Kronberg, Germany: Hour 10 of 24skate #13


Dear friends and skaters around the world,

this year brought some difficulties for my 24skating. Firstly I was in a town in an area with almost no flat spot and secondly I was invited to a 100th birthday party - the sum of ages of a friendly couple - so I could not leave the event for hours and could not come wearing skate gear. So I took the absolute minimum when it comes to skating with me: A pair of - as the seller called it - "Freeline Skates". They are so free, that you are not even firmly connected with these skates. Each of your feet stands on a small platform and below each platform two skateboard wheels are attached in line. It is a bit like a snakeboard without the snake, i.e. there is no connection between the two platforms.
In case my description is not sparking your imagination enough: Here is a picture of the ensemble.


Kronberg is the small town northwest of Frankfurt in the hill range Taunus. It is crowned by a castle in which the mighty Kronberg knights ruled the area and lived well from the taxes they kept from wealthy nearby Frankfurt. One day, the citizens of Frankfurt became tired of paying so much money, so they tried to get rid of the knights and tried to storm the castle. A big - and even more expensive - failure, because what the knights could do even better than to tax was to fight a battle.
But we were not looking to fight some knights or avoid taxation, we just needed a dry and flat area after a quite wet and showery afternoon. Fortunately we found such a place, even well lit by the moon and some lanterns:


As you could see on the picture above, my daughter has a very relaxed posture on the freeline skates. But now watch this amazing trick: Wave your hands so fast, that your arms become almost invisible:


Okay, I could not fool you: I still need some training to keep my balance on these shaky platforms. With the friendly help of patient columns, which allowed me to push a bit, I almost reached my personal best of continuous 21,372 meters.


Now compare it with the next picture. What/who was faster?



That was easy: From the motion blur at low light conditions you could clearly recognize that I was moving faster than the castle tower in the background ;-)

After half an hour freeline 24skating we called it a day/night and returned to the party, estimating that we covered a total distance of about 1 kilometer.

Best regards
Clemens

History of this page:
30th of June 2016: First version