Rolling along

I do this and cycling, the only stuff the doctor lets me do. 🙁
But, it is absolutely superb for one thing, and that is alpine skiing.
The balance and turning is similar. If you are a [censored] skier, and you are
going for a week of skiing, blade for a few weeks before, it improves your balance and endurance on the skiis no end. It is such a rythmic motion,
long strides/glide and just a beautiful motion. Have not found a great
place to do it in melbourne yet thouhg. See people in St Kilda but I want more of a free way than that.

Claes said:

I do this and cycling, the only stuff the doctor lets me do. 🙁
But, it is absolutely superb for one thing, and that is alpine skiing.
The balance and turning is similar. If you are a [censored] skier, and you are
going for a week of skiing, blade for a few weeks before, it improves your balance and endurance on the skiis no end. It is such a rythmic motion,
long strides/glide and just a beautiful motion. Have not found a great
place to do it in melbourne yet thouhg. See people in St Kilda but I want more of a free way than that.

My favorite spot was the MCG carpark, a good surface and a range of gradients and corners.

The XC skiing crowd favoured Westerfolds Park in Templestowe. Jells park also has its points

Rory W

In article said:

Tamyka Bell said:

As for the foot being under the bent body in skating... it can't push
you forward unless it's behind your CoM. Dem's da rules. 😄

How does a yacht move forward when tacking into the wind?

Equally how does a skate/ski/blade give you forward motion when it is
also moving forward with you? And tuned to have a very low friction
with the surface it is moving on

Recalling my high-school physics, the explanation goes something like
this:
Imagine we have something attached to our feet that
(1) has no friction backwards<->forwards and
(2) infinite friction side-to-side.
e.g. an idealised ice skate, skating ski, or roller blade.

When our feet point forwards, the only *effective* force we can exert is
side-to-side. Because of the no friction backards<->forwards condition
(set in the 1st clause, above), any force forwards or backwards will
have no effect on anything (except that your foot will move back or
forth & you'll likely lose your balance).
This doesn't do much for going forwards.

When our feet point sideways, the only *effective* force we can exert is
backwards or forwards.
This is great for going forwards, but is very uncomfortable.

Now, if we point our feet out sideways at 45 degrees (to pick an easy
number) and push, the effective force on our bodies will push it forward
& sideways at 45 degrees to the way we are facing.
So, half our effort is put into going forwards & half our effort is put
into going sideways.
If we had pushed off with our right foot, we would be going forwards &
off to our left. Sooner or later, we will push off with our left foot,
which will send us forwards & off to our right. And so on.
Someone looking at us, who didn't know what was going on, would see that
we were wobbling from side to side *and* always going forward.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Lots of different things going on to utilise the edge or the sideways
friction to get purchase on the medium compared to running where your
foot is relatively fixed to the ground.
...

Just think about the idealised example, above. Adding other things only
makes it harder to think about.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Rory W

For more information, look up physics, force & vectors.

HTH,

--
K.A. Moylan
Canberra, Australia
Ski Club: http://www.cccsc.asn.au
kamoylan at ozemail dot com dot au

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:19:44 GMT, Euan said (and I quote):

Quoted message said:

Is roller-blading beneficial for cycling? Looks like fun.

Probably, but another option that I like is pumping a skateboard. It's a
pretty hard concept for many people to understand, but you can propel a
skateboard along flat ground simply by turning it, without ever putting
a foot to the ground. I always enjoy it when I overtake a cyclist on
flat ground doing this. Always turns heads.

It's a great workout.

See http://www.pumpyourdeck.com/ for an example.
--
What was I thinking?