[SkateDC] Sunday 10/4 Intermediate Skate Report

[Bill English]

The Intermediate Skate went very smoothy and cheerfully today, even though it had more hills and distance than an Intermediate Skate really ought to have. I was prepared to shorten the route but did not need to do so since all participants were eager to take on the challenge. We had a nice long break at the Takoma Park annual Street Festival. We got there at 10:20 and before we left we caught one song from the "Greasy String" bluegrass band. After that, we extended the trip a bit by taking Maple Ave downhill to jump several speed bumps. That worked out fine and nobody crashed. I saw in Carl's report & map that the Advanced group went uphill on Maple instead of downhill. 

Participants:

Tina (a regular Friday Monument Loop skater trying a Sunday Skate for the first time)
Mary P. (on a bike)
Lesly (on a bike this time, trying to get her to come out next week on skates)
Jackeline (frequent Sunday Skater who moved here from Pittsburgh)
Eryx
George
Bill (me)

Lesly has a speedometer on her bike, and she got up to 28.5 mph going downhill on 13th Street. I was ahead of her so I am going to claim 30 mph, about as fast as I have ever skated. I give credit to luck with green lights, a good tailwind, and my wonderful new skates (Rollerblade Fusion X7 Urban Skates). The other skaters politely put up with my excessive bragging about how nice these skates are. They really speeded me up, and they handle so easily I would recommend them to beginners. Allison recently got the women's Fusion X5 during a shopping trip in France and she is also happy with them. She said all the guys at the French skate shop were using Fusions.

Eryx and Mary showed us a new trick today. At high speed, Mary pulled her bike up nice and close so that Eryx could hop onto her handlebars for a little while. He then made an expert dismount without hurting himself!

We finished up at 12:08, barely ahead of the Advanced Group that started two hours behind us. We were late getting back mostly due to the Street Festival, plus some other nice conversation breaks at regrouping stops.

Hope to see you at the next skate,

Bill