8 Great#

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 23:20:05 +0000

So, I know this is a blog about skating and there's a slippery slope when skaters start talking about bicycles, but I'm going to anyway...

This week on the Friday Night Skate I rode the music bike - that which you can see in the photo on the right. (I note in passing that although the bike or parts of it featured in several photos, the only one that has me in shot is taken from far enough away that you can't identify the rider - I'm obviously just not photogenic enough to feature on the web site). It's a Burrows 8 Freight which carries a seriously hefty box on the back full of amps, batteries, speakers and what-have-you. And actually, it's really good fun.

The box weighs, I am told, about 50kg, and the bike is 20kg or so unloaded, so altogether the total weight with me on it is a bit more than twice what I'm used to lugging up hills, and makes acceleration from a stop not all it could be (stamp down on the pedal and the thing wobbles: it takes about three smooth and careful pedal strokes before you can really get going), but once it's up to speed it's pretty much a breeze, and I was keeping up with the front of the skate on the fast bits. Steering is twitchy at low speeds: fine once you relax a bit and don't try to fight it. I and everyone I know who's tried it thought that this is due to the steep fork angle: Mike Burrows claims otherwise). But overall, was a good cardio workout in better company and with better tunes than a spinning class, and no ankle pain. Also a really good way to warm up the knees (which I think need more of it than I get from skating) and - oh boy - must be about the first time I've used my calf muscles in two years. Starting to feel that now...