South West Skate – 1st - 3rd of May 2004

Saturday

I arrived in Cardiff by train at 12:30, I was met by Alan and Jacqui (two local skaters) and as we made our way to the car park, the rain started. As you can imagine, this wasn’t the most heartening of starts to the event. As I always am after getting to a location, I was keen to get onto wheels and start skating, but unfortunately the weather was in control and it would be an hour until meeting the other skaters and starting the day's skating.

At around 2:00, we arrived outside a local park which was the arranged meeting spot for the day, after a short time the first skaters arrived, followed by the rest a little while later. As we waited for the last of the skaters, we were sheltered from the rain on a wall outside one of the new Welsh parliamentary buildings. After what seemed like eons, the last skaters arrived and we were able to set off for the wet-weather backup location.

The location planned in the event of bad weather was a large school sports hall. The indoor surface looked great and even before all the lights were on, I had begun to strap on my skates. Now might be a good time to add that I haven’t skated in a hall since I was 12, and so, after doing a lap or two, I started trying out some more ambitiously sharp turns and proceeded to fall on my posterior.

After a short while, everyone geared up, we proceeded to test out the surface fully. As seems to be the case when groups are skating indoors, an informal circuit appeared to have formed. Bored with circuit skating, Phil (another local) and myself proceeded to set out a couple of slalom lines down the centre of the hall, in the middle of the circuit. As per my usual over-confidence, my first few runs sent cups flying across the floor and I decided that maybe I needed to warm up a bit more.

It was really interesting to observe the range of skating taking place in the hall, with Rick giving grapevine lessons to several skaters and Eric (a local quad skater) giving some impromptu skate-dance advice. 3 ½ hours passed during which time we entertained ourselves with not only the interesting mix of music, but also such oddities as figure of eight tag (played at one point with four skaters until I managed to crash into a skater coming the other way) and some random hockey (played with a roller hockey stick, a plastic kids toy hockey stick, a tennis ball, several slalom cups and a broom).

Finally we, sweaty and tired, proceeded back to Alan and Jacqui’s for a rest before gearing up yet again for an evening skate around Cardiff. It seemed, based on the reactions of drivers and pedestrians that a group of skaters bombing along the streets was a completely new experience. One fall and several angered drivers later, we neared the city centre. Having never skated Cardiff before, I was pleasantly impressed by the lovely marble type blocks that pave the centre. These were a joy to skate, very smooth and with very few bumps. We stopped midway into the centre for a rest and allow one of the skaters to stow some bags before heading back into what I can only describe as being the primary thoroughfare and proceeding further into the town. We skated through the centre and back onto the roads, heading through the town and into the Cardiff Bay area, heading along paths and cycle paths before stopping for a quick rest. We then headed back into the town via another park and then back towards Alan and Jacqui’s.

Sunday

After a much-needed sleep at Phil’s, and morning of hanging around watching TV, we headed into Weston. We parked on the seafront at 11:45 and geared up while Phil rocked off down the beach in search of a parking attendant. We headed down to the pier (our designated meeting spot) but unfortunately, three of us were too far in front and we fell into confusion, and Nick skated down in the opposite direction and Rick headed back to the car, at one point, the two others must have passed my, because once I had skated back towards the car and then back to the pier, there were a large group of skaters.

All confusion cleared up and after buying ice, rock and candyfloss, we headed through town and onto the cycle paths. We skated around what seemed like a maze of paths, through parks and hosing estates before stopping for a quick lunch and a rest. Several of us didn’t feel like skating any more paths and headed back to the seafront, while the rest hit the trail once more, taking a quick diversion at a local skate park before heading back to the seafront.

We then headed down to the marina type area at the other end of the beech where we set up yet another slalom line down by the water. After about half an hours worth of skating, with a depressing zero cones going in the water, we headed over a causeway which goes across the water, joining two section of marina.

After some more rest, we headed into town for fish and chips before heading to the house of another local skater, Dominique. We eventually realised that we needed to get moving and geared back up for the skate back to the cars. We then preceded back to Phil’s for yet more rest and food. The weather outlook wasn’t good for the Bristol/Bath skate the next day, so Rick, Vlasta, Patrick and Nick decided to head back to London.

Monday

More rest, more TV and more food. In the morning, the outlook was looking doubtful for the skate, but after checking the weather for the day and looking at web cams, we decided to give it a go anyway. We decided that, since we were so tired, we would do the shorter Warmley/Bath route instead and so piled into the car and proceeded to a small car park near the station in Warmley. Due to injury and other circumstance, we only had 4 skaters doing the 18 mile route, Me, Phil, Dave and Mike who had done Saturday and Sunday. Also, we were joined by Markus from London and his girlfriend.

At the time of starting out, the weather was looking hopeful. Unfortunately, as we began along the cycle path, heading towards bath, the large black cloud that had been slowly making its way towards us decided to open up. Fortunately, the rain was light and we eventually broke through it and back into dry weather, only slightly drenched.

We skated all the way along the path to Bath, skating on varied types of path, ranging from smooth sections next to railway lines to twig strewn sections next to a river with cracked tarmac. We stopped when we reached Bath and the path began to change into a gravel track. We sat and rested by the river before setting back along the path.

On the trip back, the skies opened once more, showering us with heavy rain as we made a dash for the convenient shelter of a bridge. Unfortunately, I thought it would be pretty cool to do a 5-meter power slide into the sheltered area and ended up loosing balance and sliding out after 4 meters. Right in front of some cyclists. Bored sitting around, I set up some large rocks as slalom points and passed the time.

Finally the rain stopped and we made our way onwards. We were aiming for the Bird in Hand pub in order to get some lunch and sit down for a while, and me, Phil and Markus seemed to want to earn our meal by doing a good fast skate to get there. We arrived at the pub in about 20mins and slumped down at a table outside the eating area. Unfortunately, the kitchen was closed and while others had sandwiches that were available, I was forced (yeah right) to chose some treacle tart.

Fed and watered, we set of again, after a bit of tarting around in the car park which included Markus doing a great power-slide slope of the car-park and me doing one of my skate-cart-wheels to show off to the patrons. We headed back down the path, stopping briefly at the railway station for ice creams before making a final effort to get back to the car park.

A quick trip back to the station and then 2 hours on the train and I was back in Exmouth, tired and achy, but pleased.

Overall

This was a great weekend; it was really good to meet up with some of the other South West skaters as well as the others who made a special effort to get to the event. The event could have been better, but only if the weather hadn’t let us down.

It’s my sincere hope that we can make this a yearly event and really look forward to doing this again next year. Thanks to everyone who made it possible and to Phil’s mum or putting up with a bunch of skaters taking up the living room for three days.

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