So this week I got some outdoor wheels for my quads.
The Skateful Dead have bouts coming up and if I’m going to make the squad I need to achieve my “mins”. If I’m going to stand any chance of doing that I’m going to need to get some milea
The wheels are Reckless Envy hybrid, designed to be used indoor and out. They have a hardness rating of 80a, much softer than the 95a wheel that my skates came with. I have skated outdoors on the 95a wheels – they were so noisy! The new wheels make my quads sound similar to my inlines. The wheels leave the same kind of marks on the ground where I’ve made tight turns. Very satisfying!
I was hoping for sunny dry weather today and I was not disappointed. I made a later start than I had hoped, getting to People’s Park before 11am. I spent some time just skating up and down and around getting used to the feel of the skates. There are two differences that between quads and inlines that I still need to think about whilst skating. First, turning. Inlines pivot on either a toe or heel wheel. Quads don’t. Second, braking. I don’t have brakes on my inline skates. I either use a t-stop, spin stop or slide stop. T-stop works on quads, but the toe-stops take some getting used to and they get in the way for tricks.
Minimums
The aim of today’s session was to make some advance on achieving my minimum requirements. I avoided practising stops and falls today, asphalt is not kind to pads!
I marked out a line of cones at 120cm to form a slalom. Because of the width of the skates I found I kept clipping the cones. Rather annoying, 120cm on inline skates feels too big, I generally set them at 80cm. After a few goes I managed it, but not, I’m sure, in the manner that is expected – leading with my right foot on heel wheels only :-) I found 160cm spacing doable, the requirement is for no more than 150cm from memory.
They I moved on to gliding on one foot. Right foot is easy. Left foot I’m not comfortable with. Then 180 degree rotations – jumping during travel so that your facing the opposite direction. Backwards to forwards I can do, forwards to backwards I can’t. Again I found I hit the “one sided” wall. Very frustrating. Backward cross-overs? Nah!
I have a frustrating time ahead…