What We Need... More Young Skaters Having Fun

First - congrats on new Baby Reeves. Only 10 days old. That is FANTASTIC....hope Mom and Baby are doing well. Getting more kids & people into roadskating means to reach out in different ways depending on age group. Kids of all ages rollerskate and play inline hockey, but that's primarily indoors. One idea to get them outside would be to partner with a roller rink staff & conduct a parking lot clinic/safety course; followed by a supervised paved trail skate. The rink could promote it as Team Jellybeans for example, w/rink give-aways, T shirts, etc. It could bring even more business to the rink. Teens seem to go for the extreme/aggressive skating. As a parent I'd be pretty nervous about that and prefer another form of skating. An introduction into competitive skating could be good. Why do some kids join cross country running? That mindset could somehow be tapped and turned to roadskating. College kids need motivation: maybe a campus club; general promotion of fitness; heck - faster way to get across campus, to the library, to the North Dorm to visit a girlfriend, to Alpha Kappa Beta to visit the sorority girlfriend, then to South Dorm to visit another girl. Then back to off campus housing just in time to get the obligatory phone call from the girlfriend back home........nicccccee. NCSU just had the Krispy Kreme Challenge - 100+ runners run 2 miles to Krispy Kreme, eat a dozen glazed donuts and run 2 miles back to campus. The goal is to be under 60 minutes. This year's champ was a little over 29 mins. Scary stuff, I hear ya. But point being - motivational factors create a turnout. And in this case, from participants that don't normally run. College kids love 'causes.' I could envision them skating for hours around the Ag.Dept. thinking that the wind generated from repeated laps around the cow pasture will disperse high concentrations of methane thereby resulting in better local air quality. Why do so many people turn to cycling instead of roadskating? Answering that question would be enlightening.

Thanks everyone! :)

Want to add some skate-related greetings to little Cantor? The page is not very spambot resistant so let me point you to it slightly cryptically: it's etherpad.com and then a slash and then "cantor" without the quotes.

 Can't wait to see everyone -- hopefully Tanglewood at the very latest!