEARS. Feh.
A little persistance goes a long way. Announcing:
“I go on guilt trips a couple of time a year. Mom books them for me.” A custom made Wally .sig!
After admiring the sport from afar for decades, I took it up only three years ago, when I was 29. Only the second time I’d ever been on ice skates in my life.
I’ve come a long way with it. But my best friend is one of those really-good, been-skating-since-he-could-walk punks. Talk about frustrating. I hate that he’s way better than me.
