skate

Seba 1 Skate Review

I got my Seba 1 skates today, and I couldn’t wait to try them out. After mentally making love to them for a few minutes, I got to work testing them out, and eventually took them for a spin down Kelly Drive, and then over to the Eakin’s Oval parking lot to do some cones. I’m very impressed with the quality and handling of the skates. They’re also very comfortable, which I’m guessing contributes to the fact that they are somewhat of a project to actually get onto your feet.

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My New Skates

just came today… they must be really cutting edge, cause it looks more like a piece of paper than a pair of skates =(

DHL is going to call me back in an hour so i can go pick them up!

UPDATE: The totally awsome DHL guy came back tonight to deliver the skates! They must have sensed my enthusiasm, cause they told me he was done with his route and would bring it tomorrow. I’ll write up a review soon.

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Saturday Night Skate

Denni and I went to NYC this weekend for a quasi-organized saturday night skate with the Union Square Crew. I’d say it was the best group skate I’ve been on so far. First, Dominique and Marie from France showed up, which was a pleasant surprise. This gave us a good balance of slalom and non-slalom skaters. So, Denni and I took turns learning slalom tricks from our french guests, and non-slalom tricks from our new york friends.

The skate consisted of just the right ratio of skating through new york traffic, and then hanging out at good locations to do tricks or relax. And we did lots of relaxing, because it was still hot even at night.

I think a bunch of us are going to visit Dominique and Marie in france some time next summer.

We learned our first 50cm trick too! I guess its called the windshield wiper, or the “X” not sure which.

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New Slalom Skate hits U.S.

K2 has released a new slalom skate called the “Soul Slide Urban Skate.” As far as I know, this is the second urban skate to hit the market in the U.S. including the Twister from Rollerblade.

Good to see that not only is freestyle/slalom growing, but its also growing in the U.S.

I think the skate looks decent, but I’d like to see more skates available with 76mm max wheel size, to get the frame down to 230mm, like my seba 1 skates (they should arrive early next week!) Anyway, at least the frame is shorter than the twister’s frame, which i found to be too long.

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Set up cones, make friends

One thing i’ve noticed is that if you set up cones, skaters will come join you.

I noticed this in Central Park last sunday while skating with the Union Square Crew. We were taking turns skating and relaxing (it was hot!) and I had kept my cones in my bag so far, since no one else there is really into them. After a while i broke them out though, and within 20 minutes, A couple skaters from France came over and added their cones to mine. Marie was really good, and tried to teach me a trick while her father, Dominque, translated. Oh, and she had the Seba 1 skates, which looked even cooler in person. I can’t wait until mine come next week.

I mentioned to Sebastien that I ran into someone from paris in nyc, and he guessed right away that it was Marie. I guess she’s one of his young proteges, then.

Anyway, thanks for joining us guys!

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City Skate with Cones

Just did the landskaters sunday skate, but i brought 7 cones, a tape measure and a piece of chalk (7 was all i could fit in the little camera case I was using).

It made the skate so much more fun to do cones at each stop, and plenty of people were joining in.

Thanks to Doug for making the stops just a bit longer to accommodate the cones. I got really fast at setting up a line of cones too =)

ps: found an even better rain location at 8th and Poplar

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Boston July 4th 2006

So, we went up to Boston on the 4th, as planned. Brodie and everyone we met were very friendly, and open minded enough to try out our “Euro” style slalom. Then when it rained everyone came over to the bridge we had set up under, and skated with us for a few hours, while the 6ft spaced large american cones got rained on.

All in all it was very fun, and we’ll be going back next year, i’m sure. Head over to the videos page to check out videos of all the people we met.

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Going to Boston

I’m heading to Chicopee, MA^[1] today to meet Denni, and we’re going to Boston tomorrow for the annual slalom setup they apparently do there. We’ll report back here after the weekend and let you know if it was worth the trip.

[1] Why do i always go to MA, and Denni never comes to PA…

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Practice Session 2 Video

I’ve spent a few minutes each day since last weekend, combing through all the footage of our session. Its actually a pretty boring job, but i think i’ve put together the best video I could have. Its much more interesting than the last ones i posted with the same trick over and over. This time I made one video for me and denni, and mixed it up according to the music. I didn’t bother putting multiple runs of the same thing in, so it should be more interesting for everyone to watch.

We’ve got three new tricks, as you can tell from Denni’s previous posts: the grapevine, the new thing we’re doing on the cones thats like a cross between grapevine and crazy, and toe-heel snakes. I think we should just focus on these until we can do them fast before learning more.

go on over to the videos section to watch, or go straight to the movie

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Freedom Skate & NYC Skaters

The last freedom skate was pretty good, and my feet are killing me. Met Evan, Alister, Pete, Shawn and Juan from NYC. They’ve got an online forum dedicated to freestyle skating. Seems like a great place to organize times to get together. I’ll definitely be heading up there on some wednesday nights to skate with them.

On a side note, John Franke is back in the Philadelphia area. Even though he wasn’t at the freedom skate, it was great to hear from him over the phone. Congrats to him and Sue on their new baby. Oh and Tom Detwiler showed his face at one of the skates too. Lots of cool people, old and new.

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