Wednesday Night Skate Blog

Much like when we broke the rules, we decided to go to Brooklyn on our September 16th skate, despite the threat of drizzle. A couple of drops did hit us as we rolled over the wooden planks of the Brooklyn Bridge’s bike & pedestrian path, but it was no big deal. We made it through the entire skate without getting washed out.

The route consisted of entering Brooklyn via the Brooklyn Bridge, then skating around until we reached the Promenade, and then returning home on the always pleasant Manhattan Bridge.

Upon returning to Manhattan, we hit the bar, where tired skaters loaded up on food and relaxed with drinks in hand.

In a group as large as the Wednesday Night Skate, we end up celebrating quite a few birthdays. Sometimes, we’re lucky enough to have a particular member’s birthday fall on a Wednesday, and at the bare minimum we’ll celebrate (and embarrass) that person by singing them “Happy Birthday” at some point during the skate.

On September 9th, a young lady had a birthday, and had a special request for a route: she wanted to go to the South Street Seaport. While we had done that route quite a bit this year, we couldn’t say no to the request, and took the group down the Westside Path, through the Atrium (where we paused to sing to her) and across through Chinatown and Little Italy.

After leaving Little Italy, we headed up to Astor Place. We had a little bit of extra time on our hands, having only skated for about an hour and a half, so we headed to the always-smooth streets of St. Mark’s Place, and then to Thompkins Square Park.

Afterwards, we headed back to the bar, where the real celebration began – with lots of booze and mingling, skater style.

There’s an article on metro.co.uk about gasoline powered skates. Is this a hoax or was this for real?

It’s famous among inline skaters, or at least among Wednesday Night Skaters: it’s what we refer to as The BIG Hill. No, it’s not the hill in Central Park — that’s tame by comparison. The hill on the Central Park loop is a long and arduous, but of relatively shallow incline. What we’re talking about here is the steep incline of the hill on 106th street and Lexington avenue.

The night started out with a roll up Park Avenue, all the way up to 116th street. It was a nice ride with just a few stops — the speed demons of the group burned pavement, while the rest of the skaters glided along the smooth Park Avenue asphalt.

After reaching 116th street, we turned East and skated across to reach Lexington avenue. We suddenly found ourselves the victim of streets that were in the process of being repaved. They were ripped open and unskateable. We had to hop onto the sidewalk — all 50 or so of us, and skate through Harlem on the sidewalks, stared at and occassionally cheered on by residents who rarely have seen a large pack of inline skaters rolling through their neighborhood.

In the distance, skaters could see The BIG Hill looming, preparing themselves for the nearly 35- to 40-degree incline that awaited.

Through sweat, heavy breathing, and burning thigh muscles, The BIG Hill was conquered by all. After a break, we sought out the smooth pavement of 5th avenue, then took a quick tour through Times Square to satisfy the curiousity of a few skaters visiting from Europe. After all the Times Square photographs had been snapped, we returned to 5th avenue to skate home to Union Square, and many skaters packed the bar afterwards, ordering carbohydrate-based replenishment (i.e. beer) and easily-digestable protein (i.e. burgers).