RoadSkater.Net - Comments for "roadskating"

That's the thing about laptops

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

Fast, durable, or cheap, pick any two. And I'm afraid that $1000 is probably still cheap enough to count as one of them. That's a big part of why I'm out of the laptop game these days.

I built a little travel PC inside a Cooler Master Elite 100 RC micro-ATX enclosure, which is small enough to fit inside the nice Targus bag that came with my last real laptop. (Back when they were expensive enough to include extras like that.) It's a heavy steel tank and, as long as I have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to use when I get where I'm going, it's great. If not, I'll bring the Eee Pc, which is slow but more or less disposable and I can toss it in just about anywhere.

I saw a nice clearance price on 3K filament 2x2 twill carbon fiber cloth yesterday. You could use that to make a neat HP laptop case. It's listed as "damaged" though and they don't say how badly. :-)

$1000 Laptops and Bamboo Floors

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

I'd have to be convinced that the laptop in question was going to be much more durable than my HP Pavilion dv4000 series piece of plastic. Beautiful screen, nice operation, junky case.

I think I saw a show on the Proximity hotel and the guy (too lazy to look it up) mentioned bamboo flooring. I think he may have said they did not go for that for some reason. They found lots of other more cost efficient materials and methods I think was the gist. But unsure. He does a great interview. They've done some good things in Greensboro, including Lucky32 of course.

I agree the bamboo looks cool. In fact I wondered (briefly) about making some sort of case for my aforementioned laptop. I think USPS Packing tape might be great if they still gave that stuff away (which is probably why they don't). I thought about gluing aluminum rulers to the top or finding a sheet of aluminum. At least I covered up the HP advertisement.

Flooring too

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

I've noticed the frequent use of bamboo flooring in environmentally-conscious (supposedly) renovation projects such as those on Discovery's Planet Green channel. As they say about the bamboo bikes, it's a grass so it's ideally renewable and grows back fast, and it can be raised locally to wherever it's used or processed.

I think my days of buying $1000 laptops are past but it looks pretty cool. Maybe they'll make an Eee Pc in a case like that eventually.

Bamboo Laptop Notebook Computer

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

I don't know much about this one, but it looks like bamboo has some cachet among the eco-techno crowd. Here's a link to an article on PC Magazine's web...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2366892,00.asp

It seems this is a good one for first-adopters in that set, and not a bad PC at all, but more time will pass before we have an idea of the viability of using bamboo as material for a notebook computer. Looks nice, though.

Add MA and CA for 12 of the United States for the 2010 Jersey

In reply to Get Your 2010 Roadskater.net Inline Skating and Cycling Jersey or Grab a Classic Version Now:

I'm always interested how this spreads around. It's fun to see how we are all connected. Add these states to the list who have signed up to support the 2010 edition of the Roadskater.net jersey:

California
Massachusetts

Thanks!

Jersey Viability Update, plus GA, NC, NJ, PA, SC, VA

In reply to Get Your 2010 Roadskater.net Inline Skating and Cycling Jersey or Grab a Classic Version Now:

OK we're getting closer but the 2010 jersey is in danger of not making minimums. Thanks to more orders from these states:

Georgia
North Carolina
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Virginia

At this point I have 4, plus 1 owed, plus 1 commitment, plus 11 prepaid, so that's 17. I know of 3-6 likely orders, which brings us to 20-23 orders. That's close. I hope we make it, and thank all of you for considering it!

I spent part of the afternoon comparing color mixes in various amounts of full sun, cloud and shadow. I have four mixes I like and will be mocking some of those up to look at them more closely, then check with the printer to see how these would come out in their process. I've seen some of these mocked up before. It's going to be good, I'm sure of that. If we make the numbers. If not, well, we tried.

Roadskater.net Jersey Orders from MI, NY, TN, TX

In reply to Get Your 2010 Roadskater.net Inline Skating and Cycling Jersey or Grab a Classic Version Now:

WOW THANK YOU to people from far away in time and space who have put in their adoption papers for a 2010 Roadskater.net jersey!

Thank you to skaters from:

Michigan
New York
Tennessee
Texas

Does this mean some of these folk may be considering the 25th Tour to Tanglewood? I hope so! See http://tourtotanglewood.org for more info and to join or team go to http://nmss.org/goto/rsn2010.

At this point we have 4, all from outside NC, plus 1 owed to NY, plus 4 for me, so that's 9, with 15 to go by Sunday night Monday morning. Hopefully we'll have a 2010 jersey, but if not, it's the people with MS that matter and we skate for them at the tour and the CarolinaCentury.com October 23, 2010.

Skateylove y'all, Roadskater

Build Your Own Bamboo Bike

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

I was looking through my bookmarks and happened to see a link to an NPR story from last December that I'd totally forgotten about, about a workshop for building your own bamboo bike. The weekend workshop is presented by Bamboo Bike Studio in Brooklyn, NY, and at $932 for a full bike class including components, and $632 for just a frame, it seems quite reasonable.

I think it's also interesting that not only is the bamboo they use a renewable and carbon neutral resource but it's even locally grown, as it's harvested from groves in nearby New Jersey. Bamboo is easy to work with simple tools, it naturally grows in the ideal structural form of hollow tubes, and it's a natural composite of strong fibers within a foam-like matrix making it supple and resilient.

That looks like it might be a very cool experience.

Calfee perhaps?

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

I've been hearing about Calfee bamboo bikes and seeing pictures for a while now and wondered if they did tandems. Turns out that yes, they do:

That's the one

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

Yeap, that is the bike. They had replaced some stems and seat posts with carbon fiber, but that is it exactly.

Bamboo is strong stuff and grows like crazy

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

Thanks for the info. Bamboo could be an important material for some things. I have fond memories of my grandfather making a fishing pole for me as a kid out of a bamboo piece harvested from the woods. Low tech, but effective. Small panfish, but tasty to a tyke. If you hear more about the bike, do tell. As I recall, bamboo grows and spreads rapidly, so maybe there's a future in bamboo bikes, since carbon fiber layup is a labor intensive process. I've seen some cracked carbon fiber bike frames, and it's pretty sad because I see cash instead of carbon when I look at those frames.

bamboo bike

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

The bamboo bike is commercially made. I don't remember the brand (should of had a picture). The company took measurements of the couple and built it custom for them. The couple choose the bamboo because she has arthritis and the road vibration can really get to her. She said she has not had a single problem since they have bought this bike. They also said that even though is was made custom for them, it still came out $3000 cheaper than a carbon fiber model! It looked as if the hemp joints had been coated in some type of an epoxy.

He Said Hemp Joints

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

Great fun reading that one. I always enjoy other people's skate pain as long as it's temporary! It's way impressive that you did over 100k as a solo roadskater. It's also impressive how long you must have been cranking some high heart rates without bonking. I'd like to claim some wisdom but mostly I forget any wisdom I might have had when leaving town with the camera and friends and cyclists flying by saying hi.

Hartwell Challenge of the Centuries is a great one, and not easy, but that's good too. It's an early season reminder of what it's like to skate hills in hot weather. They've always been really nice to roadskaters there, and like eebee said, we thought there might be some Atlanta skaters there. It used to be a tradition for a group to do Hartwell. Now I think they have a pool party and some local gehangingouten.

That bamboo & hemp tandem bike sounds way cool. Did they build it themselves? Was it a demo of some sort? Interesting possible stories there maybe. Did you skate over the dam? That's usually kind of fun if not exhausted by then!

I think they have a downtown cars and guitars thing there in Hartwell the same weekend. Not sure what the guitar part is but I assume picking, not displaying. With the cars it was a pretty nice group of autos when we saw it.

It's sad that we missed it, but there were multiple reasons for it seeming not viable beforehand, even if it turned out after the fact that we might've been able to. I got to skate with northinsouth and also got to go to their party Sunday by being in town, so that's good at least.

Northinsouth definitely had me at my max avg within a few laps. I'd like to think it was because I had skated the day before, but I don't think that was it. He has a very efficient style and plenty of power to apply, and no matter how "out of shape" he may say he is, his generally active life helps keep him always ready to skate well. All that ice skating experience from childhood can't hurt, either.

Overall it was a light weekend, especially after Friday and Saturday were over. OK after that it was a zero skating holiday. I'd better get back to it. Working lots on the website background issues even if nobody can tell!

Great Report!

In reply to Challenge of the Centuries 2010 Charity Bike Ride Skate Report:

Very enjoyable report, Jonathan! Sorry you were out there alone. I thought some of the APRR skaters might show up but I guess not. I'm glad you had 90% nice pavement.

It's tough to decide to try to bust it a little bit to catch someone to draft, or to hang back so you can stay within your range and skate alone for 65 miles! Great job, by the way.

A Great TIme and an Invitation

In reply to Gooch Memorial Bike Ride Inline Skate J & L Bicycle Burlington NC April 16 2010:

We had a great time at the Gooch ride, Jack and myself, and got to meet Mrs. Gooch. It was a ride where they really did wait on the slowest and there were some nice enough to pretend to be slower than us.

We did about 13 miles and I burned up all of my brake and a little bit of metal. Oops. I changed the brake out and put new washers to give me an early warning system.

After the ride we were invited to come out for the Thursday at 6p (I think) Urban Assault, which is a weekly ride similar to the Gooch, the ride leader said. He made it clear that roadskaters and cyclists of all speeds and sorts are welcome. They do the ride in winter with headlights on too, so they're used to sticking together for safety. Nice invitation. Maybe we should go out for that sometime.

Thanks to Jack for taking the lead on this and for coming out to road skate, and for Marianne for being a coorganizer and very much the ride leader, making sure we were all grouping up regularly. I hope we represented roadskating OK!

Here's the link again

In reply to Athens-to-Atlanta Roadskate A2A 2010 Inline Road Skate Rollerblading Ultra Marathon:

Sorry. Here's a better-looking link:

http://www.active.com/more-sports/athens-ga/a2a-athens-to-atlanta-road-s...

Please Sign Up as a ROADSKATER.NET Team Member

In reply to Athens-to-Atlanta Roadskate A2A 2010 Inline Road Skate Rollerblading Ultra Marathon:

Hi to all. I wanted to reiterate that we would love for ROADSKATER.NET (all caps if it'll let you do it) as your team when you register for skating, cycling, walking or other events...or the first or one of your teams...as long as you like what we are trying to do on here. There's no fee or process required, although it helps a lot to join the website of course (and post!).

Some of us are from North Carolina but it is not intended as a localized team...it's for the universe of skaters who want it to be theirs. If that's you, come on and skate or bike some charity events with or while representing us. It just takes a little bit of skateylove. Sorry you don't get prizes to be on the team, or not ones that cost anything! Represent roadskating with love to people of good will. We try; sometimes fail; try again.

Also, listing us as your team helps the website get some traffic so we can help other people start roadskating, or continue it, or learn about it and the charity events we do...A2A, Tour to Tanglewood, Carolina Century, Tour de Lions, Tour de Kale, many more.

Also it is a special thrill to see that so many of you skate A2A and other events in your ROADSKATER.NET jerseys from the past five years. Thank you! Even if I forget to mention it, this is very important to me, and makes the work and worry over colors and fabric worthwhile.

Thanks for the info

In reply to Gooch Memorial Bike Ride Inline Skate J & L Bicycle Burlington NC April 16 2010:

Thanks for the post, Jack. I changed it to an Event (using Create/Event vs. the usual Create/Blog Entry). This puts it on the calendar, lets you use RSVP, and so forth. Mainly it puts it in the Upcoming Events sidebar block. Thanks a bunch for sharing.

I am not sure if I'll be traveling then, but if not, I hope to be there roadskating slowly in honor of safe roads for all including human powered transportationists...that's what active transportation is all about.

Roadskaters Welcome

In reply to Gooch Memorial Bike Ride Inline Skate J & L Bicycle Burlington NC April 16 2010:

As one of the ride organizers, I'd say to all skaters - come on out! We'd love to have you join us, as we remember Gene Gooch, an Elon University Professor, who got killed in a bicycle vs. car accident on April 3, 2009, close to the university.

As you can read on the J & L bicycle Co. website, this ride is also to increase mutual respect and understanding among different users of our roads: cars, cyclists, and skaters too. So we want to make sure we obey the rules that apply to vehicles - and by law (as I understand it - disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer!!), bicycles are considered vehicles under NC law. Thus, our aim is to get everyone to stop at traffic lights that are turning yellow or red; and even - gasp -- at stop signs.

The loop is 13.31 miles long - from the J&L Bicycle Co. in downtown Burlington to Elon University and back. It's mostly through neighborhoods and a small part on a 4-lane road through town that Mark Carpenter has skated many times. It's sweet surface for skaters.
So come on out! Hope to see you all on Friday evening at 5:30pm.

Marianne

Windy

In reply to Roadskater.net Carolina Century 21- to 102-mile Bike Ride & Roadskate for MS October 24 2009 Gospel Baptist Church Greensboro NC:

On the next gusty skate I will try to get that Bob Seger song to shove Everyone knows it's Windy out of my head, especially the tripping down the streets of the city part :-)

Glad to be a part

In reply to Roadskater.net Carolina Century 21- to 102-mile Bike Ride & Roadskate for MS October 24 2009 Gospel Baptist Church Greensboro NC:

Why thank you lassie. I was glad to be a part of it and look forward to CC #3.

I wouldn't mind hitting up all the Raleigh/Cary/Durham bike shops to promote CC3. It would be fun.

You were singing Llama Llama Ding Dong, and I kept humming the Bob Seger refrain:
"against the wind,
still skatin' against the wind,
I'm tired now but still skatin' against the wind."

So glad you made it !

In reply to Roadskater.net Carolina Century 21- to 102-mile Bike Ride & Roadskate for MS October 24 2009 Gospel Baptist Church Greensboro NC:

MikeB! I'm so glad you came out and skated this event! I'm sorry about the rain and after skating through it myself I don't blame you for not wanting to continue. I'm happy also that Alan got to skate with someone too. It's good that you posted here about it because the volunteer I asked back at the church at 5.30pm said she didn't see any other skaters.

So now I get to be all swanky...put me down for 121 miles last week ;-)

I'll write more details later, hopefully tonight!

3 @ 102? In those conditions? WOW!

In reply to Roadskater.net Carolina Century 21- to 102-mile Bike Ride & Roadskate for MS October 24 2009 Gospel Baptist Church Greensboro NC:

Dude, sitting hear contemplating 102.....I just can't. How in the world did you do that? People always tap out LOL on emails and such but sitting here I'm getting a side ache from laughing, in amazement and awe.

Plus you & Eebee went down a couple a few times. Yikes.
It was quite slick, especially on the inclines and the pavement stripes were wicked.

Alan and I started at the sleep-in start of 9am. By 9:10 he was outta site, chasing cyclists like they stole his last twinkie. Good for him though, putting forth a great effort to participate and put in a solid 31+.

Lake Brandt road was wonderful with wind aided downhills. Quite sweet. And for a brief moment a sunbeam hit me just before the rest stop at M12. That was the turning point - M12. Just as it was time to roll, the drizzle started. My wonderful Bike Response Team gave a look like: "ya know, 21 isn't a bad effort." At least I thought that's what the look was. Who am I to second guess the support crew? 21 it was, right from that moment.

Scalesville Road was the easterly cut back and it was a good roll, even in the rain. Mostly because it was semi-wind aided. Although there were curious short patches of chip-seal to keep me alert.

Once on Church St. heading back south to the finish, boy it was brutal. The point being, my Church St. stretch was only 4 or 5 miles long after putting in 16 or 17. How you made it in on an 8 mile stretch after putting in 94....I will never know.

Kudos to you for a million different things in getting the 2nd Annual Carolina Century to be such a wonderful success!

3 Skaters did 102 miles; 1 did 42; sounds like a 31 and 21 too!

In reply to Roadskater.net Carolina Century 21- to 102-mile Bike Ride & Roadskate for MS October 24 2009 Gospel Baptist Church Greensboro NC:

Hey. More later but yes Tom Blooming won the day for the 102 distance, facing winds alone for the last 35 or so miles. Eebee and myself made it in at over 10mph, which on this day was epic.

At 33 we had a really windy downpour. Two cyclists joined us, John and Ben, and Ben did the rest of the 102, waiting as needed to finish with us. John had time constraints and completed the 72, which is for what it is designed...a quicker way home when recalculations are in order.

Northinsouth had boot/foot interface problems made much worse by the rain, but toughed out a huge 42.5 miles.

Here's how wet it was. My current camera has always been out, during Tour to Tanglewood this year notably, which was considered two days of mostly rain. Today, my camera shut down and would not turn back on from 33 to 79. When it did come back on the lens had a blob of condensation inside the lens for most of the rest of the way home. Once it stopped raining I had taken out the battery and let air flow through the battery compartment by holding it as we skated.

Here's another example of how challenging it was: we haven't fallen in a year or two that I recall in any significant way. I fell 2 times, making Eebee fall 1 of the 3 times she fell. Both of my falls were rather dramatic if not causing any real pain...a hipslide in the road and a tumble in the grass at a soaked rest stop. What a day! Two of our falls were at rest stops, just simple mistakes, but odd.

The worst damage for us was Eebee's favorite sunglasses. More later as we recall it, know it, can report it.

There was a fatal cycling hit and run crash at the next intersection closer into town just as we finished. Our SAG guy went there to help but it was too late. The police still had the intersection completely blocked about two hours later. This was not related to our event or a participant in the Carolina Century, but we all felt it deeply just the same.

I can't believe how great the Carolina Century volunteers were all day. They didn't seem to mind we had fewer folk out there, and did what they did just as if we had doubled our previous numbers. We will finish with a profit to give to the MS Society, and the volunteers seemed to really enjoy the special things we were trying to do as best we could. I know we were treated like the fastest, when we were in fact the slowest!

Carolina Century stats from MikeB

In reply to Roadskater.net Carolina Century 21- to 102-mile Bike Ride & Roadskate for MS October 24 2009 Gospel Baptist Church Greensboro NC:

Roadskater, you thought some stats would be neat, so here goes: Age: 45; Distance: 21m; Rolling Time: 1:47:37; Avg Speed: 11.7mph; Top Speed: 34.4mph; Avg HR: 180bpm; Max HR: 198bpm; weight at start: 153; weight at finish: 151: weight leaving the venue: 157 -- thanks to your Mom's awesome chili and Margaret's grill cheese sammiches. YUM!

Hope the marathon was out of state

In reply to Roadskater.net Carolina Century 21- to 102-mile Bike Ride & Roadskate for MS October 24 2009 Gospel Baptist Church Greensboro NC:

She should do well with those fancy shoes. I hope she did. And hopefully it was in good weather. The "CC" weather was a tad moist and blustery. I quit at 21, Alan from OH went 31, and I believe Roadskater and Eebee went for the full 102; not sure about that.

But Roadskater put on a tremendous event. I mean it was amazing. Everything was SO well planned and executed. Really, it was awe inspiring. Can't wait for the 3rd annual Carolina Century!

Good luck everyone!!!

In reply to Roadskater.net Carolina Century 21- to 102-mile Bike Ride & Roadskate for MS October 24 2009 Gospel Baptist Church Greensboro NC:

I wish I could be there with you all, but I'll be cheering on my girlfriend as she runs her first marathon.

Be safe and have fun, everyone!

- SM -

These animations are pretty

In reply to Carolina Century 102-Mile and Athens to Atlanta 87-Mile Route Elevation Profile Comparison:

These animations are pretty cool for comparison.

GO TEAM F.A.S.T.

Cool stuff - looks like they flattened that one hill

In reply to Athens to Atlanta A2A Roadskate 2008 to 2009 Detour Elevation Profile, Distance, Route Changes:

Nice pic of switching back and forth! You can easily see where the extra distance was added in - it almost looks like they took that one steep hill around 57mi and flattened it into a few smaller hills. I'm sure the extra distance made up for the "flattening" though.

The statue of Athena meet is

In reply to Athens to Atlanta A2A Road Skate Absolute First Timer:

The statue of Athena meet is on Saturday, right? Just saw the list of registered skaters, nobody else from Charleston. I lieu of a Roadskater jersey, looks like I'll be wearing my Charleston Dragon Boat jersey, which is bright red and at least easy to spot.