LONDON FRIDAY NIGHT SKATE TM
& SUNDAY STROLL TM

From: Week on Wheels <wow /at/ lfns.co.uk>
Subject: [wow] Week on Wheels: putting the Hammer(smith) down
Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 13:51:43 +0000


This Week, on Wheels -

* This week: Speed Demon Hans on Friday, Bren to South Ken on Sunday
* Last week: Double dose of Markus Mania
* Circle Line Skate
* Starting to hate that gravel
* Happy Birthday to us

== THIS WEEK ==

The LONDON FRIDAY NIGHT SKATE will be heading to the outer reaches of
town on some of the smoothest surfaces known to London. We leave the
park and head up Park Lane (please stay in the right-hand lane), then
twist and turn through Queensway, Notting Hill and head all the way
out Hammersmith. The return journey promises to be a brisk affair back
to the park, flashing back through Holland Park and
Kensington. Remember to bring your spare batteries, water bottles, LM
Hans is promising a good work-out to ward off the winter blues.

                            http://www.lfns.co.uk/route.php/20061110

This SUNDAY is Remembrance Sunday and so we'll be avoiding the West
End as it tends to get snarled up, instead sticking to the areas just
to the south of the park. LM Bren has designed the route to be under 8
miles (he's saving his energy for next weeks Circle Line Skate) but
can't decide where the half time point will be - either South
Kensington or Gloucester Rd.

The skate will start off down South Carriage Drive, so those who have
never skated in a group before can have half a mile of what we can
only describe as "London Average" tarmac away from any vehicles before
we head out on to the streets and go play in the traffic.

                            http://www.lfns.co.uk/route.php/20061112

== LAST WEEK ==

A good crowd of skaters braved the cold for the first LONDON FRIDAY
NIGHT SKATE since the clocks went back. (Dark, isn't it? We recommend
lights or visible clothing, especially if you're going to step out in
front of people unexpectedly, or for your skate home)

Thanks to those kind folks in the Royal Parks scattering fresh gravel
all round the Wellington Arch (more on this below) , we had to start
with a circuit of Hyde Park Corner which passed off with surprisingly
little abuse from our friendly taxi drivers.

Markus had put together a route full of his favourite stuff - hills,
alleys, 320 degree turns. Astonishingly, though, there were
practically no cobbles and someone in Sarf London seems to have
invested in new asphalt - which could account for everyone
getting all excited and taking the first half at Warp Factor 5. This,
of course, meant that we had to hit Warp Factor 6 on the second half
despite worried marshals muttering that "the engines canna take any
more, Captain". Somehow, though, the Starship LFNS made it back in one
piece and re-entered earth orbit at around stardate 221503112006.

Reasoning that you can't have too much of a good thing, the SUNDAY
STROLL was Markus' second skate of the weekend. This one took us
through Pimlico and then back South of the river towards Elephant and
Castle. We then crossed back into Westminster and headed through St
James' Park and back home. A great skate and we're delighted to
congratulate 8 year young Nathaniel on completing his first Stroll
(ably assisted by his Dad). Kids! The Stroll is a family friendly
event, but if you're under 16 please make sure your adult remains with
you at all times - otherwise they get lost, fall behind, and start
causing trouble.


== NEXT WEEK: CIRCLE LINE SKATE ==

Just over a week to go till the Circle Line skate. Remember this is a
long LFNS with three halves (makes sense to us). Please put forward
your requests for music on the feedback form and we'll get a special
mix done. If you've forgotten all about this, see what we wrote last
time.
                http://www.lfns.co.uk/wow_archive.php/wow/msg.022#139

== LFNS START POINT ==

Some of you may have noticed the fantastic new surface that the parks
authority have laid down on Hyde Park Corner. It's a bit gravelly and
therefore not that much fun to skate on. Give it a few months and most
of the loose stuff will have washed/brushed/worn (delete as
applicable) away. We've been speaking to the nice Parks people to see
if we can encourage them to do less of this kind of thing. For now,
just be careful out there.

Anyway the reason for the spruce up of the area is the fact that the
New Zealand Memorial in London is being opened this Saturday
(Armistice Day) by the Queen and other non skaters. Our Architecture
correspondent Bren thinks it looks quite good - he describes it as "a
load of crosses sticking up out of the ground - much better than the
run down pedestrian subway that used to be there". In true Bren style
he then puts his safety helmet on and gives us some further insight:
"Don't know how one of the crosses got past Health and Safety though,
you could have your eye out with the low one that's at the southern
end". More Architectural musings by Bren in future editions.

                http://www.mch.govt.nz/projects/memorials/london.html
       http://www.mch.govt.nz/projects/memorials/london-media-uk.html


== SANTA SKATE ==

Those nice people at LondonSkate who bring you the Wednesday skate
(provided it's a month without an R in it) say they haven't been out
selling tickets for Santa Skate for the last couple of Fridays and
some people may be wondering what Santa Skate is.

Well, Santa Skate is your annual opportunity to bring a touch of
Christmas cheer to the West End by skating through it dressed as Santa
Claus. Santa costume is obligatory - if you give a tenner to those
nice people from LondonSkate, they'll kit you out; if you bring your
own it's only seven quid. The money raised goes towards running their
skate.

The Santa Skate is on Saturday 16 December. If you haven't ever been
part of a procession of 200 Santas on rollerblades, this is your
chance. If you have, you won't need to be reminded of how much fun it
is. Top tip from last year: bring a belt, unless you want your
trousers to fall down.

Look out for Santa's little helpers selling tickets on Fridays and
Sundays and do book early. You'll cry if you miss out!

                                          http://www.santaskate.com/

== MUSIC: RESPONSE ==

We're auditioning new music mixes for Fridays and Sundays: if you're
interested -

* we need about two hours of music, preferably on a MP3 (or WMA) CD
* Generally we go with fairly mainstream upbeat pop/rock on Sundays,
and something slightly harder and dancier on Fridays.
* The music needs to be mixed (no gaps). For MP3s this means the whole
mix should be done as one (or two) tracks to avoid silent bits.
* Careful with offensive lyrics - especially on Sundays, when there
are often families with children on the skate. If it wouldn't get
daytime Radio 1 airplay, it doesn't get heard on the Stroll either.

If you want to wow(!) us with your DJing talents, bring a CD along on
a Friday or Sunday and talk to the people hanging around the bike
after the skate - we'll take your tunes away and listen to them first,
and then we'll play them if we like them.

If that sounds like a bit too much hassle and you just want a music
request, send it in through the web site feedback form.

                                          http://www.lfns.co.uk/bike.php

== SHAMELESS SELF-CONGRATULATION ==

You might (quite reasonably) not care, but we do: we've just marked
not only the one-year anniversary of the formation of our Marshals
Association but also the six-month anniversary of the Week on Wheels
newsletter. In that year we've designed 85 routes, skated 700 miles,
written 28 newsletters comprising 38000 words, and collectively posted
19000 articles on our internal forum (that last number is scary).

To celebrate this event, we charged one of our resident geeks with
getting all the past issues onto the web -so if you've missed
anything, want to relive the glory days of summer, would like to see
the quite dreadful set of subject line puns all collected together in
one place for the first time, or if you can't quite remember how to
skate up hills or whether wearing lights in the dark is a good idea or
not - now you can go and look.
                                        http://www.lfns.co.uk/wow.php

But specifically if it's the lights you're wondering about, we could
just say "yes" here and now and save you the effort.


== GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT ==

We're finished raging, for this week. Send us your feedback,
suggestions, music requests, tshirt requests, anecdotes, etc (but not
the joke about the foot-high piano player, we've heard it) through the
form on our web site.
                            http://www.lfns.co.uk/feedback.php#contactus

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