Why You Want Ceramic Bearings In Your Inline Skates

 

I used to work with someone who decided to mess with my head.  He said "Why are you still skating, nobody does that any more?". 

I responded with "When is the last time you could see your toes without a mirror?".

I know.  Catty.  But hey, never compare your 100th session with someone else's first.

The thing is that I still skate.   I still measure the distance in fractions of Marathons.  It is August and I have not stopped.  Resting heart rate is 48.  I think that guy is still casting a large shadow at noon.

Jus' Sayin'.  Trails are filling up with skaters again.  This is the second "rebirth" of inline skating.  It isn't like in the 90s but you can find friendly faces out there again.

And that is the point.  I do it because I like to.  I do it because the beta endorphins are a great rush.  I do it because I have a distance goal of "Once Around The World At The Equator" and I am within 250 miles.

I skate once a week, bike twice a week.  Skating is 1.5 times more calories burned than Biking at my level.  1500 calories per hour.  I'll drop it when I'm "old" and I'm not there yet.

There are a few things that I picked up over the years.  You don't skate 24659 miles without learning a few things about a sport.

I am endurance, not speed, not tricks.  I go to log miles, as you might have gathered.  I pick a pace and "just go". 

August in Florida is hot, it was hotter in my native Philadelphia last week.  I found that taking a break every 45 minutes is a requirement, not "nice".

I bring a LOT of water.  My home park has lots of water stops, as did the park in Philly.  I time my breaks to be near water.  Getting through the heat in August wherever you are (February in the upside down world of the southern hemisphere) is helped by this strategy.

Stop, dump water on your head and clothes.  Don't get the bearings wet for the love of the skating gods.  But definitely do the water dump.  "Room temp" will feel nice and cool.  Ice water will send a chill up your spine.  Then dump a similar amount down your waiting gullet and enjoy.  I also bake brownies for my water stop since I'm stopping very close to an hour and it burns up your blood sugar.  Once you get going that water will evaporate and you will get about a half hour at "your pace" of being cool.  Trust this "Senior Skater" on this one, you will like the feeling of the breeze on your head and chest.

Second thing to mention is Bearings.  If you are still on your original bearings consider an upgrade.  I am in a wet climate.  I got very tired of having to tear down bearings every week, even up North.  That is about 100 miles in my old pace of 4x25 miles on the trails.

Hybrid Ceramic is a big improvement and they cost online about $25 a set.  You still have to keep them dry but they are a little better at rolling resistance than a steel bearing.

I know some out there say ABEC 7 or Bones Swiss but I disagree.  I have two containers of formerly useful bearings that were ABEC 5 and better.  ABEC is just a measure of precision of the bearings within the race in the bearing themselves, not a durability rating.   Once you hit the dust or wet on the trails, they will rust up and are no longer smooth. 

Hybrid are only good as long as they are maintained.  Degreased, Dried, Reoiled after a session.  

A much better solution is the more expensive Ceramic bearings.   A set of Full Ceramic bearings cost me about $70.  With the orange menace adding tariffs and taxes on anything he does not understand, I am sure they have gone up.

But do consider them.  Add a cheap Ultrasonic Cleaner to the purchase price at around $35-50.

Why?  They are made of a ceramic mixture like your coffee mug.  They are designed to never need lube.  Lube will pick up dust and corrupt your shiny white or black ceramic bearings.  Care is simple - Put them in the ultrasonic cleaner with water and a drop of dishwashing soap and let it run through a cycle.  When through dry them out with a hairdryer and reinstall.

The difference is a roll test or spin test.

You take a pair of skates and flip them over.  Run your hands, quickly, over the wheels to get them to spin.  Watch your clock to see how long the wheels spin.  My rule is 1 minute spin on steel bearings.  2 minutes on Hybrid is a good number although I see regularly upwards of 2 minutes 30 seconds. 

I have seen one wheel spin 5 minutes on ceramic bearings.  I shoot for 3 minutes 30.  I tend to get bored when I do a spin test.

Anything less than those numbers and into the ultrasonic they go.

Steel gets lube.  I'm not sure of the Hybrid but since they feel a little oily, I would tend to put more lube back.

Lube for me is "Tri Flow" oil.  It has Teflon in it, and it is a light machine oil.  I have been using it for the majority of my 24700 miles.

Ceramic Bearings do not get oiled.

Let me repeat that.

Ceramic Bearings do not get oiled.

You dry them off as much as possible, and put them back into the wheels.   My own ceramics are open bearings, unshielded.  The Steel and Hybrid are both shielded and I have stuck myself many times with the push pin to get the C Clamp off the individual sides of the bearings.

Steel Bearings have gotten so cheap that there are many out there that just get a new set rather than refurbish a set of steel bearings and take the hours of time to do it right.

Spin test them.  You will never get a set of steel bearings to spin the 2:30 of a hybrid let along the 3-5 minutes of a ceramic.

Ceramic bearings are smooth.  It makes for a much better feel on the trails.  More like you are on Ice than on asphalt.  More of what you are putting onto the trail gets converted to speed so this is not for someone who is just "taking up skating".  As an upgrade, I can't think of a nicer one other than perhaps a harder or larger wheel.

Both of my pairs of skates are hard wheels.  88A durometer.  My small set of 80 mm wheels are pure urethane - creamy colored plastic.  The 100 mm big wheels are probably polyurethane but they are 88A. 

Softer wheels will give you more grip but will wear out faster.  They are also stealing your momentum.   Higher durometer wheels will last longer, roll further.  You choose. 

I chose hard wheels.  A long time ago, that is.

I've been at this so long that the terminology has changed.  The "Frame" or "Skate Frame" where the wheels are bolted in was called a "Truck" from the old quad skate designation.  I still slip and call the Frame a Truck from time to time.

But I prefer a long frame, and I have a pair of Rollerblade Twisters from 2023 (I think) that I installed a set of 4x100mm wheels on that look like a demented set of skis.  They have the feel of riding on a rail because of the length of the frame but I don't do tricks.  If you do, you will want to get a custom shorter frame.

For me, and my distance, I'll stick with the longer frame.

(Or Truck)  Long frame on a big heavy boot is a heavy skate, a beast of a skate.

But definitely, if you can find them at a good price, get the ceramics.   You will appreciate the smoothness.

Better to roll than to talk about it.  Find yourself some trainer's tape and tape up the hot spots.  Then get out there and enjoy a workout, I know I will!

Rollerblading 23456.7 Miles With A Goal of Once Around The World On Skates

Get a picture he says.

Get a picture.  Get a picture.  Getapicturegetapicturegetapicture.

Bah humbug.

So I went out intending to Get A Picture of when it happened.  At least when the estimate of when it happened was.

I’m an Inline Skating Lifer.  Rollerblading.  Yeah that stuff, again.

You see, I started on this journey round about May 1993.  

Get Some Skates… It Looks Fun.  You Want Something Different Right?

I did.  I was a runner.  I used to run at Valley Forge National Park.  I had just injured my knee because I was also weightlifting and biking and all of that had started building muscle.  Muscle weighs more than fat per volume.  Keep pounding on those knees and eventually you become the stereotype of the tall man with bad knees.

Every time I went back to running, my knees made me quit.  I USED to run Valley Forge.  Three Times A Week, 10K (6.2 miles).  There’s one particularly nasty hill there that is about 50 feet and almost 45 degree incline, twice in short order.  That park has a challenging course.  My knees hated it after about 2 years, hence the transition to Bike and Skates eventually.

My routine was to do “once around the park” at night with my pocket sized shortwave radio.  The irony of running through George Washington’s Encampments of the Winter of 1777-1778 listening to BBC World Service was not lost on me.

So the bike did not get used.

“Hey! This is fun!”  Did a mile that first time.
“Lets go to Fairmount Park and skate this weekend”.

Always on a measured course.  Being “Numerically inclined” I kept a tally.  First year was 500 miles.

Records were kept on various methods, Palm Pilot, Lotus, Excel, and now on a spreadsheet on Libre Office on Linux.

I never stopped in the interim.  Every single year since then, I did at least a very little bit of skating – and some years were literally a mile.   Just to say I hadn’t given the sport up.  The year I moved to Florida, 2006, was one of those years.

Miles did add up.  I was over 20,000 miles before I made it to the full restart.
Broke a Clavicle 2200 miles later.
Broke the other Clavicle another 500 on.
Lesser athletes would have quit.

I Did Not.

In fact, I just got back today from scoping out a thrift store looking for things like spare parts and helmets and maybe a new pair of skates and ….

The world has changed a lot since I was a sponsored skater in Philadelphia and got free bearings chucked at me from time to time.  First you’re amateur, then sponsored, then pro.  Never made it to pro because the sport collapsed in the early 2000s.  Plus I was a bit old to be putting myself through all of that and I was enjoying a management lifestyle.

So no picture at “Exactly 23456.7 miles”?

First, no odometer.   There is probably a bit of wiggle room or flex in that measurement.

Second the location was a bit gross.  Right in front of a stop sign in front of a public restroom at Mills Pond Park in Fort Lauderdale.

Third, well I’m a bit shy and didn’t think it mattered.   That picture above… well it’s kind of generic.

But Rollerblading?  It’s my sport.   It is what I do.  When the sport collapsed I kept things alive as best I could.  

There is an old school footlocker on wheels taking up a third of the floor under my clothes in the closet that we call the “Skate Shop” that I store all sorts of fun bits and pieces.  If I need a new set of “Hybrid Ceramic 608Z Bearings”, they are in there.   Some rare parts that simply are not being made or are available online.

It took me 6 months to get the last set of 110MM wheels for the daily driver skates.  Six Whole Months.

So what is the goal?

Career Long, Once around the world.  That number is 24,901 miles… I could do the difference on the trails in Philadelphia in one season.  Down here, I think it may be next year.   I’d love to do a real marathon, but it would cramp my style.  My workouts are pared back to only 16.5 miles in summer heat, but in the cooler weather doing a marathon a week was easy.

So between that and cross training on the bike, if you see a blur fly past in bright colors feel free to ask me how many miles am I at.  I’m getting closer.  

Once I get to “Once Around The World” to settle my own head with the error problem in counting, I’m thinking going to 25,000 miles total and taking a break.

Or not.

Time To Rebuild My Skates

I've done this before. 

I have skated 21,000 miles.  Elite Inline Fitness Skater.  I've taken a long break from the sport.  There's practically nobody doing it any more, except us "hard core" group who do it because we enjoy it.

That and your kids.

But it's not like it was back around 2000 when there were races and competitions and you would trip over people trying to get into a shop.

For a brief time I was even sponsored, although that could be stretching it a bit.   I had a relationship with a skate shop in Philadelphia who would give me some gear from time to time to try out and report back how it worked out.  Not too much, mind you.  T-Shirts, of course.  Water Bottles, but everyone had those.  Deep discounts on parts like wheels and bearings.  Some free bearings that I liked so much that I kept them clean, lubed, and used them for over a year and well into the second year.

A year then was 2000 miles plus.  My peak week was a week I took vacation to simply skate. 

204 Miles in 7 days.

Seriously.

I've introduced people to the sport.  Served as a coach and trainer for others.  Even got paid to train people which was a serious ego boost.  Enjoyed Skating more than just about any physical activity that you can do in public.  Had a resting heart rate of 42 BPM as a result.

But lately I've come back.  Skating in Florida is different.   There is no park here like the Schuylkill River Trail.  I've skated from the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to Valley Forge and back a number of times.  That is 20 to 30 miles of "Black Ice".  Smooth asphalt complete with regular Water Stops.

There was one trip that I came around a bend in Valley Forge and spotted a Buck.  A Deer.  Pointy things on its head.  He spotted me and trotted beside me for about a half mile at my speed.  We looked back and forth at each other enjoying the workout and parted friends.

That sort of thing doesn't happen often, does it?

Here I find myself going to Pompano Airpark in Pompano Beach.  Meh.  Better than most, at least it is safe.  4.5 mile loop of table top flat asphalt with a water stop at start and middle.  Not exactly exciting but ... well it works.

After a while though, you find yourself thinking it's time to rework things.  The wheels get flat spotted.  In the 94 degree heat and direct sun, the polystyrene compound breaks down on the black pavement that you could cook an egg on.  Where I got 50 to 200 miles on the wheels in the cooler conditions of Philadelphia, I am lucky to get 10 out of them here.

Swap the wheels out, especially the all important rear wheel - the Push Wheel that wears out on your power stroke faster than all the rest. 

Look at the bearings.  Wipe off the dust and road grit.  Hold the center spindle in your fingers carefully and see if they spin free.

Nope.  I thought so.  I was out with my dog Rack skating around the neighborhood the other day and thought I was being held back by the bearings.  Takes too much effort to move forward, may as well skate with a parachute.

Take a pin to flick the C Spring clip out.  Then spin the shield around that looks like an aluminum pancake with a hole in the middle and pop it out of the bearing.  Flip the bearing and repeat.  Spin the bearing and see if it is free spinning.  Drop it in a plastic container for later.

Repeat for each wheel.  10 wheels for the racing skates.  8 wheels for the cruising skates.  Two bearings per wheel plus a speed kit in the middle to hold it all together.  36 bearings, 72 O Rings and C Clips.

Do a few extra in case there will be a problem.  Throw out all the sealed bearings because they can't be rebuilt.  It all comes out in the wash.

The Wash is when you pour Citrus Degreaser on all bearings and shake vigorously for about a minute.  The degreaser goes from a pale orange to black.  All those miles melt into the bottom of the plastic cup.

Triple rinse the bearings in water to loosen more grease, grit, and degreaser.  Bang them out on a paper towel to par-dry so they don't rust.

Then take them to the hair dryer that everyone has hidden in the back of the cabinets.  Don't have one?  Stop off at the thrift store and get one for this purpose.  It has to have a metal mesh on the air outlet.  The mesh has to be flat.  Put as many bearings on the mesh as fit.  Turn it on full blast and get the bearings as hot as you can.  That will boil off the last of the water.

Repeat for 36 bearings.

Reassemble the bearings.   One shield, one C Clip.

Snap!

Lay it out on a paper towel and drop 3 drops of Tri-Flex Teflon Lube on the bearing. 

Repeat for 36 bearings.

Put the other shield and C Clip back on.  Spin to test. 

Ahhh, silky smooth!

Each wheel gets one bearing per side, and a speed kit.

Slide the wheels in the skate "truck" that holds them to the boot.

Now, you are good.  Another 200 miles per bearing rebuild if the conditions are average.  If you can hear them get loud, rebuild them. 

Two and a half hours of rebuilding, snapping, lubing, and reconstruction.  They're not doing this sort of thing any more.  Want to know why? 

Skating is still fun.  Even in 94 degree 75% humidity Florida heat.

Gliding over Black Ice at up to 15 MPH.  4 Minute Miles.  Slower when the wind comes in off the ocean.

That makes that afternoon well spent.  The knowledge that I will be able to go out and have the park practically to myself flying free in the sun.

Feel like a workout?  I'll slow down for you.  I'll even give you some tips.  There was this time where I was at mile 20 when I burned through all my breakfast and needed a rest and there was the most beautiful sunrise over the city of Philadelphia.

You'll be surprised what you will see on 8 wheels.  10 wheels if you're lucky.

A View From The Trail at Pompano Airpark

I'm at that point in the workout when everything falls together and I stop thinking about what I'm doing.

That may sound counter-intuitive but what happens is exactly that.

You get going and you fall into the zone.  The Groove.  That whole "Zen" thing of the workout.

No matter what workout it is, you cease thinking about where you put your feet or your arms, and just go with it.

I was rolling along at the Pompano Airpark, looking at what they're trying to do with the trail, and wondering why people plant Crepe Myrtles.  Everywhere I have seen them, they look like they're struggling to get a foothold.


Then I rounded the corner onto the West side of the trail.  I found myself lined by twin columns of pink flowers, being accompanied by Dragon Flies, and generally impressed at the fact that it managed to hide the rather industrial looking airport just over my right shoulder.

The airport has its own charm, but beautiful it isn't.  Having the Goodyear Blimp come and go from time to time is fascinating, but the General Aviation airport isn't exactly what I'd call home about.  Looks like a collection of squat boxes flanked by someone's toy airplanes.

But those Crepe Myrtles did exactly what they intended.  Block the view. 

I dropped into a racing posture, and flew through that particular mile.  Winds low, it felt like everything moved fast,  even if I was only going about 15 miles per hour at best.

For a distance inline skater, this is probably the best trail I have found in South Florida.  I did the Broadwalk at Hollywood Beach and found the people on bicycles too arrogant and too ready to attempt to crowd you out. 

Typical.

Pompano doesn't have any other real attraction at the park.  You could sit by the fire station in the shade and watch planes come and go, but that can quickly get tired.  There are only two water stops, at the fire station and at mile 1.5.  But what it does have to offer is 4.5 miles of "Black Ice". 

For the most part, it's skating rink smooth, and no interruptions of streets to get in your way.

On the other hand, for a sport that has just about vanished, you get to use it all by yourself, practically.  Just you, a few well behaved people on bikes, and the self absorbed people who insist on walking on the "wrong" side of the trail and don't yield to "On Yer Left!" warnings when someone is approaching.

Then again, that sounds more like society these days than a workout.

At least the flowers are in bloom, and it's a good place to adjust the bindings.

Olive Oil on Bread, Rollerblading, and Roseanne

Rollerblading.

I still do it.  I have skated over 21,000 miles.  I'm still trying to get a feel for the trails here in South Florida, and I have to say skating here could be better.

When you build a path that is due East/West and due North/South, you're going to have one direction that you are with the wind on your back, another that it is in your face.  Just the way it is when the winds come off the ocean pretty predictably.

But, it's here, and I'm in paradise, and I can skate.   So I do.  Push myself with a heart rate that feels like I am slacking if it is only at 160, and I have seen it peak over 200.

Sounds excessive?  Maybe.  If you hear "He went while he was skating" just think "He went doing something he loves".

It wears through wheels quickly, and since you can't really find proper racing wheels easily these days since the sport died around 2003...

(Hey!  Where did everyone go?)

The idea of going to My Favorite Skate Shop is done.  I didn't like paying $6 a wheel when I would have to replace 2 after two workouts and I'd do 4 workouts a week.

I know... blah blah blah.  It's safe to say that I easily have more skate parts in Wilton Manors than any other place in town.  That box has enough bearings to last into the next millennium and it's packed solid with replacement wheels of five different sizes.

I had this conversation with myself without realizing I was actually vocalizing it the other night.  I was sitting on the couch half watching Roseanne trying to write in her basement and commiserating with her character that no matter how good it is, sometimes you just can't do what you love. 

Then I realized I was having that conversation with someone in the house.   Writing can be hard.  You hit a writer's block and you need a topic.  It's what others call A Muse, but I am not really good enough for a Muse. 

"Why don't you write about Olive Oil in restaurants.  You always complain about that and you haven't had a good Rant in a while".

Nobody really wants to hear about that.

You see I have a major problem with being presented a small dish of olive oil and sometimes herbs or balsamic vinegar with the implication that I'm expected to put it on a piece of bread. 

First off it looks like something I drained from the crankcase of my Jeep. 

Who ever got the idea that it is oh so very wonderful to dip a piece of bread into a puddle of motor oil and yard sweepings needs to sit over there in the corner with their face pointed into the wall.  Now, just wait, I'll go get my baseball bat and re-enact a scene from The Godfather.

No.  Just no.  Not ever.  Bring me the butter.  period.  Unsalted if you have it, Salted if you don't.  If you don't have butter, take the damn bread away.

I actually said the motor oil comment in a posh restaurant once.

Excuse me, but do you have any butter?
"Sorry, No."
Then can you take the bread away?
"Sorry, No."

She sniffed and spun around on her heels and left.

I think she may have had an idea when I insisted on our leaving a pointedly small tip.  I haven't been back.  I won't go back.  Rudeness is never an option in business or in clients.

I don't care if you personally think it's the best thing on your sliced bread since sliced bread.  I don't care if it is trendy.  No.  Just, No.

The idea of sticking a piece of bread into a "Fine reduction of balsamic vinegar, herbs and spices, and extra virgin olive oil" leaves me cold and a side order of wanting to lose the last particular meal I was fortunate enough to eat.

Yes, I understand it is a first world problem.  There are people starving, even in the same city I am in.  There are more important things to concern yourself with than someone's affectations.  But, in a restaurant, I know somewhere there is butter.

Bring it or the waitress's tip dies.

Is it old school?  Last Millennium?  So very last century?

Who the hell cares, bring it.  It's called Service.  Not Motor Oil on a plate.  I'd rather eat that push-wheel off the back of the skate than put that glop on a piece of a baguette.

"So why don't you write about that?  I would love to hear about it!"

No, it would just sound like a rant about how food trends are annoying and distracting from the actual quality of the preparation and the food itself.

"But why not?".

We will see.  Let the mind roll and see what spills out.  It was exactly what I was saying to the TV.  Write what you know, you will get something better out of that than if you forced yourself to write to someone's affectations about what you should or shouldn't do.

That whole controlling thing.  People don't want to be controlled, especially when they are paying for the privilege of it all.

Just like a little porcelain bowl filled with Fine Herbs, Spices, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and a Special Balsamic Reduction.

I'll take whatever the chef's got for butter, please.

Thanks.

Bounty Of Rollerblades - Tuning Up The Inline Skates After 50 Miles

Everyone has a sport.

This one is mine.

It is no longer fashionable, but I truly don't care.

I'm not doing it for those people who think fashion is the end all of existence, I never do anything for that.

I'm doing it for me.

I was that guy.  I skated 21,000 miles.  I would do 100 miles in a week.  My peak week was one week that I took off from work and skated 204 miles in seven days total.  I was at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia so much on those skates that the park workers asked me if I was training for something.

Nope.  I really do enjoy skating.  In fact, I skated so much that I had to actually limit myself to 100 miles a week normally because I could over-train.  Near the end of the season, October into November, before the time change I would slow my skating down.  I had to distance limit myself to get the metabolism back down to something approaching normal.  Eating a training diet in the winter was never a good thing.

Even now when my fitness level is not at that same peak as it was.  Meh.  Don't care.  I've got my box of parts and tools and know how to use them.

In season, I used to slack.  I would tune the skates up every other week.  That's 200 miles.  They really needed it weekly but it takes an hour just to tear them down, wipe off the dirt from the bearings, reassemble everything with loctite and call it good.

That was what I did over the weekend.  One of my Weekend Projects.  I've been skating these days just enough to go out and enjoy it.  Headphones on playing music to keep me moving, I'd hit the park where the Goodyear blimp lands and do a circuit plus a mile.

Only 5.5 miles?  Yep.  I'm not skating to prove anything.  Just to enjoy a visit with an old friend.

I was all set to do a complete teardown - that was the 200 mile service.  Pull all the bearings from the wheel, the speed kit from the axles, and fully disassemble the bearings.  That meant I'd be de-greasing, drying, re-greasing, and reassembling each of the 16 bearings, then the wheels, and finally inspecting the boots.

Did all of that with a smile on my face.

I will let you in on a secret though.  Duct tape.  I duct taped the inside of the boots.

No, seriously.  It's like when you wear shoes out.  That spot in the back of the heel where the fabric wears out first. It starts as a small hole or tear.  Put a small square of duct tape over that and you'll be fine.  Just don't tell anyone.

Why do I do that?   My racing skates cost $600 per set.  Even this pair of "run of the mill" boots were over $250 back in the day, although I got my competition discount from the shop I went to.

I used to get some bearings tossed at me by the same shop, long since closed in the collapse of the sport.  You just can't run out to a sporting goods store these days and pick up a serviceable pair of high end touring skates any more.  For that matter I don't think they're even being made available.

Philadelphia was a bit of a hotbed for distance and speed skating.  I was into distance.  I'm way too tall and muscular to truly be fast.  So I'd do 30 miles at 12 MPH average.  4 minute miles.  I could do that forever if the winds were at my side.  Even faster if it were at my back.  Then it would be scary-fast.

I'd do the run from Philadelphia to Valley Forge if the Fairmount Park loop was clogged with some sort of "Walk" which was just a disruption more than anything else.  It also helped that I managed to get out there some days before 6AM, park at Falls Bridge, Skate to the Art Museum for a warmup before anyone else was out there.  Then do 4 mile sprints from the Rocky Steps to Falls Bridge and back until I got tired, bored, or the Walk was starting.

Easier to go to the Valley Forge loop, Schuylkill River Trail.  If I needed more distance, it was about 15 miles from Philadelphia parking through Valley Forge, and to the head of the Perkiomen Trail at Oaks, PA.  There's a bridge over the Perkiomen Creek that I used to sit, drink my water, eat my power bars, and chat with the other skaters.  One of my favorite spots in the world to sit and chill out.

Pretty country out there, West of Norristown.  Actually, even though it ran through some industrial areas, it was generally quite pretty as long as you weren't in Norristown, PA.  That was a pretty ugly town itself.

But the skating was fun.  Bring a quart or two of ice water, 600 calories of snacks to keep from hitting The Wall, and tank up at the water fountains at Valley Forge Park.  Plenty of Regulars, and Friends.

Yes, up to 600 calories.  Peak season, I needed 3000 a day on my enforced no-training day, and up to 6000 a day just to get my 30 miles plus weightlifting in.

That scene is long gone.

Pompano Beach Air Park has its own Regulars.  A bunch of leftover Canadian Snowbirds, primarily from Quebec.  A very few on skates, most on bikes.  Some locals getting out there to enjoy the trail.

It's black ice.  Smooth asphalt.  4.5 mile loop.  You can see the little planes landing at the civil aviation airport.  Sometimes the Goodyear Blimp is out, and if it is landing I swear it comes in at a sharp angle up to 45 degrees.  Never expected to see that when I got there.

It's not my favorite trail, but it works.  And trust me, after 21,000 miles, I've seen many of them.

The servicing worked.  I have a lot of wheels I picked up after skate shops closed up at a dollar or less a piece, some others from skates people threw out that were used once or twice, and I even bought a pair for "backup" at the thrift shop.  The box is a full "Paper box" that would work for shipping reams of paper.  Along with the probably more than 200 bearings in the bucket, all the assorted axles and screws, bolts and speed kits, I'm set.  Good for a couple thousand miles without ever visiting a skate shop.

All of this for a non-fashionable sport that I truly love.

How Mil-Spec Duct Tape helped me skate 21,000 miles

I have skated 21,000 miles.  I know the distance because I have always skated on measured courses, or measured the courses and counted laps afterwords. 

My workouts started out normally and extended to at one point a 6 hour marathon that took me 52 miles with breaks and water stops.

One of the problems with inline skates, rollerblading to you, is that with all of that sweeping back and forth, your legs will rub against the inside of the boots.  After all of that rubbing, something is going to give.  If you're lucky, the friction will be taken up by the socks, but in my case it started creating pressure sores.  I would get raw spots and eventually blisters on my achilles tendon and lower calf on some of these workouts.

Some of the workouts, everything would fall into place.  The tension on the socks would be just right, the boot would be tight but not too tight, the temperature was cool but not cold, the sun was bright, the breezes were coming in from the South or the North.

Since my trail was an East-West trail from the Art Museum in Philadelphia, along the Schuylkill River, all the way out to Valley Forge and extended to the Perkiomen Creek in Oaks, Pennsylvania.  In that case, the breezes would cool rather than slow me down on my 33 mile workout. 

Three times a week.   Boy! Do I miss that trail!

Needless to say that if I were to enjoy the trail, I would have to do something about the friction.  Remembering Football in High School, I thought to tape up my pressure points and it worked until the warmer weather and sweat conspired to dissolve the surgical tape that I used.  The other problem was that the boots themselves would wear down from all of this friction and I'd end up having to replace the boots.   For Competition Class skates, $300 would be cheap and they could range up to 10 times that price.

I got the brain storm one day that if I was wearing the knock about daily wear skates, why not try to tape the boot instead of the foot? 

Problem was solved, at least for now.  I would get around 100 miles out of a repair and that worked because in Peak Season, I would have to tear down the skates, degrease the bearings and re-lubricate them as well as rotate the wheels.   It would be a weekly ritual every Monday or so since Saturday and Sunday were spent out enjoying the trails in Summer.   It was then that I would touch up the tape.

I was using this standard silver duct tape, the same stuff everyone has seen for 60 years since it was invented in World War II.  The tape would wear out spectacularly sometimes during the workouts but for the most part I could rely on it.

One winter we were driving to Florida for our annual snowbird ritual and stopped off in a Barbecue Joint in Virginia.  Parking next to a workman's pickup truck, we went inside.  Great meal of pulled pork and afterwords when leaving the parking lot, the truck was long gone.  In its place was a large green roll of extremely heavy duty duct tape.  We picked it up and went on our way.

According to this article, I've just found out that it is typically called "Gun Tape" in the Military as well as "Hurricane Tape" and 100MPH Tape"... I never knew that until today!

Thinking that this heavy stuff might be better than the regular silver stuff, when I arrived at our destination, I replaced the gummy silver stuff with this beefy green tape.   It was so tight and so stiff that I thought I could use it to build body panels on cars.

The next day I went to the park and tested it out.  Not only did it hold, it was adding some needed rigidity and the super heavy vinyl was smooth and slick.   It wasn't teflon but it was nice and slick.

This oddball roll of tape was going to do the trick.

Over the years I've used it for both conventional and non conventional uses.  I have a wallet that I made out of the green stuff that is actually stiffer than is reasonable for use since it tends to pop the magnetic clasp open.  I'll work on that, after all who doesn't need a weirdly shaped green wallet?

The only draw back is that it works a bit too well.  I once was skating out from Philadelphia soon after and went past Valley Forge for a rest at the Perkiomen Creek.  Beautiful trail out there, but the surgical tape failed and it wadded up on my heels.  So sitting on a bridge in the sunshine of a Pennsylvania Spring Morning, with the sun in my face, I pulled out the roll of tape and proceeded to tape my hot spots up.  No problem right?  Sitting with one foot in a boot, another barefoot, the tape forming green rectangles on the open skin, I got myself rested and prepared for the next 15 miles back to the Jeep at the City Line.

The trip home was one of those amazing workouts with no hotspots, the conditions were perfect and all was well.

Until I got back to the house.  You see, all that tape had to come off.  I'm a somewhat hairy guy.  Yes, you guessed it, I was less hairy once I pulled the tape off.  I had at that point a much more healthy respect for what women go through on a regular basis. 

Closing my eyes and gripping hard, the next thing I heard was from downstairs, Kevin shouting "ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!?!?".  That one square of green plastic with the adhesive of doom was holding onto the skin as well as it could before I pulled it.   It also had around 50 hairs stuck inside of the adhesive.  One tug and it ripped them off, and none too easily.

From that point forward, In Season, below the crew socks, my ankles and lower calfs would be shaved.  I was NOT going to go through that again!

Ladies?  Why do you put yourself through waxing?  I just don't get it!  On the other hand, no, I will not let you borrow my mil-spec duct tape since I don't know when I'll be passing through that particular parking lot in Virginia again.  HOLY jumping HANNA! That hurt!

A short two mile wake up call

Sometimes you just wake up and say why not?

As anyone who knows me can say, I'm a skater.   Rollerblades, Inlines, that sort of thing.  There's some other slang names for it, but I'll leave that to others to come up with.   I skated competitively through the peak of the sport and well after when I felt like I was the last one out there doing it.   I've done a total of 20,800 miles on inline skates, and while that sounds like an exact number, it probably is fairly close.   I describe myself as an Elite Fitness Class Skater. 

All that bragging aside, I had stopped skating completely about a year ago.   There are really no excellent trails here in South Florida to skate without being up at 4AM or having to fight traffic like there are in Philadelphia.  I grew used to and spoiled by the challenge of the Schuylkill River Trail, and rose to that challenge by skating 100 miles a week over three workouts in Peak Season, April through October.

One of the things I was looking forward to was finding a long trail and just getting out and getting lost in it.  But I never found anything better than the Pompano Airpark trail.   At Five Miles Long, its a short trail for me.  That is about 30 minutes on a bad day, and while an hour three times a week is what the doctors recommend, its not enough and got boring.

After hanging up my skates and debating about what I'd do, time passed.   I think I skated under 10 miles in 2009, I gave up counting.   Dust grew around the wheels but I refused to toss them out.   I even tried the old school quads in a skating rink in Hollywood just North of the Airport, but I'm way too strong a skater for the whole indoor scene.

Over the last week my knee acted up, and got to the point where I was in severe pain just sitting down.   I had gone through therapy before so I know what to do and recognized the signs.  What it means is that ironically I hadn't been getting enough exercise.  While bragging about skating, I had started to hear from friends saying that I should get back on them, and when I turned my back I'd hear it phrased perhaps a bit less kindly.

Today, Sunday (Yes I write these postings ahead of time) I woke up at 530am angry with the throbbing in my knee and decided I needed to do something different than hobble around a mile walk with Mrs Dog.   She was all bouncy as usual so I just threw on jeans, turtleneck and leather jacket and grabbed old faithful, My Skates.

The result was a very happy dog and a very surprised me.  I thought I wouldn't be able to do it since just getting out of a chair hurt the knee above the knee cap, but everything just worked.   I guess 20,800 miles are tough to forget.  It wasn't a very vigorous workout, I stayed at the speed of my Border Collie's Trot.  The town is not built for skating, sidewalks are uneven, there are bumpy bits at the intersections for wheelchairs to get a grip while climbing, and there was the ever present possibility of small gravel getting caught behind the wheels and sending me into a "Face Plant", but none of that mattered.   Mrs Dog was smiling, I was smiling, and it just felt right.

I am now just finishing the first mug of coffee, and there's no ill results.  I guess things are getting back to normal again.  I'm ready for the trails.

Rollerblading on Schuylkill River Trail Review

Looking at this picture, its not a very pretty scene is it.   To me that is a view of fun.  What you're looking at is a section of the Schuylkill River Trail in Conshohocken PA.   

This trail runs roughly from the Art Museum in Center City Philadelphia at the Rocky Steps for 22 miles out through Conshohocken, Norristown, and Valley Forge to the Perkiomen Creek Trail in Montgomery County, PA.   I skated that trail for about 10 years, and a total of over 20,000 miles to date.   

The trail is continuous through the length and is a jewel for the region.   I was fortunate enough to be close enough to skate a segment of it whenever I wished.  No cars, few intersections to worry about, very few bad spots with gravel.   This was 22 miles of Black Ice.   There were a few rough spots where there was a sharp incline or a curve, and one hill in particular that was at a railroad style incline for about a mile.  That was my definition of fun, skating down that over 15 miles per hour with some Armin van Buuren "A State of Trance" podcast DJ set running on the head phones on a clear crisp day with little wind.

One of the days when I get back to Philadelphia, my plans are to drive back to my old parking area and skate this section again.   The trails here are nowhere near as long and comprehensive as this.   The best one I've found in Broward County was at Pompano Airpark and that one is only a 5 mile loop.  Every time I get a chance to speak with someone in command of a Parks and Recreation budget I put my two cents in for a "multipurpose asphalt paved trail of a minimum length of a mile".   Why not?  It's worth your life here to try to cross the street on foot let alone on Rollerblades 8 or 10 wheels.