InlineSkateMpls

Just caught this on the Three Rivers Park website:

Trail Resurfacing Scheduled at Elm Creek

Trail resurfacing is scheduled to begin on Monday, August 2 on the north loop of the paved trail system at Elm Creek Park Reserve, between the trailhead parking lot on French Lake Road and Hayden Lake Road. During construction activities, the paved trail segment will be temporarily closed. Construction signage will be in place to alert visitors of the trail closure. Turf trails will remain open during construction.

The scope of resurfacing work includes the application of asphalt slurry, which will improve the surface ride quality and prolong the service life of the trail. As soon as the product is has fully cured, staff will re-open the trail for public use.  Construction is expected to last 7 to 14 days, with an estimated completion date of August 16.

The Friday night 340 meter sprint started on the dry side of approaching thunderstorms.  All skaters strapped on their copper helmets for a little extra juice from the lightening and dished out static electricity shocks.  Herb squeaked like a little girl when Jason Mann gave him a little zap.  Then the horn went off at the same time the rain started.  All skaters bolted across the line as about seven spectators crowded under Andy Uttke’s little umbrella.  The race was fast and wet and everyone finished fully soaked and nobody crashed.

Saturday’s 10K and time trial started under water.  Mike Dez took a slider on the wet spot and did his trademark controlled crash cartwheel over the curb and into the grass, bounced back and got 3:43 and change.

Sunday’s marathon was drier and sunny but hot and muggy.  Cale started the full marathon with the usual announcement of no cross gender drafting, no cross category drafting, but cross-dressing was okay as long as it didn’t cross any category.  Elite waves started at two minute intervals to make sure each category had its own race.  The course was nicely laid out and clearly marked at the turns, even at the goose-poop cobblestone corner.  Incidentally, this is where the always frugal Dave “Hey Brother” Swannie caught his dinner the night before.

The horse you saw on the course was a product of Mike Dez and Ovid.  They had a few beers and drove to Faber College’s administrative building Saturday night.  They pulled the stuffed white horse from dean’s office and crammed it into the SUV, took it to their hotel room, dressed it up with lipstick and nylons, put some skates and a skirt on it and set it on the course over the rumble strips on the frontage road. 

When the race and awards were over John Schulte crawled into his van.  As he did Jeff Bach distracted him by asking about the race while Jason, Mike and Ovid crept up from behind and tied the horse to the trailer hitch.  When they finished they came around to the front and told him to have a safe trip as he drove off.  Someone in Madison caught it on video and you can now see it on You Tube.

Race times don’t appear to be available yet, but overall the weekend saw a lot of racers and well run.  Thanks to Old Man Carvell and crew for putting together a good show.

Preliminary results are at here.

If you look closely through the pictures of the Summer Inline Series this week, Dan Collins was rivaling Elton John for most costume changes in one night.

Thanks for making us smile Dan.

 Full photo gallery

The weather cooperated last night and the Summer Inline Series at the John Rose Oval was a go. Nice mix of regular scratch races and miss and out or points races thrown in.  If you’ve never raced on the track, you should come check it out.  Series Website Link 

Advanced Men’s Pack

Women’s Sprint to the Finish

Ryan Mullery, new youth leader

Top 3 Finishers for SIS #6, July 21st

Youth:
1. Ryan Mullery
2. Matt Larson
3. Kimberly Larson

Fitness:
1. Ben Martin
2. Scott Rohlik

Women:
1. Martha Flynn-Kauth
2. Sarah Oftedahl
3. Rayna Meyer

Advanced Men:
1. Andrew Hanson
2. Greg Miller
3. Paul Meyering

Pro Men:
1. Danny Frederick
2. Ovid Westin

Full Results

Category leaders after Event #6:
Advanced - Andrew Hanson–New Leader
Pro/Elite - Danny Frederick (with Kylie, his Podium girl)
Women - Martha Flynn-Kauth
Fitness - Mike Koeplin (not pictured)
Junior - Ryan Mullery–New Leader

Andy Uttke also came by to spectate while he’s healing from his broken collarbone.  He shared with us the new skinsuit he’ll be sporting once he’s back on his skates.   New skinsuit design

Race conditions were excellent for the Thunder Bay Half Marathon this morning.  The 7:00 am gun was even more challenging for the top 3 finishers.  All had body-clocks reading one hour earlier, due to the time change.  The course is rolling-hills with a beautiful Lake Superior view, to make up for the rude awakening.

The downhill start was a moderate pace to the first cone turn - 2k out.  After the slow-down for this first turn, Randy Plett took the lead and skated hard but failed to drop the lead pack of a dozen skaters.  At about 7k, after one of Randy’s pulls and subsequent transitions to the the back of the dozen… Plett found himself gapped by Jason Mann and myself.  The third skater in the pack had let us go and when Randy realized it, he found himself 30 meters back. 

Plett, back this season after breaking his neck in a crash during bicycle race early last season, put his head down and drove hard to bridge up to us.  (During his recovery, Randy missed his whole inline season last year and only started training again, on ice, November of last year.)

The balance of the race found Plett, Mann and me trading off pulls at a relatively fast pace on the rolling-hills course.  At the finish, it turned out to be a three-abreast sprint, taking up the entire width of the road.  Plett finished first, Jason second  (same chip time as Randy) and me a second back.

The top six finishing times were:

39:07 Randy Plett

39:07 Jason Mann

39:08 John Schulte

41:19 Richard Czaczkowski

41:20 William Field

41:21 Greg Carrigan

Two North Korean mechanical engineers have made an amazing superconductive magnetic breakthrough that will render bearings obsolete for inline skaters.  Mechanical engineers Kim Bo-shat and Tota Ree-yokng of the University of Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang have discovered an anomaly in magnetic conductivity that eliminates the need for the ball bearing as we know it today.

Everything about a bearing today screams resistance and unnecessary weight.  There’s resistance between the bearing and the raceway and between the bearing and the derlin cage.  The dustcovers and derlin cage add unnecessary weight.  The combined package reduces roll time, requires maintenance and suffers from wear and tear.

The new Magnetoglide eliminates the need for bearings, derlin cages, dustcovers and faceplates which means the only thing that can reduce roll time for a skater now is wind, poor road surfaces or a hill.  This breakthrough in magnetic technology is like cylindrical magnetic levitation, but it’s based on an anomaly in the covariant formulation of classical electromagneticism–it creates a hyper-amplified form of paramagnetism and diamagnetism.

These amplified forms of magnetism were applied separately in the lab to the inner and outer rings of ferritic and martensitic stainless steel skate bearings.  In a traditional bearing structure the ball bearing rolls on the raceway and maintains an equidistant space between the inner and outer ring and thus maintains a consistent overall inner and outer diameter.  In the new structure the hyper-amplified magnetic resistance between the inner and outer rings were set to a controlled magnetomotive force to create a field strong enough to support over 2,000 foot pounds of pressure. 

It has been successfully tested laterally, horizontally or diagonally and has maintained a consistent diameter; it is strong enough and durable enough for any skater and venue.  Time trials have shown race time reductions of up to 35% when compared to traditional bearings.  Maintenance is virtually unnecessary. 

Sugob Industries, Inc. has acquired rights to the patent and will begin manufacturing in 2013.  Costs are expected to be 10% to 20% above traditional bearing costs.  For more information go to www.sugob.com/Magnetoglide/issatire/ifyoubelievethis/dontbesogullible.pdf.