Not to doxx myself but I live in North Vancouver. There aren’t many spots that are flat but I’ve been interested in learning rollerskating/blading especially as a way to get places.

I am a bit of a coward but would it even be worth it? The grade for the average street is probably at least 4%. And I of course live pretty high above sea level

This vid shows a short 400 meter (quarter mile) descent on a 2% grade over rough asphalt. Terrain like this is why we need skates with shock absorption - especially in the heel - for distance skating.

This one has a jet airplane anchored to it.

Viktor Thorup shares his top 6 preferred braking methods on inline skates. I think it's very interesting to get an elite speed skater's take on braking because it's so different from what I'm used to seeing in the inline downhill and street skating communities where soul, parallel, and magic slides are so popular.

Aa a street and downhill skater on quads my braking repertoire is very different.

What are your preferred braking methods, and why?

This huge parking lot was resurfaced two weeks ago

Air resistance scales as the square of velocity while roll8ng resistance scales linearly with respect to velocity. So at skating speeds rolling resistance is just a small fraction of total drag.

This is why skaters interested in improving their peak and/or average velocity should focus on improving their aerodynamic efficiency.

I got a pair of Impalas a while ago and they've been fun to learn on, but I'm definitely ready for an upgrade.

I am mostly looking to skate in parks and along the river in my city - most of the route is paved nicely (cycle path etc), but roads/pavements can be super rough.

I've been looking at Powerslide Zoom skates as well as Powerslide Swell - I'm hesitant about the softer boot because of the lack of ankle support, though. I'd like to minimise vibration, have a smooth ride, but also ankle support! I'm in the UK. :)

Any advice is very much appreciated :)

Rolling resistance (RR) comes primarily from hysteresis: the polyurethane compresses and expands as the wheel rolls and this converts kinetic energy to heat. Other factors being equal, harder polyurethane deforms less than softer polyurethane and therefire has less RR.

But if you've evee tried to skate hard wheels on a rough surface you have experienced another form of drag: vibration and deflection (V&D) losses. As you roll over a rough surface your wheel vibrates and bounce - this is work that removes kinetic energy from the system.

Hysteretic loss scales linearly with respect to velocity. A certain amount of energy is converted to heat with each revolution of the wheel. The faster the wheels turn the more total energy is lost but the loss per revolution doesn't change.

Vibration and deflection losses scale supralinearly with respect to velocity. This means the faster you go faster, energy is lost at a faster rate and when you go slower the rate of energy loss decreases.

This means that there is a crossover point where V&D losses exceed RR loss. The graph illustrates this pretty clearly: the soft wheels starts to outperform the hard wheel at about 3 m/s (roughly 7mph or 11 kph).

This is why state of the art race wheels have two layers of polyurethane. The outer layer is soft so that it conforms well to the surface and minimizes V&D losses. The inner layer is harder so that there is less overall deformation and RR is reduced.

So my cousin got me some inlines. they're the lightning 90's they go from 22.6 cm to 23.5cm 6/6.5 but my feet measured 23.5. the next size up is 23.6 to 24.5 which is 7/7.5. I've used them no pain, but my toes press up right against the front. like rubbing against it constantly even if I slam the heel down or do the skating stance. i heard the liner compresses after about 6 to 10 hours of skating. my question is, should people at the end range size up to the next size? I'm scared that after use the others will be loose but I don't want issues with my nails if they're too tight.

I find trackreport.net very useful. Export your route as a GPX and feed that to trackreport.

I also use it to scout backroad tours in the mountains. I drive the prospective route first to identify potential hazards and get a gps track. Then I use the grade analysis to make route and line decisions.

Very useful exercises. These also work on quads except for #3.

THIAGOCITYSKATER breaks down the three real reasons adults quit inline skating, why falling is not your enemy, the brutal math behind the STOPPING METHODS, and the 10-minute micro-habit that will keep you skating when everything in your brain says stop.

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My distance goal for this year is 2500 mi (4023 km). Yesterday's 21mi (34km) session put me at 50% of goal.

I am happy to pass this milestone on July 10th. That's a bit early considering that conditions from January through March tend to be quite difficult around here and so my annual schedule is typically pretty back-loaded.

My annual mileage goal averages out to 6.85 miles (11 km) per day. I monitor volume by converting my last 30 day total to an average daily distance.

In the winter months I skate whenever conditions allow and if I can average 4 miles (6.5 km) per day I consider that pretty successful. Average skating speed is lower in the winter - in large part because cold temperatures make polyurethane wheels harder and therefore slower on rough surfaces. With reduced volume comes some deconditioning and in particular a greater need for recovery between sessions. As I get older I find I need to really be diligent about warming up, cooling down, stretching, and recovery time.

As conditions and my fitness improve I'm able to increase speed, distance, and frequency while still allowing for plenty of recovery time. In May I got my average session distance up to 17 mi (27 km) and started doing marathon distances every few weeks.

As I get into mdi-season form I back off distance slightly and increase frequency. My fitness is good and a 14 mile (22.5 km) session doesn't require a lot of recovery so I am able to start pushing consecutive days and get into a 2-on 1-off pattern. This gets my daily average up over 10 mi (16 km).

At this point I want to avoid overuse injuries so I will plateau a bit and incorporate occasional 3 day rests for full recovery. In August and September I will push the volume to 12 mi/day (19 km) and start doing weekly marathons. In October I will back off slightly to 10 mi (16 km) per day. In November and December I am more at the mercy of the weather and cold temps reduce average speed so 8 mi (13 km) per day is a more reasonable target but early snow can wreck that plan.

Note that I turn on my GPS tracker as I step out the door and turn it off as I walk in the door at the end of the session. So the average speed is for the entire time I'm on skates, including warmup, coolndown, shooting vid, playing around on obstacles, stopping to chat with people, and other low speed activities.

More info about this Seba High Light Carbon Pro with 80mm full rocket frame setup here: https://wkevin.com/skating/

August 13-16

I would definitely attend this if I could.

One foot slalom drills are excellent for balance and edge control.

Beginners and skating equipment salespersons focus on hardware but the truth is that you can't buy speed, you have to earn it.

I typically use some comibination of carves and T-stops to decelerate and then finish with a spin.

Spin stop compilation vid

This industrial park is an excellent place to skate especially on the weekend. It's perfect habitat for whitetail deer so I wasn't surprised when I rolled up on this pair at dusk.

As soon as I spotted them I stopped striding and just coasted to a stop. They definitely knew I was there but couldn't decide what to do about that. Hearing my voice convinced them to retreat.

Coordinating the recovery and push phases of the skating stride.

Techniques that are suitable for rollerskating on smooth and level surfaces may not be appropriate for the rough terrain and slopes we encounter on streets and trails. If our goal is to skate the latter then we should start practicing on rough terrain and hills as soon as we have developed the necessary skills to do so safely.

Oof.