On The Trail

IN THIS ISSUE...

• Publisher's Message
• Manways and Potholes
• Until Next Time

Publisher's Message

Welcome to the fourth 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 avoid skating over manways and potholes while rolling in residential and/or industrial areas.

Manways and Potholes

Sooner or later on the trails, you'll encounter manways and potholes, especially on roads in residential and/or industrial areas that you need to pass through to get from one section of the trail to the next. In these situations, you need to adjust your skating to compensate. Here's how!

The idea is to avoid skating over a manway or dropping down into a pothole. Getting your wheels stuck can cause an abrupt change in your momentum, which is undesireable as it can cause your upper body to shift rapidly forward or through you out of balance laterally to the right or left.

Always look 20 to 25 feet ahead when you're skating on any road. If you see something that looks suspicious immediately in front of you, use the following steps to quickly alter your path and bypass the potential hazard:

1. Keep your skates parallel to one another.
2. Roll your ankles and put your wheels on their edges to initiate a quick turn to your right or left.
3. After you've moved a couple of feet over to the right or left, rebalance by shifting your weight back over top of your skates until you're pointing straight ahead again.
4. Without doing any strides, glide with both feet together past the manway or pothole. You should have enough momentum to coast right past the hazard.

That's all there is to it! Make a quick change in your path, glide with both feet, and roll past the manway or pothole.

Until Next Time

When you're out rolling on the trails this season keep an eye out for manways and potholes that can sometimes appear out of nowhere in residential and/or industrial areas. Always look 20 to 25 feet ahead. If you spot a manway or pothole, keep your skates together, roll your ankles quickly to your right or left, and glide past the hazard without making any strides.

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