[Poll] Is Your Town Skate Friendly?

[DROID]

LAS VEGAS..................... NOT skater friendly................ this city was ranked as the least healthy and the most dangerous in the U.S.. Most people here are totally uneducated..... and interested in driving really obnoxious trucks in an extremely aggressive way.......... like a combo of ultimate cage fighting and Nascar......... btw.... those are among the biggest sports in Vegas......... Oh.... people WATCH.... while smoking and drinking heavilly............. they don't participate............ but that is the mentality. The other "sports" in Vegas are Poker, and golf.

The "ultra" athletes here go to the gym and walk or maybe jog on a machine while watching TV and using their cell phones to check E-mail and text friends.

There are lots of (small) city parks that are actually GIANT litter boxes for dogs to crap in............. the Vegas mentality of "that rule/law certainly can not apply to me" is alive and well at the park. So if you want to jog and stretch your legs at a city park..... you will be doing so in a sea of dog poop of various stages of drying. Leash laws are a mere suggestion and the Obnoxious pick-up truck driving.... body peirced,.... tattoed-up.... idiot.... Vegas A-hole NATURALLY owns a pitbull in keeping with this image and the pitbull has more of a RIGHT to use the park than a human being.

There are definitely no parks like Golden Gate Park, Central Park or the fantastic system of parks in Minneapolis and St. Paul.... and many other U.S. cities........... so there are hardly any trails. The few trails are covered with rocks and gravel because there is very little grass in the desert and naturally kids as young as 6 years old already have motorcycles/dirt bikes/4-wheelers and the full padded outfit.... and they race around all over the trails and adjacent rocks and make a huge mess of the trails...... they are just being the quintessential Vegas A-hole that their parents are..... usually the parents are pole dancers.... etc..

I used to train on the 15 mile loop at Red Rocks National Park just west of Vegas.......... the road is very rough and the first 5 miles are a climb of 1,100 feet up to an elevation of about 4,800 Ft. above sea level........ very slow going....... and then several screaming downhills..... can be dangerous. There are also usually very high winds in this canyon area.

Now I usually skate on a lonely stretch of frontage road on the outskirts of the city..... and almost always battle winds of 25 + MPH.

There are many LARGE industrial areas with perimeter roads that are OK for skating especially in the early A.M. hours and on weeknds. But watch out........... the road rage factor is HUGE and even at 7 A.M. on a Sunday ..... there is an A-hole in a pick-up who will go out of his way to hastle you. These are not rural type people or farmers......... they just drive big huge pick-ups with lift kits....... just to be as obnoxious as possible.

There is a road ...... Charleston Ave............ start where it meets the 215 beltway loop near the Red Rocks Casino.... takes you up to the entrance to the Red Rocks Loop..... a 5 mile stretch with a wide shoulder that is pretty smooth........... a cattle guard you either have to jump (8 Ft.) or stop and "walk" over, and this is where MOST cyclists train,..... and lots of runners train...... because MOST cars do not hastle you or try to run you over.

It is pitiful that in a city of 2 million people.,...... one of the ONLY places to run is on the shoulder of a county road.


Cops NEVER give me a hard time.

I manage to train hard............. because "PAIN IS MY FRIEND"

Men's Health magazine found and published exactly what I am saying......... just in a nicer way

DROID

[Tahiti girl]

This may be April Fools' Day but Droid's description of Las Vegas seems right on the money. When we visited Las Vegas a couple years ago, I couldn't wait to get away from there. I used to think New Orleans was Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississippi. I think Vegas has claimed that title for the desert. My sister loves the town and visits it often. She is not alone. Pain, like misery, loves company.

[WonderGirl]

Houston outdoors - not really. That's my polite way of putting it. I leave as often as I can to skate elsewhere. However, this is from someone who lived in MN & WI, where I could skate a marathon every day of the week, never be on the same trail twice, and not have to contend with being a moving target for autos. All close to home. Roll out of bed, fall onto a trail. I was very spoiled. I've also been very lucky to skate with other groups in cities between here and there and sure seems like their grass is always greener. Houston is huge (4th largest US city) but very low amount on quality trails for it's size. If it's green space expect that soon it will be a road or freeway not a recreational space. GB park is ok but is only trail I know where skaters can sort of safely skate race training speeds. If I was strictly recreational skater I would include Hershey (runs along i-10) as a decent place to skate but weekends are more jump the retractable dog leash kind of workout. Memorial Park Picnic Loop is most common for local speedsters to frequent during the weekdays. Great group of skaters but the loop is riddled with tar snakes, inline cracks the width of skate wheels and road bike tires. It is open to autos during mid-day, weekends, and holidays . A whopping 1.2 mile loop. Zzzzz

Houston does offer good indoor options with Champions and Dairy Ashford. Both with experienced coaches and quality skater production history to their credit as well. The friendly part though then depends on what part of town you live in and if you are wrong side of town, how much you love spending hours in bumper car style houston traffic which is right in line with LA and Chicagoland. Legal TX driver's licences can be found in Cracker Jack boxes.

There is a nice group of street skaters that go out once a week here in the city of Houston with ties into making skating on the streets legal. I have much respect for that since the standing up and fighting for such things feels like a real lost art (at least here). There is also a very fine fitness group in Clear Lake which is about 30 miles S of the city.

With those positives and negatives said, this neck of the woods has produced some amazingly accomplished skaters including Chad Hedrick, Debbie Rice, Cheryl Matula (Ezzel), Stephie Combs, Jonathan Garcia, just to name a few. Pretty much when we (as skaters) want it badly enough we find places like long drives to the boonies on Saturday mornings and make do. It's part of "for the love of the sport" mindset.

[skate2Bfit]

Yes and no.

If you don't mind skating near traffic and you want a serious workout, my town, Lake Havasu City, AZ is a great place for skaters. It's built on the foothills of a mountain range that drops right into the Colorado River, which means lots and lots of hills. However, the road surfaces aren't too hot - I mean, aside from the summer temps between 120-130 degrees, the city likes surfacing the roads with chip seal. Ugh.

If you like trail skating, your options here are limited. There's an asphalt path that runs the entire length of town right along the highway and there's also a 3.6 mile exercise loop. These are often covered with rocks though, as DROID pointed out, it's all desert here too. The winds and occasional rain carry sand/pebbles onto the pathway and they never get cleared off unless I bring a pushbroom with me. Oh, fun. But at least the big lifted trucks here can not bite me when I'm on the dedicated paths.

There is an outdoor, smoooooooth concrete rink at one of the city's parks though. They built it for inline hockey but it's open for use by anyone at any time that the hockey league isn't using it for scheduled practice or games, and since the hockey league here is a very small group that means the rink is available pretty much any time you can think of. There's lighting for night time use and there's no fee to use it - if you like going round and round in circles, which I don't mind from time to time because sprinting a regulation hockey rink can be fun and challenging. It's not a complete session if I don't end up sliding on my left hip, into the boards at least once.

Unfortunately there's no decent places to get skate gear here. We have a Big 5 sporting goods store but their selection is small and if you're into speed product, they don't have anything at all.

[aloypro]

I live in Pasir Ris , Singapore. I usually rollerblade in the training rink in the park and i occasionally see rollerbladers... The rink isn't big but sometimes there are 15 + people inside blading. Also , that is only one park. At other places , you'll see hundreds of rollerbladers.. So i think mine is friendly.

[DROID]

I have heard lots of great things about Singapore........... BEAUTIFUL place....... EXTREMELY clean..... do you skate on any roads or bike paths in Singapore????? Are there bike lanes on the side of roads ??????????? Are the roads in the city full of traffic ???? Do you have roads that are outside the city where there are no cars ?????

PLEASE.................. tell us more about SIngapore.

Thanks............. DROID

[ultrask8]

multiple posts

[ultrask8]

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[ultrask8]

Droid, I have been to Singapore many times , there are way better skating opportunities now than 5 or 7 years ago.

Singapore being very clean, the people much more polite in many ways than most anywhere else I have been in the world (certainly in Asia!).

While it is illegal to "roadskate", there ar several places where it is allowed, like Changi Road (sunday early am), the Marina area (but getting more cars due to the new Casino being built), and the loop road around Kallang stadium , and several covered parking lots, and even a few oval tracks.

The best non vehicle place to skate is "East Coast park", with a path along the ocean (looking south you can see Indonesia) about 17 or 20km long one way . This goes past the airport almost to the ferry terminal. Gets pretty infested wih regular folks after 10 or 11 am .

Singapore sent skaters for the first time recently to FIRS worlds, and there are several organized teams there - Revo Racing / Shankel, RR / Simmons, Speed Virus/Bont, SV Diamond . Micro , InlineKaki, and several fitness groups and school clubs.

There are night skates that sometimes use the roadways , and in the past a hospital organizes charity roadskates up into Malaysia and back (I once skated this trip , we skated 400km from Singapore to Desaru and back - what an adventure!

Singapore is a unique place in Asia - compared to the crazyness of most other Asian countries, its nirvana - a good hub location for cheap flights to all over the world (Indonesia / Bali 1 hr, Australia (Darwin) 1 hr, Thailand 3 hrs to Bangkok.

The skaters there are very friendly (various team rivalries of course).

Check out these Singapore websites :

http://www.inlinekaki.com

http://www.teamrevoracing.com

http://www.teamspeedvirus.com

http://www.teamspeedcop.com (team folded into Team Micro but the website still up)

Boring federation website http://www.rollersports.org.sg . Best federation speed news can be found on inlinekaki.

BTW your vegas description was prety funny - and true!

I do enjoy the path around that semi island in Havasu , and once I went to a rink there at nite, skated 1 hr before noticing that there was no roof on the rink !!

[maroonloon]

Singapore skating:

A while ago, I was skating on some road north of Brainerd, MN. with the legendary Terry Holm when I asked him why don't we just skate on the awesome Paul Bunyan Trail. He said it was just too crowded on weekends. If you go you might see 20 people in the course of an hour. I had to laugh inside...

I spent many years living on the East Coast of Singapore. I got on the path at about the Siglap exit and would go each way. I skated about 4 days a week and each time would encounter thousands of people along the way. Absolute chaos. I found if I went out towards the airport and the golf course it would get to be less people than say around the famous seafood centre.

Word of warning: watch out for mossy areas under trees that cover the path. very slippery stuff. also, clean your bearings often as rust accumulates quickly with the sea salt. Another word of warning. For the morons like me that travel on the right side of the road get used to looking the other way before you cross or you could get thumped by a biker. Also watch out for little kids with a dog on leash going all across the trail. More than once I had to high jump a doggy rope across the trail to hopefully land on my feet.

I did find a few places on Sentosa that were quiet but that of course is changing.

I actually found it better to get on a boat to a small Indonesian island and strap on the skates. Just watch out for wild dogs. I have run into them many times in central Java and Bali.

[Mr. T]

I discovered that NYC is relatively friendly.

Central Park is probably one of the greatest places to skate I have ever come across if one is looking for serious training. However, because of the hilly nature of the loop, it would definitely not suit beginners or weak intermediates. The full loop will have you climb the Great Hill which is really not that huge, but it is still about 1/2 mile of climbing. One has to be comfortable sharing it with hundreds of people (most of them on bikes and jogging shoes). Cyclists are for the most part friendly, runners as a whole are a disgraceful lot and several are plain idiots as well. Cyclists warned me when I started ("you might think we (the cyclists) are not that friendly, but wait until you get to experience the joggers..."). They were 100% spot on. They basically carry to the CP the arrogance of New Yorkers who think they are entitled to everything and the others have to move aside. Serious runners are fine, they know trail etiquette and want to avoid any chance of injury, but the joggers are like the plague.
To avoid putting up with the asinine joggers, I tend to skate very early in the morning during weekends (although they often have some cycling event going on in the early mornings in the Summer months) but, I would say that around 7:30am -9am might be good. During weekdays, I can only skate after 7pm when the park is closed to cars. Watch out for police cars though. In a couple of instances, I experienced a reckless police car at work. It created more havoc than one can believe, sudden U-turns, stopping in the middle of the road while I was going downhill. Also, careful in the Southern part of CP for horses' manure and carriages for lazy tourists.
Humidity and heat can be a problem on some days, but that also keep many joggers at hom. Good riddance!

The loop is 6 miles and quite demanding if you are not in shape.. But once you can skate there with confidence, you are really ready for a lot of things.
Skating in the streets is possible, but not my kind of bread.. Some do, for sure, but not me. Sorry, I am a chicken as opposed to the asinine joggers
Dogs and dog owners are by far and large a better lot than joggers. Joggers in CP are the scurvy of the century (past and present and probably future).
I just hope that medical sciences will soon discover that jogging is bad for your health and they will hit some other fad.
What out for tourists around the museums areas! They are not bad people, in principle, but they are doing the tourists, snapping pictures, and do not always pay attention to incoming traffic when crossing inside the park. And children are children, so be careful.

I would not skate when traffic is allowed in Central Park. On a flat course perhaps, but sharing the lane with pedestrians, runners, cyclists and skaters on a hilly course, in my opinion, is asking for trouble. But NYC (unlike London in England for example) allows a good use of its main park and the traffic-free hours are really a big deal for skaters. Hey London... learn from NYC!!

Street skating can be exciting and, unlike in Las Vegas, nobody with a big pick up truck (perhaps a big Mercedes S550 or even a Maybach if you are lucky, but not pick up trucks) will chase you with the not so secret purpose to terminate you. New Yorkers (Manhattanites really), while arrogant, can be also very tolerant and normally do know how to drive a car. But watch out for the potholes, in particular in Lower Manhattan, .... I have seen a few so deep that if you had the bad luck to get in, you may never be heard or found again!

Other venues... Prospect Park in Brooklyin is a little CP, pretty nice. I cannot say I like to go there for it is quite a commute from where I live, but it is definitely an excellent venue to skate. Probably second best after CP. Same architect projected both parks! (Who said that skating does not go well with some general knowledge?)

You can also skate a few miles along the East River, but it is narrow and the pavement is so and so. To make a long story short, the East River Trail is more adequate to do some low level fitness than anything else. Also watch out for broken glass. Dodgy characters like to get drunk along the trail in the evenings and do not pay attention to etiquette, any kind of etiquette. You will be getting into Harlem (Spanish Harlem), but so far I think that people there have proved quite respectable, despite some New Yorkers warned me that I would not feel safe. The environment, moving from the Upper East Side to Harlem, definitely becomes less appealing, but people are not.
Plus, I am used to joggers in CP and it cannot really get any tougher than that!

Another trail definitely worth doing (not for speedskating though) is the Hudson River Park. Very scenic, well worth trying for the scenery and as a way to experience NYC. I really like it. It gets packed, but if you keep the speed withing reason. In places the path splits between a pedestrian route and a bike route, but unless you can break on a dime (and I cannot, ), better be safe than sorry. Watch out for tourists.

[Tahiti girl]

Hurrah! I was wondering if Mr. T was ever going to post again. I really enjoy reading Droid's rants ????????????????????? and Mr T's accounts of various and nefarious goings on in CP and elsewhere around the world. And, Iam unanimous in that