roadskater.net

Location

I came back to my home County of Dorset, England, to help my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. We haven't actually had the celebration yet, and hopefully we won't all kill each other before Saturday :-).

Location

Here's a nice story of a gal who's not afraid to let the inline puck hockey players fire away while she's at the goal. I don't need any part of flying objects wizzing by (or worse, not going by but hurting me), on skates or off. You go girl. You go everyone for letting her give it a shot...or a block. It's a shame many girls don't get to play baseball here in the USA instead of (or rather, in addition to) softball, in my unimportant opinion. This is just based on how much more I enjoyed baseball than softball. I don't mean this as disrespect to anyone who loves softball better.

Location

At my son's urging, we finally watched the Transformers movie last night. At about 1 hour 50 we were treated to Transformer 'Bumblebee' speed skating down a highway. This is the clip they showed on the Oscars, prompting me to yell "Hey! That robot just did a crossover!".

Found this interesting and thought provoking - http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=778EF0AB-E7F2-99DF-3594A60E4D9A76B2&sc=I100322 Not sure I'm ready to give mine up yet, however. What do you guys and girls think?

Good vibes all around from London, England and the UK from hosting the Tour de France, or so it seems. I thought it was interesting and fun, and especially since the weather was so great for those days. The English really came out to look and seemed to be enthusiastic. I'm glad they're not piling on as there are enough piles to go around already. Mo' bettah testin' throughout the ranks I say and careful living for the riders it seems. It's a job many of us would gladly take!

For those who don't have cable television but do have high-speed internet, here are some links that may (or may not) work for you to watch some worldwide television. Currently, of course, this is of interest because of the Tour de France. Look below for some links to the live data for GPS (location), power, heartrate and more. It's amazing to watch the video as the riders pass through a town and make a turn and to see this happen on the Google map while viewing HRM data.

Here's a report from www.thisislondon.co.uk about yet another fatality from hyponatremia. This one is in relation to last weekend's London Marathon, where temps were in the mid-70s. Sad and very preventable - not by not entering the event, but by having an abundance of Gatorade and salt! If an event can't afford truckloads of Gatorade, they should at least be able to afford some salt!

The Big Lottery Fund in the UK is working wonders for getting kids off the streets and into skateparks via a fraction of half the money raised through the National Lottery. They have contributed to many skateparks, one in Wales that converted a disused factory. I have often gazed wistfully upon many an abandoned WalMart, visions of smooth tracks, beginner's hills, cafe and skateshop swirling in my head. 

I'm so glad someone is living some of our dreams for us as we live some of theirs for them!

Jason Lewis is a British trekster (supertrekker some say) who has spent part (all?) of the last 13 years circling the earth by pedalboat, bike and inline skates, often joined by a friend on his journey. It seems the goal is to use neither wind nor motors in his quest.

With a couple of Roadskater.net team members hailing from the British Isles, we must keep up, we must, especially when the headlines are so dog-gone fun! At first it was an article on how Heelys (skate shoes) could be the answer to childhood obesity (question mark for safety).