Rollerblading?

[Shawn]

Curious to how long the stretches are before roadway intersections, stop signs, traffic lights, suicide hills with no runout etc., etc..

CVT Review

Trail surface: 7/10. On a scale of 0 (unskateable) to 10 (freshly paved), it’s about a 7. The trail surface is free of any potholes, major cracks, or death ridges from tree roots. The surface feels good; there’s no weird vibrations from rougher pavement (unlike on portion of the SRT near Port Providence). That said, most of the pavement is not fresh. The rating dips a bit on the biggest leaf fall days in October, but the trail is swept clean weekly.

Trail width: 7/10. About as much as you can reasonably expect from a trail. Wider would be better, but you rarely see really wide trails. At any rate there are no narrow sections; the trail is pretty much a uniform width and appropriate for skating.

Drainage: 7/10. There is little standing water on the trails, few puddles, little water running across the trail, virtually no flooding, no sediment or runoff. There is however a very small section under a bridge where the trail gets flooded after a big rainfall. And because the trail is so well protected from exposure by trees, it doesn’t dry out quickly after it rains.

Safety: 10/10. Every crossing is signalized or at least marked. No crossings at the bottoms of steep hills. No blind curves or blocked sightlines. Multiple bridge overpasses, underpasses, and tunnels to avoid intersections. No problematic pavement. Big groups of pedestrians are rare.

Protection from exposure: 9/10. Much of the trail is protected from the sun and wind by trees.

Trail segment length: Variable rating. Most segments are 1 mile, with a few 2 mile stretches, and a few shorter segments. I avoid the very western end near the trail terminus near Rt. 100 because it’s 3 crossings in a short span (one of them a long wait). For more casual fitness skating like I do, the overall trail segment lengths are fine. For speed skating, the SRT seems better suited. The SRT has some very long stretches without major crossings.

 

[neonorchid]

@Shawn, Intersections every mile would drive me crazy. The wide for a bike path Route 202 trail going from somewhere around 202 and 63 on out to Doylestown is like that and why I only skated there for a few months.

I don't know Port Providence section of SRT, I usually start at Spring Mill Station and turn around just past VF park at the Pawlings cut off picnic bench by the 2 miles to Oaks sign.

SRT trail head in Philadelphia at Shawmount Ave is downright criminal when approaching from the Montgomery County end because the trail bears to the right making gradual but blind turn dumping you onto a down hill grade to an abrupt end at Shawmount Ave. You can't see what you are getting yourself into and if cruising along at 16mph, good luck coming to a stop! No signage to warn people of their upending doom, nothing! The surface is very smooth, impossible to get any stopping bite from a 3 by whatever wheel setup! There is a stupid pimple mat for the blind which is terrible to skate over at the curb and a ~ 2" drop to the incredibly beat up macadam, of the narrow and trashed section of Shawmount Ave which made even narrower by the bike rack equipped cars that park on both sides leaving nowhere to go to scrub speed. Worse yet is the uphill side old boulder railroad tunnel bridge which renders you blind to oncoming traffic! F'ing death trap! I tried to turn to the uphill direction but my skates couldn't hold onto the broken up rocky street and I went down, good thing no cars were coming! If you don't try to turn left or right you'd either slam into a parked car of large boulders of the RR bridge footing! I tore my rotator cuff early Sept 2020, it was very messed for months, practically no ROM, thankfully it fully healed by May June! Now I stay clear of the Philly end of SRT! Another skater I know had the same thing happen to him, he turned to the downhill side but had no chance of making the sharp righthand turn to River Road but turned just enough to clear the boulder bridge/tunnel footing and went straight into the old gravel RR track bed! Said he saw his life flash before him as he went over the RR ties and tracks! And this guy is huge, a European soccer player. He comes from Jersey and now parks at Pawlings, heads toward the city but turns around before the smelly waste water treatment facility blind turn underpass, yet another SRT death trap! Oncoming bicyclist collide on a regular basis and get carted away via ambulance! Then there is the gradual S turn by the Y cutoff that leads to PW (goes by the Metroplex), if coming from VF park direction, it is a short S downhill which you do on a wing and a prayer that nobody else is approaching from the opposite direction, and that one is the tamest least scary marvels of the SRT engineering! ...and to think that Be Damed SRT is deliberated over by a planning committee!!!!

 

[Yepow]

2) Get lessons. Using a heel brake is *not* intuitive especially with tall wheels - and there are at least 6 things to learn before you learn to heel brake.

3) Your first two sets of skates will be too big. If you buy skates based on US shoe size your first 4 sets of skates will be too big. There are *zero* skates actually made in US shoe sizes.

4) Get wristguards and knee pads. Learn to (yes, to) fall onto them.

5) Related to (2) and (3) - When you can glide 50-60 feet on one foot you will be ready to really learn skating motions that transfer well to skiing, including long leg/short leg balance transfer, balancing on the little toe edge, hip extension... If you can't glide 50-60 feet on one foot, your skates are either too big or you are stuck on your inside edges. You will be exhausted after skating 5-6 miles and the only thing you will bring to your skiing is a little bit more fitness to your A-framing. Get lessons. Put another way, heel pushing to skate forward is just as bad as heel pushing to engage a ski edge. Get lessons.

I think I should get lessons. I have good rollerblades, I purchased and got them fit at SHOPTASK in Vancouver. But I am stuck on my inside edges (was never a skater). My skiing A-frame is more pronounced in a rollerblade scenario...

 

[LuliTheYounger]

I think I should get lessons. I have good rollerblades, I purchased and got them fit at SHOPTASK in Vancouver. But I am stuck on my inside edges (was never a skater). My skiing A-frame is more pronounced in a rollerblade scenario...

They'd probably talk about this in lessons, but it might help to think about closing the ankle basically as much as possible. I think of it as shooting the knee forward – and then once I think it's far enough forward, going a little farther than that. If you mess with it a bit on dry land, you can feel that your ankle can't really wobble much laterally when it's super closed, so it's a lot easier to stay flat/outside.

Another tip would just be messing with getting into a really deep "ready position" (similar to speed skaters), and then moving from there to a standing position and back, probably first on dry land and then on skates. I used to help teach Learn To Skate classes for figure skaters, and I think the most common issue a lot of beginners have is that they tend to get on skates, get super aware of how tiny the safe balancing zone is, and then they try to compensate by standing super upright in a more familiar walking stance. It's where they feel "normal" and more comfortable at first – but it opens up their ankles and actually takes away most of their edge control. Definitely takes a while to rewire for most people, but just over-exaggerating it and practicing moving in and out of a really deep position usually helps.

 

[cantunamunch]

They'd probably talk about this in lessons, but it might help to think about closing the ankle basically as much as possible. I think of it as shooting the knee forward – and then once I think it's far enough forward, going a little farther than that. If you mess with it a bit on dry land, you can feel that your ankle can't really wobble much laterally when it's super closed, so it's a lot easier to stay flat/outside.

That's actually part of a lot of first intro-to-inline lesson, but not over-emphasised at that point.

The first lesson is usually always completely on inside edges. Center and outside are demonstrated but, again, no emphasis. Some of the students have really, really bad skate fits at this point, and even deep closing of the ankle won't fix that. Even with a really, really bad skate fit they can come away with A-frame turns, wedge stops, grass stops, recovery from falls, holding still (T and V position) and...duck walking. Least common denominator for self-discovery, you know?

 

[LuliTheYounger]

That's actually part of a lot of first intro-to-inline lesson, but not over-emphasised at that point.

The first lesson is usually always completely on inside edges. Center and outside are demonstrated but, again, no emphasis. Some of the students have really, really bad skate fits at this point, and even deep closing of the ankle won't fix that. Even with a really, really bad skate fit they can come away with A-frame turns, wedge stops, grass stops, recovery from falls, holding still (T and V position) and...duck walking. Least common denominator for self-discovery, you know?

Yeah, it's the same for LTS, other than the grass stops – not a lot of those at the ice rink haha.

We didn't talk much about edges with Basic 1, but they were old enough that our head coach loved to fire-and-brimstone them a bit during the first couple of classes. She'd line em all up and show them a bent knee position from the side – "if you don't want a concussion, do this" – then show a straight legged position – "if you DO want a concussion, do THIS, and I WILL be mad at you if I have to do all that PAPERWORK." Something about a little 5' tall grandma from Boston hollering about the concussion paperwork really seemed to stick with them.

 

[cantunamunch]

I think I should get lessons. I have good rollerblades, I purchased and got them fit at SHOPTASK in Vancouver. But I am stuck on my inside edges (was never a skater). My skiing A-frame is more pronounced in a rollerblade scenario...

Yes, lessons.

The fit of the skate eventually comes down to one task - the ability to glide on one foot. Once you have that, it's all building blocks and training to get to just about anything.

Without it - runners will be more efficient and faster and safer.

 

[cantunamunch]

Just as a heads up to all those still interested - Garmin just rolled out inline as a selectable activity on most of their watches as part of the Dec 2023 update.

No more custom app hunting through Garmin Express, no more "is this a bike ride?" on Strava. Feel the much belated love?