Ice-skating book and video

I ordered a book and video about Swedish long-distance skating from
Nordic Skater:

"http://www.nordicskater.com/books/"

The book is :
STOCKHOLMS SKRIDSKOSEGLARKLUBB 1901-2001 ($40 US), published to mark the
100th year of Sweden's largest skating club, SSSK.

It is 240 pages of stunning pictures and interesting articles (in
Swedish) following the development of long-distance or tour skating in
Sweden.

As the full name implies, SSSK started mainly as a skate-sailing club,
but tour skating soon became the dominant activity. There are lots of
pictures of skate-sailing dating back to the 1890's. It is interesting
that skate-sailing pre-dates windsurfing on liquid water by nearly 100
years!

Membership in SSSK started increasing rapidly in the 1970's and today
is over 10000. Hundreds of new skating clubs have been born because of
SSSK's work in the development of tour-skating.

The video tape ($20 US) is a 30 minute documentary from Swedish TV
about the 1999 Vikingarännet 90 km ice race, plus a 10 minute short on
skating technique. Even if you can't follow the Swedish commentary, the
scenery and background music are stunning. The video shows more than the
race, it shows tour skating in general, including practice in
"plurrning" (falling through the ice and getting out again)!

The original idea was to run the course over the historical 90 km
water route (**) from Uppsala to downtown Stockholm, but a stretch of
thin ice caused the organizers to modify the course to a 90 km loop
starting and ending in Uppsala. In 2003 the race was held on the full
Uppsala to Stockholm course.

** The water routes in eastern Sweden were important trade routes,
both summer and winter, in "Viking" or earlier times. Hence the name
"Viking Run".

An interesting bit is the contrast in clothing, skating style and
philosophy between the 150 or so speedskaters (mostly from Netherlands)
and the 4000 Swedish recreational or "motions" skaters. The racers are clad in
lycra "skin" suits, race the course at 30 km/hr. (winner at 2hr 35 min)
The "laid-back" recreational skaters carry fully equipped rucksacks,
and stop for picnics etc. The slowest took about 9 hours to do the 80
km.

As a side note there are now dozens of "photo galleries" on WWW
with thousands of digital photos of tour-skating.
Examples:
"http://www.bahnhof.se/~robberts/"
"http://www.big.su.se/cyber1/bilder/bildhuv.htm"


Thanks to Jamie Hess for making the book and video available in
North America, and promoting tour-skating here. (Jamie's Vikingarännet
article at :
"http://members.valley.net/~ice/viking/index.html"

--

David Dermott , Wolfville Ridge, Nova Scotia, Canada
email:
WWW pages: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dermott/

OOPS, The distance of the Vikingarännet is "only" 80 km,
not 90 as I wrote. So what's an extra "mil" (nordic mile) ?! :-)

--

David Dermott , Wolfville Ridge, Nova Scotia, Canada
email:
WWW pages: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dermott/

David,

I've thought for a few years that this activity sounds pretty cool.
Thanks for the links to the pictures etc. Wish I could read the text.
For shame, for shame, I'm only second generation Swedish-American.

Anyway, the ice in the pictures mostly looks like it is covered with a
film of liquid water. Some of the close-ups of the ice look like it's
far from smooth. This reminds me a bit of the skating of my youth. I
grew up on the edge of the Columbia river in Washington state, far
behind Grand Coulee Dam. The river would freeze over, and then the Dam
would leak out some water for electric power, and our ice would settle
on the lakebed, and then we would skate up and down the rolling ice,
tripping over some wide cracks at times. It was still cool!

Thanks for sharing.
Erik Brooks,
Seattle, where we never see ice :-(


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Dermott"
To: "Multiple recipients of list NORDIC-SKI"

Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 7:19 AM
Subject: Ice-skating book and video


I ordered a book and video about Swedish long-distance skating
from
Nordic Skater:

"http://www.nordicskater.com/books/"

The book is :
STOCKHOLMS SKRIDSKOSEGLARKLUBB 1901-2001 ($40 US), published to
mark the
100th year of Sweden's largest skating club, SSSK.

It is 240 pages of stunning pictures and interesting articles (in
Swedish) following the development of long-distance or tour skating
in
Sweden.

As the full name implies, SSSK started mainly as a skate-sailing
club,
but tour skating soon became the dominant activity. There are lots
of
pictures of skate-sailing dating back to the 1890's. It is
interesting
that skate-sailing pre-dates windsurfing on liquid water by nearly
100
years!

Membership in SSSK started increasing rapidly in the 1970's and
today
is over 10000. Hundreds of new skating clubs have been born because
of
SSSK's work in the development of tour-skating.

The video tape ($20 US) is a 30 minute documentary from Swedish
TV
about the 1999 Vikingarnnet 90 km ice race, plus a 10 minute short
on
skating technique. Even if you can't follow the Swedish commentary,
the
scenery and background music are stunning. The video shows more than
the
race, it shows tour skating in general, including practice in
"plurrning" (falling through the ice and getting out again)!

The original idea was to run the course over the historical 90 km
water route (**) from Uppsala to downtown Stockholm, but a stretch
of
thin ice caused the organizers to modify the course to a 90 km loop
starting and ending in Uppsala. In 2003 the race was held on the
full
Uppsala to Stockholm course.

** The water routes in eastern Sweden were important trade
routes,
both summer and winter, in "Viking" or earlier times. Hence the name
"Viking Run".

An interesting bit is the contrast in clothing, skating style and
philosophy between the 150 or so speedskaters (mostly from
Netherlands)
and the 4000 Swedish recreational or "motions" skaters. The racers
are clad in
lycra "skin" suits, race the course at 30 km/hr. (winner at 2hr 35
min)
The "laid-back" recreational skaters carry fully equipped rucksacks,
and stop for picnics etc. The slowest took about 9 hours to do the
80
km.

As a side note there are now dozens of "photo galleries" on WWW
with thousands of digital photos of tour-skating.
Examples:
"http://www.bahnhof.se/~robberts/"
"http://www.big.su.se/cyber1/bilder/bildhuv.htm"


Thanks to Jamie Hess for making the book and video available in
North America, and promoting tour-skating here. (Jamie's
Vikingarnnet
article at :
"http://members.valley.net/~ice/viking/index.html"

--

David Dermott , Wolfville Ridge, Nova Scotia, Canada
email:
WWW pages: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dermott/

Sure looks cool, you guys! Man! I love this stuff.

I should publish a translation. If I survive this OYB stuff, it looks
like this will be my angle. Anyone know of any great alt-outdoor Euro
books that should be published in English? If I can sell a couple
thousand of something, I'm game.

Hey, David, I'm going to make a Spark this winter: I think I'll just
screw'n'glue a chair to a set of wide skis. My boy can then grab the
back of the chair and stand on a ski and scoot along. Sound OK? He
might try regular skiing, too, but I think he's still of a mind to not
want to keep track of poles and skis with separate minds. A Spark
seems cool and my chair idea seems like an easy way to make one.

--JP