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Skate DC Weekend: Washington Area Roadskaters (WAR) Free Inline Skating Roadskating Festival

It is a little late to be posting about SkateDC weekend but in case someone is in the mood for a last minute change of plans, here it is. (My excuses are laziness, and hoping someone from DC might fill us in and grab the skateylove points, ha). For me, I think travel costs and Mother's Day and an all-genders new parents' baby shower knock me out of contention. I hate to not be able to go see everyone and take photos. As important as my family events are, it's a shame to miss the FREE Skate DC weekend. Thanks to Washington Area Roadskaters (WAR) for putting this on each year! This is great fun for roadworthy skaters and I hope it will continue.
One tip for the newer skaters is that the DC folk have in the past perhaps forgetten how difficult parts of the area are for newer skaters or flatlanders, so check with the route leader and bring some flip-flops along in case you want to bail and catch the metro or get a cab. I see from the FAQ that they are aware of this and are noting all skates as Intermediate or Advanced. This is great of them to realize and publish the info. Maybe they can add one or two beginning roadskater level skates in the tourist areas later, if there's enough interest...skates for those skilled on the street but perhaps not up to the intermediate pace or steep hills. We've talked with some skaters who felt the wanted more mellow pacing, and at least one skate this year mentions this.
Great work, WAR and SkateDC. Thank you for making this a FREE skate (just find a place to stay and buy your own food).
Last year they combined (or conflicted?) the festival with race oriented events and I think it may have hurt attendance to one or both type events. I think people traveling for a festival want a full weekend of street skating to justify the trip. Racers seem content to travel if there's a chance to grab some hardware (medals)! I hope both events draw well this year. I'm pretty slow, so the festival is the best for me, but Skate of the Union will be great for those who love to race laps and a mostly flat, very nicely cared for track.
Anyone going to SkateDC? And if reading afterward, did anyone go to SkateDC weekend 2008? We'd love to hear how it was and have some photo links (or photos) here.
Check out the awesome no-nonsense web pages for the weekend...
- http://skatedcweekend.info/FAQ.htm
- http://skatedcweekend.info/Schedule.htm
- http://skatedcweekend.info/index.htm
Questions?
Skateylove, SkateDC! roadskater
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We’re up here now waiting
Oh Yeah You're Killing Me! Enjoy DC for All of Us
Yeah, this morning got
Yeah, this morning got rained out. Serious bummer. About to gear up for the Train Skate, which I didn’t do last year. It will take me through some neighborhoods I lived in as a small child, so I’m really looking forward to it. Good news is that the forecast for tomorrow has cleared up so we should be able to do both the morning and afternoon skates. Hopefully.
Practicing some of the stuff I learned from Eddy recently made for an interesting skate last night… I was cruising along at what seemed like half the cadence of the others and still kept having to stop and wait. Which isn’t to say that I’m now some sort of speed demon, but that I’m starting to get the hang of using the falling body weight to get more efficiency going. Also, it’s kinda nice skating somewhere with hills… I think I’m gonna petition the Wilmington City Council to put some on campus.
Jenn didn’t feel that her stamina was where it was last year, as school has taken away most of her skating time, so she’s on a bike this year. But the upside to that is that I made a handlebar mount for the video camera… expect some interesting footage from us soon!
Hope Saturday Eve in DC Great
Ate dinner with one of the
Ate dinner with one of the organizers last night, and he definitely remembers you. We joked about the fact that if you tell people you come from one of the larger states in the nation, one that takes over eight hours to drive across, people will ask “Oh, do you know Blake?”
Due to the fact that I rendered one knee unskatable yesterday (worst fall I’ve taken in about two years), we’re having to skip today’s festivities. So we’re moving our Day At The Zoo up to today and coming home a day early. In light of all that, I recommend we organize a special NC Skate Weekend; we can schlep a half dozen or more from NC up to DC and drag them around their city all weekend long. Because, frankly, I haven’t skated nearly as much of DC as I’d hoped to this weekend and I need to balance the cosmic scales somewhat.
Sorry to hear that!
Sorry to hear about your fall. I hope your injury is only skin-related and not at all structural. Not that skin-related is anything to sneeze at. Have fun at the zoo - maybe you could skate through it! I remember my legs hurting from having walked so far through the zoo, but I think that was after 3 days of walking to all the sights in DC. Gaah, I'm so American-suburbified! BTW: If you find a black metal Vietnam War Memorial Bracelet inscribed with something like "In memory of all those who gave their lives to the war", it's my son's, which he lost 3 years ago :-)
Great idea about an NC invasion on DC!
The knee seems to be but a
The knee seems to be but a flesh wound, although a fairly deep one. I’m afraid to remove the bandages at the moment, but that has more to do with hairy legs than the injury itself.
As for the zoo, it’s paved with hexagonal brick, so even if I had been feeling frisky, it would not have been enjoyable. I wasn’t sore after walking it, but I am usually sore after a day in the museums… marble floors don’t do my feet or lower back any favors.
Ouch and Yum
Oh don’t worry, the
Oh don’t worry, the weather caused us all sorts of hell. It took us around ten hours to get from DC to Wilmington (but two of those hours were waiting out the worst of the storm at a Starshmucks north of Richmond).
As for the knee, two factors caused that (apart from bad luck): I ordered new pads right before the trip, and they were out of L, so I got XL. That was why they slid down as I landed. The second factor was that the section of old trolley path we were on was just rough as hell. I was t-stopping across random chunks of asphalt patches when it happened. So perhaps if I’d had enough sense to put my brake back on before leaving the hotel, I wouldn’t be walking funny today. I talked to one of the organizers afterwards and he said all the alternatives to that section were worse. The rest of the skate was awesome though, and I was the only one who lost it on that portion, so I’m not complaining.
Dreaded Slip'n'Spin; Storm Reports
2009 Skate DC Weekend - Opening Night
2009 Skate DC Weekend, Day 2