WAR Skates: Intermediate: Boundaries

Planning an Intermediate Route
(Starting from The White House)
WAR Homepage > Skates > Routes > Sunday Skate Boundaries

An Email from Head Skate leader Carl Ford discribes issues that face WAR intermediate skate routes. This official WAR policy helps define an intermediate skate. Keep in mind that since each leader picks their own routes, the difficulty still varies depending on the leader and the route.

Subj: Intermediate skates Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 12:00:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: Carl Ford <ford@toad.net>

Many of the "Beginner/Intermediate" skaters of two years ago are now "Intermediate/Advanced" skaters. That's not surprising at all. That's how things have gone for, oh, a decade or so in this group, even while we only had "Advanced" skates.

But, most of those skaters are still on the "Intermediate" skate, with the result being that some Sunday Intermediate skates are really Wednesday [level] skates.

One other factor in this progression has been the creativity of skate leaders. Bill's and Pierre's routes come to mind. They saw that most people on the skate were capable of the routes they designed. So they used those routes. In fact, Bill even showed me his route out into Northeast DC on a map the Friday night before the skate. I approved of it. So, the responsibility for Bill's route rests partly with me.

However, WAR need the Sunday Intermediate skate as a steppingstone from the Friday Night Skate. Otherwise, there's little if anything at a level between the Friday skate and the "Intermediate/Advanced" skates. Going to the Cathedral or out past Catholic U., while enjoyable for many of the Intermediate regulars, does not further this end (no pun intended :).

I've been thinking since January that we may want to have a boundary within which to keep the Sunday Intermediate Skate. It looks like time to make this WAR policy.

This area includes: Flat parts of Crystal City, area around the Pentagon, Rosslyn, and trails/streets in between Georgetown up to about Reservoir Rd. & R St. Adams-Morgan and Kalorama (including the Embassy Loop) Columbia Heights Catholic U. (out-and-back trip) Capitol Hill out to RFK Anacostia Park and of course, everything "inside" of that

This would allow for some hills without (hopefully) totally scaring off all of the Friday "graduates". We may scare off a few, but as Howie pointed out, we can't coddle everyone For those who want more of a challenge, WAR has Wednesday and Sunday advanced skates.

-Carl Ford <ford@toad.net>

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Last Update: 7/2/2001