On The Trail

IN THIS ISSUE...

• Publisher's Message
• Turning on Steep Hills
• Advertisement
• Until Next Time

Publisher's Message

Welcome to the third issue of On The Trail! The Inline Skating Center will publish ten issues of the newsletter from now until the end of September covering a wide range of topics about inline skating on marked trails.

In today's issue, we're going to introduce a tactic you can use to slow yourself down when you encounter a steep hill on the trail, but this time without applying your brake.

Turning on Steep Hills

Let’s borrow a maneuver from alpine skiing called the short- radius parallel turn and adapt it to inline skating. A tight, turn radius is ideal for skating on steeper hills and around sharp bends in the trail.

You can use the short turn as a means of controlling your speed and slowing yourself down, if and when you need to on steeper, narrower trails. Specifically, you need to be able to link several, short-radius, parallel turns together in a controlled, rhythmic manner.

Locate an uncrowded trail that has a number of hills with a steeper pitch. The slope should be about 30 degrees. Ideally, the trail should be about 8 to 10 feet wide, at least to start. This gives you ample room on either side to complete your turns.

To link several short turns together on a steeper hill:

1. Move to a standing position at the top of the hill.
2. Let your skates start off by themselves. You don't want to generate too much speed off the top.
3. Go into a regular stance with both skates parallel and about 3 inches apart.
4. Tilt the outside edges of the wheels of your right skate on edge followed by the inside edges of the wheels of your left skate.
5. Turn sharply to your right by placing more pressure on the outside edges of your right skate. Keep both skates together and firmly on the ground during each turn.
6. When you begin to travel uphill, roll your ankles and shift your weight to the other side to initiate a turn to the left.
7. Tilt the outside edges of the wheels of your left skate on edge followed by the inside edges of the wheels of your right skate.
8. Turn sharply to your left by placing more pressure on the outside edges of your left skate.
9. When you begin to travel uphill, roll your ankles and transfer your weight across your body to initiate the next turn to the right.
10. Continue to link short turns all the way down the hill.

The uphill travel at the end of each turn forces you to decelerate. If employed properly, you can maintain a near constant speed as you skate down the hill, even on the steepest of hills. In effect, you’ve taken the steepness right out of the picture. Make sure the length of your uphill travel at the end of each turn is appreciable, since this is the mechanism for controlling your speed.

The distance your skates are held apart during the maneuver is very important. Here, we’re calling for a skate-to-skate distance of only 3 inches. The reason for this short of a distance is because you need to make quicker, shorter turns in this situation so you don’t run out of trail as you initiate your next turn to the left or right. The closer your skates are to one another, the tighter the turns you can make.

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Fortunately, there is a stopgap measure you can employ to remove the moisture. The Inline Skating Center has recently published a Basic Maintenance lesson, which has a section that deals with the special circumstance of what to do after a day of skating in wet conditions.

To find out more about this lesson, click below:


Skate Maintenance

Until Next Time

When out rolling on the trails this season be aware of hills and quick changes in terrain. Right from the top apply a number of aggressive, short-radius, parallel turns in rapid succession to maintain a near constant speed all the way down the hill.

In the next issue, we'll look at a tip and a tactic you can use when you encounter slow pedestrians on the trail.