Tuesday Night Skate (October 2nd).
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| Preparing for the skate |
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| Crespo & Mirjam |
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| take a rest |
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| Mirjam, Rosa |
The Tuesday Night Skate The Tuesday Night skate was
really great. This time I had my new K2 MOD 10 skates on. These are much more stable than
my old K2 Flight 76 which became very wobbly at speeds above 50km/h due to the plastice
frame. The MOD 10 has an aluminum extended frame. The standard wheels (4 on each skate)
were to hard (84A) for city skating. So I exchanged them for 80A durometer.
At first I thought I missed the group because I arrived at
22:05 at Catalunya Plaza and a few skaters told me the group already left. I was
astonished, because these guys were never on time! (it's usually "Spanish time",
you know). So I raced in the direction pointed out to me and soon I catched up with a
group of skaters. But this group was so slow and I didn't recognized any body from last
year, so it had to be another group. I headed back to Catalunya Plaza to find the real
Tuesday Night skaters just arriving one after another. We started the skate at about
10:40.
As usual it's a small group of experienced inline skaters
a.o. Miriam, Rosa, Javier (2x), Benja, Mario and also Crespo from the Sevilla night skate.
Again I enjoyed this skate a lot. Small group, uphill skating, stairs, socializing and
speeding downhill in the dark (also in the wrong direction of narrow one-way streets!
oops). We even did some "off-the-road" skating in narrow alleys. While racing
down one of the slope in the city, Crespo, the skater from Sevilla hit the breaks and
shouted to stop. We all rushed in a small street, because a police car was ahead. They
don't like this type of sports out on the street. :-)
Don't even think in participating if you have no downhill
experience, or aren't fit enough. It's for experienced skaters only. For some routes see
the website of Benja (If you understand Catalan :-)
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Skate-A-Round arrival.
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| Martijn and me in the Baja Beach club. |
Skate-A-Round arrival On Wednesday the rest of the
Skate-A-Round group arrived. Lex had arranged for a group dinner at the Baja Beach Club
accompanied by some skate video's on a big screen. After the introduction of the
Skate-A-Round staff and the program for the next days the group set off for an evening
skate. Together with Martijn i left the group for some outrageous street skating. Like a
bullet through the traffic :-) And racing downhill through narrow streets, cool :-) |
Tibidabo skate.
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| Winding Carrer de Sant Cugat the
Tibidabo. |
Finally, I skated the Tibidabo. This is the mountain at
the West side of Barcelona with the Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor and the television
tower on top of it. You can't miss it when you look to the West from anywhere in the city.
This is for very experienced skaters only!!! The mountain is 517 meters high. Montjuïc at
the south of the city is only 213 meters high that is: at the castle. Most of the group
skates pass at the Olympic Stadium at about 120 meters altitude and if that was heavy
stuff for you, don't even think about the Tibidabo. (Dutch skaters usually don't have
experience with skating downhill, that's why all the warnings are here :-)
I skated through the the city from the Ramblas via Placa de
Catalunya, Ramblas de Catalunya, Carrer Gran de Gracia, Avinguda de L'Hospital Militar, to
Ronda de Dali (the motorway around the city). At the other side of this motorway look for
the Carrer de Sant Cugat this is the road that will lead you into the mountains. Half way
there is a gas station were you can buy softdrinks and energy stuff. It is a winding road
with hairpins and you will have some nice views at the Barcelona. Don't forget to follow
the sign to the left at intersection with the Carrer de A Vista Rica. On this road I took
the picture from the cathedral. I wasn't looking to happy because one of several barking
dogs escaped from behind a fence and came running at me. Made me skate a bit quicker :-)
Next take the Vallvidrera al Tibidabo and you will reach the top. Of
course, if you don't like the 6km of uphill skating, you could also consider the Funicular
da Tibidabo, (a tramway) :-)
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| The first of th 6km climb. |
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| Watch out for dogs at this spot! |
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| The television tower. |
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| On top of the Tibidabo. |
I took the same road down, because the other smaller
roads are unfamiliar to me and were probably still wet from the rain at night, because
these run through the forest. It's a popular place for cyclist to exercise! Next time I
will explore these smaller routes as well as the road to the other mountain (Vallvidrera).
In October the small lunapark on top of the Tibidabo is closed on weekdays, so there is
not so much traffic. The road is quit wide at most places, so cars can pass you easily.I
don't know how busy the traffic will be at rushhours. But it's the main road accross the
mountain, so mind the cars.
Going down is a sensation, 6kms long (4miles)! At some stages
the slope is less and you have to skate to maintain high speed. Since I was alone I didn't
take to much risk at the hairpins. If you flip over the border, it may take a while before
they find you.
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View on Barcelona from the Tibidabo. At the
left the Twin Towers, at the right Montjuïc. Alas it was a bit cloudy.
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