Inliner speed vs. Rollerski speed

Nothing to do with slippage. Just a longer area of contact for push off.

Serge wrote:

I am, probably, the only speed skater on this board that doubles as
half-ass skier in winter time (here in California we have 3 months of
snow - in the mountains).

Where do you live? In the eastern Sierra and near Tahoe, snow is usually
at least a six-month affair.

By the way, one of the most advanced skating companies, Millennium skates, is working on
their model roller ski and they already made a 100mm wheel too. Nothing inflatable or
suspension rigged. Just plain, light, reliable, US made roller ski from the best people
in skating business.

Let us know when they come out.

Gene

I am here in the Bay Area. I was exaggerating about 3 months, but 6 is
unusual
luxury too. Remember Royal Gorge 50k in the rain? Was it February?

I will let everybody know about Millennium roller ski.
They have nothing on the website yet. But they are making their own
100mm wheel in $10 range in three PU hardness and carbon hub.
If you are tired of planking down $100 for four wheels hand-poured in
Europe, this is it.

Another thing is that they are getting rid of idiotic bolt/axle/nut
mount
and have Alu. axle, threaded in ski (just like skates).
Since they use CNC on premises, they can custom make ANY length.

If anybody has suggestions, they would listen.

Bob Creasote wrote:



How do I know if I am unconsciously using more of my Cycling muscles but
not my XC muscles?

When coaching modifies my technique, I feel new, untrained mucles
getting taxed and sore. The quick turn over, more side pushing style we
have been practicing this summer has uncovered muscles on the upper and
outer sides of the glutes I had not been using before. . .

(Serge) wrote in message om...
I am, probably, the only speed skater on this board that doubles as
half-ass skier in winter time (here in California we have 3 months of
snow - in the mountains).

Serge,

I think you need to get out of the Bay Area more often. For the past
10 years, I've had my first day of skiing here in the SIERRA NEVADA in
October, and my last day sometime in June. Sure, there are "low" snow
years, and rain sometimes (where DON'T you have winters like that?).
I've raced the California Gold Rush since 1980. It's rained twice on
me. Once was miserable, once was actually a very enjoyable race.

Be careful about making blanket statements about conditions out here,
because people might think it's the truth. The Bay Area has a lot of
great things going for it, but snow conditions outside your door are
not one of them.

Mark

For all you guys, speculating on the subject of speed on skates and roller skis:

The fastest skates on international circuit now are 4x100mm, not 5x76mm.

And another thing to amuse you is that for the lack of good 100mm skating wheels
it all started on roller ski wheels, adopted to skate frames.

Except, of course, Xenan wheels and frames that been running on 100mm since 2000.

"Serge" wrote in message
om...
| For all you guys, speculating on the subject of speed on skates and roller
skis:
|
| The fastest skates on international circuit now are 4x100mm, not 5x76mm.
|
| And another thing to amuse you is that for the lack of good 100mm skating
wheels
| it all started on roller ski wheels, adopted to skate frames.
|
| Except, of course, Xenan wheels and frames that been running on 100mm
since 2000.

While you are correct about the Xenan's history, one could debate the
various merits of the 4 x 100mm vs. 5 x 84mm set-ups....depending on
terrain, surface, and race course.... on a real smooth, hilly, and sharply
cornered course, I'd go with the smaller wheels.... they seem to accelerate,
and climb much easier, and at a higher cadence.
The fastest skates are on the feet of the fastest skaters who are paid well
to wear them, whatever they may be.
Most women I know who once had 100mm set-ups have abandon them for lack of
raw strength to push them, as well as frequent back problems.
If I had to choose one frame to use it would be 5 x 84mm for racing, and
use up my vast supply of 80mm wheels for training.
As I recall the first experiments with 100mm wheels were taken off the
ubiquitous scooter, and the skate wheels evolved from there.
Not sure how this relates to roller skiing, which is far too much work for
me.

ED3

Like Jim, I've been discovering some new soreness on new muscles in my
pursuit of side-pushing.

I'm thinking there's another pitfall for for skaters coming from a bicycling
background. We've heard that skating uses the strong quadriceps muscles
like bicycling. So we expect to quickly become fast skaters.

But there's a prerequisite: The only way to effectively engage the
quadriceps for a strong sideways (or backward) push is from a deeply bent
knee with a strongly flexed ankle. The problem with this position it that
the leg must also apply lots of "isometric" strength to support the weight
of the upper body.

This is completely different from bicycling, where the weight of the upper
body rests on the saddle. And even when the weight is off the saddle, the
amount of knee bend is less than in skating. As Barry Publow says, the best
way to train this isometric deep knee bend capability is with lots of hours
of skating. Since I live in an area with lots of great summer-skating
terrain, using racing-style inline skates makes these deep-knee-bend hours a
very _enjoyable_ part of training.

The other consequence of this pre-requisite is that it's trickier to do
_both_ lots of high-intensity intervals and lots of low-intensity
long-slow-distance of quadriceps-powered skating. Because both have the
same pre-requisite: isometric bearing of upper-body weight. So the desire
to increase training volume of skating can lead to short-changing of optimal
technique form.

Ken

Bob Creasote wrote:

How come? Do the 5 wheels reduce slippage? If the skate is gripping to the
ground with 4 wheels or 5 wheels equally then would this make a difference?
I guess they are not though. I don't know.

If you consider where the maximum friction occures on inlines and skate
rollerskiis
you find that it is when you push of with the maximum angle on your skate to
the ground. With more wheels we limit the wheel deformation in this particular
situation and therefore get more transfer of legpower to forward speed.
Test this, take your rollerskiis and do a hard climb intervall and directly
when you have done it touch the wheels and feal the heat.
Even though most of the heat dissapear down to the asphalt you can feal it in
the wheel also. I can get it on inlines also but it is much lower compared to
rollerskiis.

When rolling straight we have 4-5 wheels that take up the load, so when rolling
over
a hole that are on the ground the load simply moves to the second whee and the
first
wheel flotes in the air until reaching the other side of the hole. With
rollerskiis
the wheel simply falls down into the hole and compresses the rubber in the wheel
and some of the energy converts to heat and the rest bumps back as elastic energy.

Some explanations....

--

Forward in all directions

Janne G

But there's a prerequisite: The only way to effectively engage the
quadriceps for a strong sideways (or backward) push is from a deeply bent
knee with a strongly flexed ankle. The problem with this position it that
the leg must also apply lots of "isometric" strength to support the weight
of the upper body.

I have also found that this makes the weight transfer thing a little harder
too. As you know, I'm no expert but I find that the deep knee bending is
even slower than pushing from the hips.



"Ken Roberts" wrote in message
...
Like Jim, I've been discovering some new soreness on new muscles in my
pursuit of side-pushing.

I'm thinking there's another pitfall for for skaters coming from a
bicycling
background. We've heard that skating uses the strong quadriceps muscles
like bicycling. So we expect to quickly become fast skaters.

But there's a prerequisite: The only way to effectively engage the
quadriceps for a strong sideways (or backward) push is from a deeply bent
knee with a strongly flexed ankle. The problem with this position it that
the leg must also apply lots of "isometric" strength to support the weight
of the upper body.

This is completely different from bicycling, where the weight of the upper
body rests on the saddle. And even when the weight is off the saddle, the
amount of knee bend is less than in skating. As Barry Publow says, the
best
way to train this isometric deep knee bend capability is with lots of
hours
of skating. Since I live in an area with lots of great summer-skating
terrain, using racing-style inline skates makes these deep-knee-bend hours
a
very _enjoyable_ part of training.

The other consequence of this pre-requisite is that it's trickier to do
_both_ lots of high-intensity intervals and lots of low-intensity
long-slow-distance of quadriceps-powered skating. Because both have the
same pre-requisite: isometric bearing of upper-body weight. So the
desire
to increase training volume of skating can lead to short-changing of
optimal
technique form.

Ken