LONDON FRIDAY NIGHT SKATE TM
& SUNDAY STROLL TM

From: wow /at/ lfns.co.uk
Subject: [wow] Week on Wheels: Safety in Numbers
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:57:42 +0100

This Week, On Wheels

* This week, Last week: Alexandra Palace and Union Street
* Saturday Skate!
* Public Safety Announcements
* Profile View - Alan

== THIS WEEK ==

This weekend we have a special treat for you. Not one, not two but
THREE street skates in London.

=== FRIDAY : ON UNION STREET ===

With temperatures getting somewhere nearer normal, there's no excuse
for slacking this Friday as Lead Marshal Markus promises us an
exciting run and a new look at some old haunts, with a half time
visiting our friends on Union Street! Watch out for the two crossings
through Soho (make some noise!) and the Taxi shortcut through the
Barbican! See you there.
                            http://www.lfns.co.uk/route.php/20060804


=== SATURDAY : TOURIST SKATE ===

For the benefit of foreign skaters in town for the London Inline
Marathon, the LSST (in conjunction with LFNS and LondonSkate marshals)
are conducting a sightseing tour of London, on skates, on Saturday
evening. Meet 5pm Saturday at the usual Sunday Stroll start point, and
bring cameras. Speed will be kept slow (mostly Stroll speed, perhaps
with the occasional fast bit) - none of us want to burn ourselves out
before the race.

If you're tempted by the marathon itself (last chance to enter it at
its current venue) there are apparently still spaces for people who
enter on the day. Please get there at least two hours early to ensure
you have time to register
                                  http://www.londoninlinemarathon.com/

=== SUNDAY : ALLY PALLY (ONE WAY) ===

We're planning a one-way Stroll to Alexandra Palace on Sunday. The
route takes in Camden, Highbury Corner and Highbury Fields, Arsenal
Stadium, Finsbury Park, Crouch Hill and Crouch End before ending at
the People's Palace. It's a long climb but we promise we'll go really
slowly and the views from the top are spectacular. Remember to bring
your shoes and some money to get home.

Nearest public transport back: downhill to Alexandra Palace Station
(Mainline to Kings Cross or Moorgate) or to Wood Green Station
(Piccadilly Line)

                               http://www.lfns.co.uk/route.php/20060806

== LAST WEEK ==

=== ANOTHER FRIDAY ON THE MEAN STREETS ===

On Friday's LFNS, Lead Marshal Edd took us on his choice of the best
surfaces West London has to offer. A relaxed run up through the West
End before we picked up the pace through Little Venice and on to
Notting Hill Gate. Clearly word of Edd's plans to take us down some
nice twisting slopes at high speed had got around and so it wasn't too
long before we had our very own police escort at the back of the
skate. Lots of lovely little runs through deserted mews, some cracking
downhills and a fire engine that needed to cut through the middle of
the skate; in short all the ingredients for a classic LFNS.

=== TO THE TOWER ===

Sunday's Stroll saw another great turnout on a day that was made for
skating. Having narrowly avoided getting roped into the Walk for Life
(yes those other people wearing hi-viz vests who didn't have wheels on
their feet weren't anything to do with us) Lead Marshal Brendan took
us through the City and on to the Tower of London. Lots of nice
surfaces and not too much traffic either.

We then cunningly switched Lead Marshals at Half Time (did you
notice?) and flew through Little Britain (disappointingly no but yeah
but no Vicky Pollards in sight) on through a rather quiet Smithfields
(at least it was until we got there) and back along the Strand. A
large number of first-timers on the Sunday Stroll, so a very warm
welcome to you all and do come back again.


== SPECIAL SAFE SKATING ISSUE ==

Every so often, all the Marshals get together and moan about this or
that. You know - cabbies, late starts, people who don't KEEP
LEFT, Bren - all the little irritations that life sends to try
us. And (because we're a sharing sort of people) we thought we'd take
the chance to share them with you.

=== NO TRICKS, JUST SKATE ===

There have been comments lately (sometimes from people lying on the
ground in a pool of blood) that some of the boys and girls haven't
always been playing nicely. 'Skate tag', tricks and slaloming around
others at speed can all be fun amongst consenting adults but there's a
time and a place and that place isn't a street skate. In particular,
'skate tag' is banned on street skates. Wednesdays, Fridays and
Sundays all feel the same about this.

The skates have many levels of participants, particularly the Sunday
Stroll. Beginner and novice participants see people racing around in
the pack chasing each other and this frightens them. You don't even
have to touch them for them to panic. Lose their balance and
fall. There's a long discussion about this on Serpentine Road. Our
best wishes go out to Suzanne, whose rather nasty accident set us all
thinking about these issues.

             http://www.serpentineroad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19056

We also ask everyone to please pay attention to the marshals. Contrary
to what some people think, we don't run past you for kicks. We get our
kicks on route check where we don't ever ask anyone to keep left. We
do the marshalling because we love street skating and we want as many
people as possible to enjoy this as safely as possible. We need to
pass you because otherwise we can't get ahead to block junctions. And
we ask you to keep left, partly for your own safety and partly because
some of us have been barrelling along on the right and come too close
to an oncoming bus just twenty or thirty more times than we really
wanted to.

Some of you may have noticed the police checking up on the skates
recently. So far, they've admitted we're not breaking the law but now
would be a good time to be on our best behaviour. Your cooperation, as
they say, is much appreciated.


=== THE TIME ACCORDING TO LFNS ===

Skaters have their own clock system, based on fundamental physical
concepts such as time, motion, bearings and how long till last
orders. This has become known as London Skater Time (LST),
which runs approximately 9 minutes and 37 seconds behind BST. And
presently you can see this in effect every Friday, as the skate leaves
Hyde Park Corner a civilised ten to fifteen minutes after the
advertised start time.

It doesn't matter quite as much in the summer, when the weather is
warm and people enjoy chatting to each other before the off, but as
colder weather approaches we will be aiming to leave more nearly on
time, because we're not going to stand around freezing waiting for you
lot to turn up. So don't expect us to be there still if you set your
watch to LST, and please don't use it as an excuse for being late for
work. Blame Tube Time for that.


=== LUX AETERNAE ====

Or at least, lux ad flat batterae. Somewhat dispiritingly but still
utterly predictably (it happens at this time every year) it's starting
to get dark at night again, and skaters should be thinking about
*lights*. Not only does it make for better photos (always important),
but it adds to the safety of the skate - drivers at side roads get
much less antsy when they can see there's something going past behind
the marshal who's standing in front of them. And if you skate home or to
the pub afterwards on your own, being visible is doubly recommended.

Check your local bike shop, who will (if they're any good) sell a
variety of blinky white and red things costing comfortably less than a
tenner. And shop around for watch batteries, if you buy a light that
needs them: jewellers often charge the earth for something simple like
a CR2032 which you could buy for much less in Maplins or Decathlon (or
even less than that if you go mail order and get ten of them).


== PROFILE VIEW - ALAN ==

Alan, who is in his early 60s, is almost certainly our oldest marshal
- unless one of the others has had extensive plastic surgery and lies
horribly about their age!

He took up skating just over 4 years ago; prior to that he had been a
keen runner, having completed the London Marathon four times. He still
does the occasional 10K, but prefers to skate his marathons these
days. He has recently competed in inline marathons in Hamburg, Berlin
(twice), London and Preston. He will, of course, be skating the London
In-line Marathon on Sunday.

He is now retired, but has been variously an actor, ice cream
salesman, motorcycle dispatch rider, civil servant, escort, cleaner,
model, local government officer, exhibition contractor, waiter,
painter and decorator. In his defence he says that most of them were
done when he was an out of work actor. You won't have seen him in
anything; when he was on TV unless you are addicted to black and white
re-runs.

He is "addicted" to skating and recommends it as the ideal form of
exercise for the older person (low impact on the joints).

When he is not skating, Alan volunteers two afternoons a week as a
receptionist at the Waterloo Lighthouse, the south London branch of
the Terrence Higgins Trust (www.tht.org.uk); Britain's leading Aids,
HIV and Sexual Health charity. He finds it almost as rewarding as
skating.


== BE CAREFUL OUT THERE ==

That's it for this week. Remember, most accidents happen in the
home, so we recommend you come skating instead of staying in.
If you have comments or questions about anything here (other
than the dodgy use of statistics in the previous sentence), don't
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