Blazing Sunday afternoon#

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 12:00:00 +0000

The Stroll was cancelled last Sunday when it became abundantly clear that it wasn't going to stop raining. But look what's on this week

On closer inspection of my boots the other day I noticed that the carbon fibre bit stops at about the height of the ankle lumps, and everything above that (i.e. the bit where it gets narrower again) is actually just leather. Why is this important? Because although carbon fibre doesn't change shape when you stick old rec skate wheels (I knew there would be some reason for keeping them, and I'm just glad it wasn't "you'll need them to get a decent rocker when you want to start doing freestyle slalom", or I could be having them lie around unused for years) into the top of the boot to push the sides apart, leather does. And has. And so has the foam padding, which may be giving me an extra mm or two as well. The right boot got a 76 mm wheel (which actually I am not at all sure why I dont' still have it attached to a skate; there's plenty of meat on that yet) and I am now wearing it without pain despite the bones still being sensitive from Saturday. The left boot got something that looks more like a 72 and isn't yet in the same shape, but I shall give it a day or so and see if that helps. Of course, this could still be another dead end like all the preceding ones, I won't know until I've skated some appreciable distance on them.

Still haven't tried reverse tabbing the right boot, though if I'm going to I ought to do it long enough before Sardinia (two and a half weeks and counting - ulp) to get a feel for it. In the mean time over on the "how deformed am I" channel, I am spending all my idle moments attempting to stand on one foot. Except for periodic brief respites standing on the other foot and wondering why it's so much easier, anyway.