Archive for August 2008
Eastbourne Skaters Breakfast Skate - Sk8 M8’s Outing
30/08/2008 by tim.
At last some excellent weather!
We’ve been waiting for something half decent for what seems like years - but it was worth waiting for.
After the usual antics from the usual suspects we managed to make it to the pier.
Plenty of chatting and “resting up” though the pace hardly warrants much rest!
After a slap up breakfast we head back…
And as usual the quaddies are there - trying to prove who’s best
Skating Icons they said…
Well we all managed to register our own opinions!
Much fun was had by all and we finished off with a little tea and Ice Cream…
Well you can never get too much can you? 
Eastbourne Skaters - Sk8 M8’s Skate Treasure Hunt
27/08/2008 by tim.
A small gathering of Sk8 M8’s is drawing up plans for what seems to be a monster skaters treasure hunt, for the tail end of September. The clues and practice runs are happening now and the finished hunt will be ready for the skating public in the Bexhill area pretty soon!
To take part, you just need to turn up on your own or in a team. If you are on your own and want to join a team we’ll sort that out for you once you arrive. Teams of up to 4 people. This is a Prom skate at Bexhill Seafront - which is an absolutely “to die for” surface. We expect the full hunt to take between 2 and 3 hours and anticipate a little “jamming” and “coning” with music to finish off.
Full details in the Sk8school Newsletter due out 1st September. You can also see the Sk8 M8s Event Treasure Hunt Page
Goodwood Roller Marathon
19/08/2008 by rebecca.
On Sunday 10th August, over 300 skaters travelled to the Goodwood motor circuit near Chichester for the Goodwood roller marathon. There were 4 races happening:
The mega race: 26 laps/ 62.92 miles/ 101.26 km
The full marathon: 11 laps/ 26.62 miles/ 42.84 km
The midi race: 5 laps/ 12.10 miles/ 19.47 km
The mini race: 2 laps/ 4.84 miles/ 7.74 km
Having never skated a marathon, I had originally chosen to do the midi race. But, after much persuasion, I entered the full marathon (26.62 miles).
I arrived at Goodwood at 11am, and collected by timing chip and race number. After putting my skates on, I went onto the track to warm up. The first thing that struck me was the wind - it was unbelievably strong!
Just before 12 o’clock, all 300 skaters lined up for the start of the race, with the serious competitors (wearing lycra!) at the front.
At 12pm the race started. The lycra crew sped ahead with the rest of us trailing behind.
After skating out of the start/finish straight, the track turns left. Suddenly I was confronted with a hill. Under normal circumstances this wouldn’t have been a particularly challenging hill, but with 35mph winds against me this hill was not fun. At the top of the hill, where the track turns towards the water stop, the winds were so strong I almost came to a stand-still. A friend of mine said that she started going backwards (and not on purpose!) due to the strength of the wind. The funny thing was, on a circular track I expected that at some point the wind would be behind me making things a bit easier. But it seems that at Goodwood that is not the case. It felt as if the wind was against me the entire way round the track. As time went on, the wind seemed to get stronger.
After a few laps I was really struggling and considering giving up. I had worked out what my average lap time needed to be in order to do the race in my target time, but even my fastest lap was slower than what my average needed to be. But I carried on regardless.
3 hours and 20 minutes later, I finally finished the marathon! The first thing I did was buy myself an ice cream.
A lot of my friends had done the Goodwood marathon before, and a lot of them said that the wind strength made it a lot tougher than before. I’ll blame my slow time on that!
My next marathon experience will be the Berlin Marathon on the 27th September. I’ll have to put in some serious training for that!
Sk8 M8’s London Trip for Eastbourne Skaters
17/08/2008 by tim.
We set off from Eastbourne on Sunday morning - on the 9:55 train. We knew there would be no rail works scheduled because it was Airbourne weekend.
Once we made our way to Hyde Park it was time to put the wheels on and stretch those Eastbourne skaters legs!
We headed off down Serpentine road, looking for a picnic site and it wasn’t long before we’d found one and Sue had managed to decorate herself with most of her tea!
We met quite a few familiar faces on our travels and then headed to the start of the Stroll for 2pm.
The pace was quite comfortable for most of us and the surfaces were tolerable most of the time!
We certainly managed to see the sights!
Some of us decided to view the sights from every conceivable angle!
Once back we all met up for another tour of Serpentine, a final top up of refreshments and then… back to Victoria for the trip home.
A fantastic day out and one we’ll repeat on the next Airbourne weekend.
Another Sk8school Skate Party - a birthday party with a difference.
16/08/2008 by tim.
Another Roller Skate Party for a lucky Birthday girl this afternoon! If you’d like something different for your little ones give us a call from the main website.
The games are designed for all ages and abilities, so we can ensure your kids are worn out!
Eastbourne Skaters take on the Marina route - Sk8 M8’s Breakfast Skate!
16/08/2008 by tim.
Well we publicised we were going to do something different and the route managed to to live up to expectations.
Fears that the Eastbourne Airbourne Show would make travel to the Turning Circle difficult proved unfounded and we managed to get there without any problems at all (leaving took a little longer than usual - but only a few minutes so not too bad at all). As you can see - we even managed to get some push chairs on the Breakfast Skate this time!
video0092.mp4The route promised to show everyone some of the sights that Eastbourne Skaters don’t normally see or even know exist!
Like the fountains!
Various Scuptures
And some seriously good surfaces!
We even had time for some Yacht spotting!
The food was just fine and because it was a little closer than the usual route, we managed to get there quite fast, which was handy as the cafe filled up pretty quickly.
Naturally the “usual suspects”played up. Fogie managed to “get lost” - which is what happens if you lead, but don’t know where you are going! DOH! Of course if you listen to him, he was just hurrying along for a cup of coffee!
On the way back we made sure we took in more of the sights and ended up taking about as long as the usual route.
In the end we had a cup of tea at the Turning Circle Cafe and met up with Fiona and a few other skaters. As you can see Ice Cream was also on the menu!
Chalk up another Sk8 M8’s success - perhaps we’ll have to vary the routes for the Sk8 n Chips Eastbourne Skaters Night Skates for the Sk8 M8’s too!
Eastbourne Skaters Thursday Night Sk8 M8 Skate.
08/08/2008 by tim.
The Thursday night skate followed the usual procedure, meeting up for 7:45 at the Turning Circle
Heading along the Prom, picking up more skaters as we did so.
Strangely, although we’ve over a 100 people on the TXT service and the Sk8 M8’s have been running these regularly for years, we’re still only ever seeing small turn outs! Yet the news letter has 2500 people on it!?
Very odd, especially as we pay for the newsletter posts, so we are very tidy about bounced emails (newsletter delivery).
Anyway… we made it to Holywell and thats where some of us decided to “do the hill”
Doing the Hill involves slogging up the steep side and then rolling the gentle slope all the way into Eastbourne.
The climb is a killer, but the roll is worth it!
After that business as usual, meet up at the Beach for Fish and Chips - Lovely!
See you all for the Airbourne breakfast skate (in the opposite direction to normal!).
Breakfast Skate rescued by the Dotto Train!
02/08/2008 by tim.
Well it started as a bit of a gamble with the weather!
And we made it with no problem to the Holy Well Cafe.
Then the weather closed in, and what started as “sea spray” and low cloud, soon became rain!
Half of us braved the weather and tried the prom.
The other half swallowed their pride and took the Dotto Train back!
Lets hope the Airbourne weekend is better - and remember folks - its the Marina route for the Breakfast skate next time! If you get the TXT event notification reminders - you’ll have no problem!