On skating and riding

Regular readers may have noticed a progressively greater interest in riding at the expense of skating. This is not a first for me. My first pair of inlines, as I documented earlier, were Rollerblade Lightnings from 1992, I skated until 1994 and lost interest as I found I could cover more ground, faster, on a bike than on skates. (It probably didn't help that 1994 I got my drivers licence and gas was only $0.50/L, compared with $1.25/L today.)

Is the same thing happening now? There is evidence to suggest that history does repeat itself. But I would like to think otherwise, were my worldly possessions at all anthropomorphic, my skates and my bikes would not need to worry about the car, there is nothing glamours or flashy about driving to work, or to the supermarket, sitting in traffic or paying for gas and auto insurance. There is, however, a great deal to be said for riding (or skating) past all of that in my morning commute to the office.

Ultimately I do still see myself as a skater, I just happen to also see myself as a cyclist too, by doing both I can cross train and I suspect, skate better in the long run. Do I see myself doing more skating or riding? I don't know, a few weeks ago I thought the bike would just be something to use when the skates were not an option, now it seems to be the other way around, but the fact is I cannot skate to Burlington, it just is not going to happen, the roads are too rough and it takes too long to get anywhere, whereas I am already dreaming of rides to Grimsby, that said, skating will always have it's place in my life too. I cannot stick my bike under my desk at the office, or toss it in the back seat of a cab on nights when I have to work late.

So ultimately the question, to my way of thinking is, can't I be both a skater and cyclist?

Anyway probably later this evening I will rant about something that sounds positively idiotic, is it in fact more environmentally sound to walk to the corner store or drive there? Jay Brown (no blog or web site.) recently steered me in the direction of a study that really should never have been performed and the results were, bizarre, but more on that later.