Zen and the Art of Speedskating

I was so busy talking with my knowledgeable hosts, Jessica grabbed my camera and took many photos & videos!

So the cinematography is all hers!

I have a massive post now 75% done, explaining what everything is, but I thought it would be fun to do a short video showing the life-cycle of the Viking blade.

The video begins as a Viking blade does, focused on a spool of high quality steel.

After a blade shape is cut, the tube is folded & stamped onto the blade, then the Viking robot takes over (really). Then there is final cleaning, finishing & storage in MASSIVE shelves of clap blades.

Enjoy! Press play to begin the youtube-

Again, a longer, more informative post is on its way, this is just vibe.

If you have purchased a Viking blade in the last 7 years, that robot has worked on your blade. In the shot of me standing among the shelves, I am standing in the section for ONLY the size of blades I use (the longblade, size 40 clap, 17.5 inch blade).

Try to imagine over 100,000 speedskates & blades in one place. This is their warehouse. I was there, and my mind is still reeling from the proximity of that many skates.

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In a country like the USA, where speedskating is a minority sport, almost everyone has an interesting story regarding how they fell in love with ice speedskating.

Last night; over a glass of wine on my front porch, my friend Marco Bucci told me his, and its one of the best I have ever heard:

For my whole life, I had one dream; that dream was to be a college hockey player. I spent 3 years playing for R.I.T & Canton, and it was a terrible experience with inter-team & NCCA politics taking away my playing time.

It was awful to sit on the bench and watch players I was better than get to play simply because they had scholarships and I was a walk-on. I worked so hard, and got crapped on by an ass of a coach.

With a lot of bitterness, I left hockey, and was working a job in my hometown of Plattsburgh N.Y. One night, at midnight, my Uncle Jim knocks on my door with a pair of speedskates in his hand, Jim said:

Marco, the ice on Lake Champlain is PERFECT, we need to go out there, come on!!

Jim, my grandfather, & all the men from my mom’s family were speedskaters. The speedskates he gave me were floppy, awful things from the 1950’s, but when we got out to the ice, IT WAS PERFECT.

The wind was at about 20mph, but there were miles of glass ice lit by a full moon.

We would work hard into the headwind, then turn around and just fly.

I was so excited, I skated right to the edge of the open water, it was incredible! Just huge sweeping turns, listening to the ice crackling & popping.

We skated until 4am, and I was hooked from that night on.

Three weeks later Jim took me up to the oval in Lake Placid, and I spent the rest of that winter skating miles & miles along Scomotion creek and the shores of Lake Champlain.

That following year, in the fall of 1996, with my 40 year old skates in hand, I moved to Lake Placid, I wanted to be a speedskater.

Marco skated Olympic trials in 1998, 2002, and 2006, and now owns his own tile & stonework company in Park City. Between speedskating and hockey, he gave 27 years of his life to the ice.

This is him, during US National Championships, December 2004

In a closet back in Plattsburgh, he still has that 50 year old pair of skates.

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These images are courtesy of Darlene Prois, thanks!

for larger versions (I did a bit of cropping), click on the images for full size originals.

As my body slowly recovers from the damage of a marathon, it’s wonderfully strange to look at the difference between memory & the objective proof of a photo.

Here is one thing my memory still can’t quite wrap around, Knut in his crazy skinsuit & areo fishtail helmet.

It’s worth saying that the skinsuit did not really look like this, as he moved the light was reflected in a constantly changing pattern from it… It was kind of like multi-colored trippy disco-ball. I was behind him during the race for a few moments, it was quite dazzling.

Here was the start; clearly visible is my open-mouthed “holy crap!!” reaction to racing in a big pack again! The eventual winner, Mike, is on the far right, with a very ice looking long track complete extension to his push.

A good view of the course, it rolled & rolled.

The breakaway of 5, working hard.

Grant Foster in Front, Followed by Andy Zak, Mike Anderson, Myself, & Rob Motta hidden behind us.

As I am fond of quoting

“it never gets any easier, you just go faster”
-Greg Lemond

I think the expression on Mike’s face proves this. Remember, when I say he was the “strongest” in the race, that doesn’t mean he did not work incredibly hard while applying this strength.

Here I am leading the breakaway on the hill, I actually wrote about this moment, as I looked up while skating & noticed photgraphers in an open backed minivan.

We must be near the top as I am double pushing. You can actually clearly see that I am “pulling” the legs together like scissors, helping add oomph to the underpush.

Gosh, I am so friggin pale compared to the other guys! At the back of the group is Rob Motta in the blue, he did a ton of leading this day, and it’s only odd chance that the published photos show him in the back!

In marathons, groups of similar ability skaters tend to gather & skate together. Here is a bunch of rec skaters on a nasty hill a mile or two from the finish. You really don’t need expensive equipment & flawless technique to skate a marathon, it’s a very open sport.

I want to end this with a thought to accomplished inliners. If you wonder about who the largest sponsor of big marathons is, it’s folks like this.

The vast majority of attendees at marathons are rec skaters. Their own personal battles & reasons they skate, turned into race entry fees, make these events financially possible. Without them, there would be no outdoor racing worth spit.

Many advanced skaters understand this, but some don’t.

So when you are speaking to an intermediate/rec skater, answer every question about training or equipment, be encouraging, be kind, keep that sparkle in your eye and the memory of all the folks who have helped you in your thoughts, because honestly, you are speaking to one of your sponsors.

The sport will be stronger for it.

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Filed under: from the coffee shop

Sometimes legitimate comments are nuked by the extremely vicious spam-killer I use, so I usually quickly scan through each day’s spam harvest to make sure no legitimate thoughts get eaten.

Spammers often use automated programs that jumble words & sentences together randomly to try and get by the filters. The results can sometimes be amusing.

I thought this was a real comment for a few long moments-

But i will be my hold; Waving and onto the deadly blades
still
flashing lick my body around.

I am 99% sure this is not a real person-

it is a spam-bot writing avant-guard risqué speedskating Haiku!

The world is a very strange place… I thought about this as I did a long powercrank ride… It makes more & more sense the more you ruminate.

waving and onto the deadly blades still flashing… i will be my hold…

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Filed under: from the coffee shop

I’ve been on the road & out of blog-mode, forgive me…..

I’ll try to catch up on the many posts rattling around in my laptop & mind-

To start with, here is the sunset across one of the most beautiful roads I’ve ever known, highway 287 running from Laramie, Wyoming to Fort Collins, Colorado.

And this is looking in the other direction at the same moment:

Why are we such a road trip culture? Is there somehow a massive concentration of “traveler” genetics on this continent distilled from layers of migration upon migration?

But the road trip oozes technology now, it’s not a dangerous Atlantic crossing in a leaky wooden bathtub anymore, it’s not “go west young man” for endless months in a rattly wagon.

Perfect maps, rest stops, and the 200+ foot high windmills rising from remote bluffs on the Utah/Colorado border.

Not just one, but hundreds. In my book, thoughtful Patriotism IS alternative energy like this.

A vast proportion of our media seems devoted to the road trip. What is the “Wizard of Oz” but a road trip movie? Everything surrounding the yellow brick road is in color, and Kansas is dull black and white.

Feeling the diesel roar down the highway, and at the rest stop, a 10 year old sits behind the wheel of a yellow truck as dad and Grandpa talk about the next turn. Does he dream of driving a 30 foot yellow Ryder, hurtling down the highway at 70mph, filled with everything he owns?

Forgive me if my mental radar is set on wide-scan, and is picking up a bit more than just speedkating. A few days ago I had a multi-hour conversation with one of my mentors from the MFA program at Colorado State University.

Bill Tremblay went to Columbia on a football scholarship just like Jack Kerouac did. After a knee injury ended his football days, he turned his considerable intensity to literature & ended up as a widely published writer & English Professor at Colorado State. I’m so lucky our paths crossed, he’s been a huge influence. Not many poets “get” the competitive physical world.

Bill recently retired from decades of teaching at CSU. Just before we parted, he told me he had a dream where a massive football stadium arose in the middle of Fort Collins.

He went in, found a team practicing. He strode up to the coach, said, “put me in, I can still go”

The coach handed him a set of pads, a uniform, & said;

“You can do it, but you must change.”

Changing on many levels. Into a uniform and into a new determination. It’s part of the promise of all competitive sports, and road trips. Experience & change, internal & external, the unavoidable constant.

Maybe that is one of the attractions of doing a small sport like speedskating, road trips are MANDATORY to get to major competitions.. (it’s also the handicap, as it gets nasty expensive).

Sit down with any athlete; ask about memorable road trips, the stories will usually pour out.

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Filed under: from the coffee shop