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Road skating is the sport of skating (inline skating or quad roller skating) on roads, much like road cycling. It shares much with inline speed skating.
Roadskaters often skate in tight packs, drafting each other and sharing the lead, which allows a pack to travel faster than an individual skater. The individual members of a pack use comparatively less energy than the lone skater traveling at the same speed. Even the lead skater in the pack enjoys an advantage from the drafting skaters behind.
While gliding downhill, an inline skater in a tucked position can achieve speeds that exceed the speed of a tucked cyclist. This is due to lower wind resistance. The rolling resistance is similar for a cyclist and a skater — it is only when actively skating (i.e., in the skating stroke) that the skater incurs greater resistance. Skating is roughly 50% slower than cycling on flat ground.
Skaters routinely achieve downhill speeds of 60 km/h (37 mph), similar to cyclists. Compared to cyclists, though, skaters particularly suffer on uphills, when the drafting advantage disappears.
A skating paceline going down hills may easily achieve speeds faster than a cycling paceline of equal length. The reason is that the road skating paceline has a much more efficient draft effect. The draft effect in road skating is superior for three reasons:
Skating (especially road skating) is much more like cycling than running in terms of the muscles employed. Cyclists and skaters commonly participate in each other's sports as cross-training. Runners often switch to road skating due to injuries associated with the impact of running. Many skiers use road skating for off-season and pre-season conditioning as well. In addition, skating is an excellent cross-training activity for a wide range of other sports due to the lateral (side-to-side) motion involved in the skating stride.
Road skating in a pack has some common rules that most skaters follow. Such rules include skating in single file except when passing or moving into the back of the pack, rotational "pulling" in the front of the pack to shield the rest of the pack from the wind, and signaling about road conditions, hazards and alike to skaters in the back of the pack. Single-file skating in a pack is mostly dictated by the need to minimize the impact of air resistance on the pack, thus shielding from the wind behind the back of the first person who is "pulling" the pack. "Pulling" is associated with up to 30% higher energy exertion; thus, it is generally accepted that skaters rotate through "pulls," allowing for equal energy exertion through the pack. A skater who has finished "pulling" steps out of the pack and slowly moves into the back of the pack. The skater in front of the pack has a better view of the road ahead and points and calls out road hazards (holes, cracks, water puddles, cars, etc.).
Street skating is the practice of roller skating (commonly on inline skates or quad skates) in groups on public roads. Street skates can be formal affairs, with prespecified routes, marshals and, at times, police escorts or ad hoc gatherings of like minded individuals.
There are organized street skates in a number of cities around the world. Some of the largest are in Paris (the 'Pari Roller'), [1] [2] [3] Munich and Berlin. London [4] also has an active street skating scene. LondonSkate [5] runs free events on Wednesday evenings; and a smaller scene can be found in Nottingham.
Such events may involve several hundred participants, so to minimize disruption to other road users the events are usually operated in coordination with the police and other relevant local authorities, such as bus operators. Therefore, the route must be decided in advance. Volunteer marshals help to control traffic at busy junctions. Their goals are to minimize disruption to all road users and to ensure the safety of the skaters.
These events are usually free to enter. Normally, the only requirement is that each individual skater can keep pace with the rest of the group and can turn and stop safely. Participants that don't meet these requirements are usually asked to leave the skate and encouraged to practice their skating skills for a few days and return to the next street skate event.
Wednesday Night Skate NYC is also known as WNS NYC. It’s one of several well-established groups in the city. WNS is run by volunteers since the late 1990s. Every Wednesday from April to October, weather permitting, organizers show up wearing yellow-green vests at the south-side steps of Union Square around 7:45pm. By then a sizable crowd of skaters have already gathered at the steps. At 8pm an organizer gives a brief safety speech and introduces the route planner of the week, the leader of the day, and the sweeper. The leader signals followers to take breaks at pre-designated stops along the route, so that the rest of the group may catch up, with the sweeper being the last person to arrive at each stop. The route circles back to Union Square, where a day’s skating concludes. On average a trip takes 2 hours and covers 12 miles. [6] [7]
A (often abbreviated to FNS) is a group skate occurring on Friday nights, a common night for a street skate in many cities throughout the world. [8] [9] In Vienna (since at least 2011) and Graz (Austria) once in a year – around resp. on Carfree Day, 22 September – one of the 20–25 km long tours runs for a small part on an urban highway. FNS run there weekly, if streets are dry, since 1999 in Vienna as a "political demonstration" by activists of the Green Party, starting at 21:00 partially in dark night and since 2000 in Graz as a sporting event, that has to pay fees to the city and accompanying police, starting at 19:30, reaching dawn only in late August. [10] [11]
A generic name for an event which typically consists of a group of individuals participating in road skating during a night when the moon is in its full phase.
Roller hockey is a form of hockey played on a dry surface using wheeled skates. It can be played with traditional roller skates or with inline skates and use either a ball or puck. Combined, roller hockey is played in nearly 60 countries worldwide.
Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long-track speed skating, short-track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. In the Olympic Games, long-track speed skating is usually referred to as just "speed skating", while short-track speed skating is known as "short track". The International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body of competitive ice sports, refers to long track as "speed skating" and short track as "short track skating". Long track speed skating takes place on a 400m ice track, while short track takes place on a 111m track.
Inline skates are boots with wheels arranged in a single line from front to back, allowing a skater to roll along on these wheels. Inline skates are technically a type of roller skate, but most people associate the term roller skates with quad skates, another type of roller skates with a two-by-two wheel arrangement similar to a car. Quad skates were popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while inline skates became prominent in the late 1980s with the rise of Rollerblade, Inc., and peaked in the late 1990s. The registered trademark Rollerblade has since become a generic trademark due to its popularity. To this day, "rollerblades" continues to be used in everyday language to refer to inline skates.
Critical Mass is a form of direct action in which people travel as a group on bicycles at a set location and time. The idea is for people to group together to make it safe for each other to ride bicycles through their streets, based on the old adage: there's safety in numbers.
Roller skating is the act of travelling on surfaces with roller skates. It is a recreational activity, a sport, and a form of transportation. Roller rinks and skate parks are built for roller skating, though it also takes place on streets, sidewalks, and bike paths.
Inline speed skating is the roller sport of racing on inline skates. The sport may also be called inline racing or speed skating by participants. Although it primarily evolved from racing on traditional roller skates, the sport is similar enough to ice speed skating that many competitors are known to switch between inline and ice speed skating according to the season.
Private transport is the personal or individual use of transportation which are not available for use by the general public, where in theory the user can decide freely on the time and route of transit, using vehicles such as: private car, company car, bicycle, dicycle, self-balancing scooter, motorcycle, scooter, aircraft, boat, snowmobile, carriage, horse, etc., or recreational equipment such as roller skates, inline skates, sailboat, sailplane, skateboard etc.
Inline skating is a multi-disciplinary sport and can refer to a number of activities practiced using inline skates. Inline skates typically have two to five polyurethane wheels depending on the style of practice, arranged in a single line by a metal or plastic frame on the underside of a boot. The in-line design allows for greater speed and maneuverability than traditional roller skates. Following this basic design principle, inline skates can be modified to varying degrees to accommodate niche disciplines.
In a road bicycle race, the peloton is the main group or pack of riders. Riders in a group save energy by riding close to other riders. The reduction in drag is dramatic; riding in the middle of a well-developed group, drag can be reduced by as much as 95%. Exploitation of this potential energy saving leads to complex cooperative and competitive interactions between riders and teams in race tactics. The term is also used to refer to the community of professional cyclists in general.
Drafting or slipstreaming is an aerodynamic technique where two moving objects are aligning in a close group to exploit the lead object's slipstream and thus reduce the overall effect of drag. Especially when high speeds are involved, as in motor racing and cycling, drafting can significantly reduce the paceline's average energy expenditure and can even slightly reduce the energy expenditure of the lead vehicle.
Inline hockey or roller hockey is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and ice hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic puck into their opponent's goal to score points. The sport is a very fast-paced and free-flowing game and is considered a contact sport, but body checking is prohibited. There are five players including the goalkeeper from each team on the rink at a time, while teams normally consist of 16 players. There are professional leagues, one of which is the National Roller Hockey League (NRHL). While it is not a contact sport, there are exceptions, i.e. the NRHL involves fighting.
Artistic roller skating is a competitive sport similar to figure skating but where competitors wear roller skates instead of ice skates. Within artistic roller skating, there are several disciplines:
A team time trial (TTT) is a road bicycle race in which teams of cyclists race against the clock.
This is a glossary of terms and jargon used in cycling, mountain biking, and cycle sport.
A kick scooter is a human-powered street vehicle with a handlebar, deck, and wheels propelled by a rider pushing off the ground with their leg. Today the most common scooters are made of aluminum, titanium, and steel. Some kick scooters made for younger children have 3 to 4 wheels and are made of plastic and do not fold. High-performance kickbikes are also made. A company that had once made the Razor Scooters revitalized the design in the mid-nineties and early two-thousands. Three-wheel models where the frame forks into two decks are known as Y scooters or trikkes.
Roller skiing is an off-snow equivalent to cross-country skiing. Roller skis have wheels on their ends and are used on a hard surface to emulate cross-country skiing. The skiing techniques used are very similar to techniques used in cross-country skiing on snow.
Bicycle rollers are a type of bicycle trainer that make it possible to ride a bicycle indoors without moving forward. However, unlike other types of bicycle trainers, rollers do not attach to the bicycle frame, and the rider must maintain balance on the rollers while training. Bicycle rollers normally consist of three cylinders, drums, or "rollers", on top of which the bicycle rides. A belt connects the middle roller to the front roller, causing the front wheel of the bicycle to spin when the bicycle is pedaled. The spacing of bicycle rollers can usually be adjusted to match the bicycle's wheelbase. Generally, the front roller is adjusted to be slightly ahead of the hub of the front wheel.
Roller sports are sports that use human powered vehicles which use rolling either by gravity or various pushing techniques. Typically ball bearings and polyurethane wheels are used for momentum and traction respectively, and are attached to devices or vehicles that the roller puts his weight on. The international governing body is World Skate.
The World Skate Games are an international biennial multi-sport event, comprising all the world roller sport disciplines as regulated by the World Skate international federation. The games involve 11 World Championships in one multi-sport event.
World Skate is the only governing body in the world for all sports performed on skating wheels. The organisation is the successor of the Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS) founded on 21 April 1924.