The Amplified Case for Car Free Cycling and Walking Routes

The Amplified Case for Car Free Cycling and Walking Routes

Byrichard

In the near future we may see many more self-driving cars from many different manufacturers. If this is the case then we should think about reducing the number of roads and lanes devoted to cars. As robots drive cars, rather than humans so safety distances no longer need to exist, because every car is talking with every other car, as a swarm.

Traffic Swarms

As I listened to a podcast about drones one of the people said “they write about swarms of drones but these are not swarms, for it to be a swarm each drone should talk with every drone and they should work as a single entity. Given this context I look forward to when we live in a world where cars are programmed to be part of a swarm, rather than individual units. This is because if cars drive themselves, they can be much closer, at a higher speed, whilst still being safe. It means that rather than have two or three lanes of traffic you would have just one, per direction. Imagine a motorway where cars behave as train cars, rather than driven cars.

Fewer Roads – Denser Traffic

If you look at a map of most parts of the world, whether countryside or cities, you will see that there are five or more roads exiting every village. With self driving cars you could reduce the number down to one or two. The other roads could be given over to pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders, skateboarders and rollerbladers. That’s because humans are human, and humans can be predictably irrational.

With self driving cars they just run programmed. This means that traffic can be synchronised to avoid having to stop, or feel any doubt. A machine runs as it is programmed to run, so it should not deviate from its course.

The Need for Machine and Human Separation

Although machines just run as programmed humans do not, whether cycling, walking or other. I do not like the idea of having self-driving cars driving by me with no human at the wheel. it’s bad enough when humans are at the wheel. It would be worse with machines.

Decreased Need for Parking

With a car that drives itself you do not need to have it parked a short walk from where you are. With a self-driving car it can park in a place that is optimal for when you request it to come back, but not in the way of others. At the moment, in summer, with human driven cars, when they are not in use they take up large parking spaces. They also take up pavements and cycling lanes. If cars park themselves then pedestrian lanes and cycling lanes can remain free of cars in summer.

And Finally

I started off with the idea that we should separate self-driving cars from pedestrians and cyclists but came to the conclusion that by having self-driven cars the need for roads will decrease as automated cars can drive along designated routes. Roads that were once used by cars would now be free of them, and they could be dedicated to healthier walking and cycling.

In my view it is a mistake to look at how to get city people out of their cars, because city people don’t need cars. When I lived in London I never felt the need for a car, but I deeply regret that no one encouraged me to get a bike and enjoy London that way. Imagine taking a bike rather than a night bus.

The issue is from villages to towns, and from village to village. Between villages and towns the distance is a kilometre or more, and if you walk over a kilometre on a dangerous road it is unpleasant. With self driving cars you could route traffic along two or three roads, and release the other roads to cyclists and pedestrians. Imagine having a slow up along certain routes every day. In fact you don’t need to imagine it. Via Verde, Voie Verte etc. are old train lines that are now wide spaces where cyclists, pedestrians and other users can be safe from the noise and pollution from cars.

Hugo and Static Files

Hugo and Static Files

Byrichard

Yesterday I was experimenting with the Static folder in Hugo. Hugo and other static site generators has a folder where you can usually put content that you don’t want to have changed. You can add php, css, js and more. By making this an option it is possible to have your blog as markdown files that are updated and published every time you make changes while other files remain intact.

PHP Files

I spent time converting Roman civilisation content to PHP, as well as the geography section. Now that I have invested that time in learning to use PHP in production I don’t want to lose that content by adding it as markdown pages. With PHP and HTML pages I have full creative control on how content looks and behaves.

Legacy Content

Back in the 90s and the Zeros (2000s, but I like saying zeros), we would share photos of an event by creating a gallery and sharing that. These galleries are simple html with a page for each image, and plenty of pages to update and navigate between. These pages can be brought into the 21st century but by parking them in the static folder in Hugo we keep access to them, until we have written the json or other file type to display these photo galleries as a single page app.

Hugo’s Behaviour

There is an explanation of what Hugo does to Static files. When files and folders are added to the static folder they are added to the watch list, if Hugo is running. This means that static content will automatically be updated and available on the local instance.

Static Files and the Public Folder

When you add static files to a Hugo sight Hugo will track changes and show them via the web server but they are not added to the public folder. It is up to us, to make sure that the files that are static are updated and uploaded to the server if and when we make changes to them.

That static files are not added to the publish folder is useful. I was worried that by adding thousands of files to the static folder thousands of files would be uploaded every time I wrote a blog post and published it. This isn’t the case. I do not need to take a break from blogging with Hugo, whilst I experiment with the static part, and prepare a new folder architecture.

Looking Forward

To avoid confusion, as I experiment I put all the static files in a sub-folder. In so doing I avoid the risk of duplicate file names or file names with the same names, but different extensions, confusing Hugo. I aim to keep it clean, until I have decided on what I want to achieve with my experimentation.

And Finally

I have been struggling with Eleventy and Hugo whilst it’s easy to setup one stream of content, it is not easy to have two or more in parallel. For this reason using the Static folder allows me to keep the part that already works, separate from the part that I am still working on. It enables me to put my experiment into production sooner, and to stop going around in circles.

iOS and Environmentalism
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iOS and Environmentalism

Byrichard

If you use the weather app on iOS 17 the weather app provides you with information about average temperature and average precipitation. It tells you how different the temperature and rainfall are, compared to average. Today, for example, I see that the temperature is 4°c warmer than the average. It tells me that usually the temperature is 17°c and that the current outside air temperature is 21°c.

For 25 September the normal temperature range is 5° to 21°, and the average high is 17°, today’s high temperature is 21°.

If I look at the average rainfall I can see that it should be 12.9cm rather than 12.6cm.

Historically the average total precipitation from 26 August to 25 September has been 128.5mm. Today, the total for the last 30 days is 125.6mm.

It also gives us the moon phase, the visibility, humidity and more. The current visibility is 27km. Some day they will tell us what the usual visibility is for this time of year, when they collect enough data.

Making Climate Change Visible

With the new weather app Apple is making climate change visible. We have gone from weather apps that tell us what the weather is and will be to what the weather usually is, and how big the difference is, from the norm. We can look at the temperature and rainfall differences. These are two easy to understand metrics. Within a second we can see that the weather is better or worse than it should be.

Comparing Locations

When you look at Chamonix it is 13°c warmer than it should be for this time of year. It is far out of the usual range for this time of year. The difference is 13°c. It’s 22°c and the average temperature should be 9°c. It’s t-shirt weather in Chamonix.

And Finally

With Big Data and AI it is easy for a company like Apple to look at the weather data from several centuries and comment on it, in relation to current conditions. Once per day it can be refreshed to give the current variation between the norm, and the current situation. By giving people this information it allows people to see how serious climate change is, as well as how it affects them personally.

I no longer have to say “it feels like it never rains” and “it feels too warm for this time of year.” The App provides quantitative data, to prove that the opinion, or sentiment, is correct.

This move makes the Apple Weather App more interesting. The Swiss weather app provides similar information but in the form of blog posts written by humans, every few days.

A Good Run

A Good Run

Byrichard

It’s good to vary between walking, cycling and running. I even threw in skateboarding but I am not confident at that sport yet. The beauty of walking, cycling and running is that these are sports that you can do straight from home, without getting into a car, and without having to put up with other drivers. The one drawback is that dangerous drivers endanger you on every outing, but that’s another topic.

Comfortable

Although I was worried that I would regret running with barefoot shoes, after wearing them for over six hundred kilometres I can say that they were the right choice. The reason for which they were the right choice is that now, rather than run two kilometres before my knees hurt I can run for five kilometres and reach the goal I wanted to achieve. I wanted to be able to run five kilometres comfortably, and I can.

No Extra baggage

For this run I took no backpack, no lumbar bag or any other form of bag. I had my phone, some cars in case, and my house keys. I don’t usually run so light. I didn’t expect rain. I didn’t expect to feel thirsty, and I didn’t expect to need the external battery pack, to recharge the phone. I didn’t even take earphones.

The Route

Originally I was thinking of running the usual route, to avoid being near homicidal car drivers but I noticed that there was a village party, which I didn’t want to run through. I changed my routing and it had me run up a steep road for several hundred meters before turning left and heading down towards the lake, and then turning right along the motorway. That’s not really the point. The point is that I routed it perfectly, so that I stopped running just as I got to a busy road where I sometimes have to wait for cars to pass.

Quiet

It was quiet on this run. I saw one or two walkers and one runner. In a different age, and time, I might have said hello, but in this day and age it is better not to. She was doing interval running, but when she had a rest interval she took the rest part more seriously than I do. When I’m told to rest I walk at full speed. That is my rest pace.

It was busy with dogs and walkers on another route but I always avoid routes where I expect to meet dog walkers. I don’t want dogs to jump on me, and force me to overcome my desire to run away.

And Finally

Running allows you to experience the same route as you would walk, in half the time. It’s a way of enjoying the outdoors, without devoting the same amount of time. I would not replace walking with running, because I like taking the time to walk that route. By walking you can read a lot of audio books, but you also take a break from sitting and being indoors.

By running I am forced to look at where I’m going, as well as to think of how my feet are hitting the ground. I consider the route. Today I surprised a heron that hid behind some trees. It saw me and flew away.

Blogging with VS Code and Hugo

Blogging with VS Code and Hugo

Byrichard

Yesterday I had no inspiration. In the end I did write about something but only after hours of staring at a hypothetical blank page. When I did start writing I used Frontmatter to generate the page but I forgot to open terminal and write the blog post using VIM. I used VSCode and Markdown. Whilst this might sound ordinary to most I did this because I like writing blog posts with VIM as it gets me to learn, over time, how to use it, automatically, rather than by struggling.

Very Fast

I really like blogging with hugo, VIM and VS Code because it’s quick and efficient. With Frontmatter I can create the front matter I need for the Markdown document, and then I can start writing, until inspiration dries up, or I have nothing left to say.

Git, Git FTP and VIM

I then add the blog post to git, type hugo, generate the new page, and then git add all the publish files before going to a second directory and writing git FTP publish. If I wanted to be more of a purist I could do everything from within one or two terminal windows. One terminal window is to keep a live preview of the page, and the second is for git, git ftp and VIM.

The hugo Command and FTP

Although my site is large it is still faster to run hugo, to update and then ftp the site. Although FTP is seen as old fashioned it works well. I did add a safety feature. I created an FTP account just for the blog and I specified the directory. This means that if people do get access to that FTP account they can only change what is within the blog directory, nothing else. I’m applying the “minimum privileges to get things done” principle to keep the site secure.

Slow WordPress

When you go from VSCode, vim and git to keep a site up to date to WordPress Wordpress feels slow and clunky. WordPress requires you to be online, to navigate to the right page, and the create content, before eventually saving, and checking that it works. The 26 seconds that it takes to generate the latest page and associated pages still feels faster than WordPress.

And Finally

The beauty of using Hugo rather than WordPress is that it’s fast. It’s almost instant to navigate to all pages. The let down is that you do need to spend some time reading the fantastic manuals to learn how to do specific things. With WordPress it’s built in and simplified.

YouTube and AI

YouTube and AI

Byrichard

According to a recent article YouTube will use AI to direct the content that people make, how it looks how it sounds and more. In so doing YouTube will be even less interesting.

AI tools will also begin informing what kind of content creators make. A new AI feature in YouTube Studio will generate topic ideas and outlines for potential videos. The AI suggestions will be personalized to individual creators, YouTube says, and based on what’s already trending with audiences. Additionally, an AI-powered music recommendation system will take a written description of a creator’s video and suggest audio to use.

Human Interest

The beauty of YouTube, back in the day is that it was user generated content. People would go out, live their lives, film something interesting and then choose to share that on YouTube, whether it was a bird flying in an interesting place, a swollen river, and more.

Clickbait and Uniform

The problem with YouTube, with algorithms is evident enough. The videos have clickbait descriptions with absurd images and the videos that are promoted are those with hundreds of thousands, or even millions of views. With AI chosen topics, AI generated backgrounds and AI chosen music everything will become as formulaic as the Hollywood film industry. Nothing will be unique and creative. Everything will be uniform.

Personal Content

The entire reason for using YouTube was to find original content created by individuals. With the imposition of AI driven content so the originality and imagination will take a back seat.

He said that YouTube creators have expressed that editing and brainstorming can often be time-consuming. The tools were developed to assist with these tasks.

source

That’s the entire point. I spend hours trying to think of a topic blog post, and then I spend yet more time writing. With video it’s the same thing. We think of a subject, we shoot the material, and then we spend time thinking about how to edit the video so that it’s interesting.

Creativity Takes Time

It’s time consuming because it’s creative, because it’s artistic. It’s time consuming because it’s about learning to think for the edit. The more experience you have as an editor, the faster you become. That time consuming moment is about learning to be creative. If AI replaces the thought process then, with time, all content on YouTube will be boring and unimaginative.

Bland Uniform Content

To some degree it already is, which is why I stopped paying for Premium and reverted to conventional video content sources. Television shows, films and more. YouTube forces us to see specific content, and makes it impossible to browse. They did it for viewers, and now they are doing it for viewers.

It is not that I don’t like AI. It’s that I don’t like AI to replace imagination and the decision making process of content producers. It goes back to my old question. If you can’t be bothered investing the time to create content and find new ideas, then why should others take time to watch that same content?

The Mountainous Levelling

In a cnn article Neal Mohan said, “We want to make it easier for everyone to feel like they can create, and we believe generative AI will make that possible,” which, in theory is fantastic, except that when you login to YouTube to see videos you see content with millions, or at least tens of thousands of views. You don’t see video content with 15 views, or even zero views. You see the content that is already popular, either because of algorithms, or large subscription numbers.
Those ordinary people, for whom the field has been levelled, is now even more uneven, because videos with millions of views will be shown to everyone, and so become more popular, whilst other videos will have five views. The algorithms don’t allow us to find niche content, like they should.

The Cult of the Amateur

One of my personal gripes with YouTube, TikTok and other platforms is that they encourage amateur producers with no film and television theory, to create content, seen by millions of people. Back in 2007 or so I joked that it was User Generated Crap, and I still feel that way today. Rather than worthwhile content we’re encouraged to watch dull content.

As the film and television industries have been drained of funds they have been replaced by amateurs creating content for online platforms. People who love music hate auto-tune because it allowed people who never learned to sing to be seen as singers, and so music has degraded over time. The same is true of youtuber, TikTokker and other content. The rules and conventions that made film and television art forms, have been undercut for mediocre modern videos. What was once seen as crap, is now seen as good, and those that want to create legacy content are forced to create clickbait rubbish.

And Finally

I went from potentially watching several hours of YouTube content a day to watching a few minutes every few weeks. I grew tired of the clickbait headlines, and mediocre content that the promoted accounts produced. I found myself thinking “Why am I watching this rubbish” and eventually stopped.

If AI generates topics, video backgrounds, chooses music and recommends what to watch then we have lost the freedom to find and watch spontaneous content and ideas.

Static Web Generators and CMSes

Static Web Generators and CMSes

Byrichard

For weeks, or even months, by now I have been playing/experimenting with Hugo, 11ty and other solutions. I really like that with Hugo I can use FrontMatter as a CMS to create new posts, add the appropriate meta data, and keep track of what is published and what is in draft form. It allows me to create posts with the right metadata in seconds, rather than having to write the date, time, draft status and more by hand. It also generates the right file title for good archival practices.

Decap CMS

As I was looking for a CMS tool to make managing 11ty content easier I came across Decap CMS and it seemed interesting. I installed a version locally, and then I started to look at the code manually, rather than using the CMS tool. It felt complicated so I did some more research. Eventually I learned that in order to play with Decap CMS you need to setup a netlify account, a github account and then expose yourself to accidental charges when playing with a static website generator. I was struck by the paradox. Why would you use a CMS tool that requires you to commit to an external hosting tool? Why not use ClassicPress or WordPress and cut out the middle man. Of course the short answer is “because you still generate a static tool, but the interface is intuitive for non coders.

Yet Another Service

By requiring us to set things up via Netlify we’re forced to use yet another service, which is fine, when you’re using the service in the first place. I am not.

FrontMatter.Code

Within a few minutes frontmatter.codes could be setup locally do do what I want, to manage documents and frontmatter for an 11ty site. In so doing I keep development on the local machine, only connecting to the external server when I’m uploading site changes. I can use the same workflow as I have for Hugo, once I set it up.

ClassicPress and WordPress

It’s easier, for me to setup a ClassicPress or WordPress CMS and use that. ClassicPress feels very fast and I can use markdown or html for pages that I am creating, or that already exist. Within a short amount of time I can do what Decap CMS does, anywhere I want.

For WordPress you can use this method/tutorial or with the free playground option. Within seconds you can have a wordpress instance running on azure, up and ready for a new site and content.

In particular, while App Service F1 will not generate any cost, database usage is chargeable for “pay as you go” plans or when the usage limit of 750 hours per month for 12 months is exceeded. So, in order to ensure they will not pay for the WordPress playground, developers should monitor and track their database usage.

With this tool a wordpress instance is prepared for you, and for a month you can see what the cost would be, before jumping into a financial commitment.

And Finally

If I am experimenting with a Static website generator like Hugo or 11ty I want to have local versions to play with, rather than remote ones that may cost something if I am not careful. If I’m reading it correctly the basic plan I’m experimenting with is 3 CHF per month for a server in Northern Switzerland. With this “playground” I have the opportunity to experiment, and see whether that is the case.

The testing options are cheap, but for production Azure and other cloud solutions are expensive, which is why we use other cloud solutions, especially for personal sites. I will spend time experimenting with Frontmatter, set up for 11ty, following this learning experience.

The Luxury of Walking Paths Away From Cars
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The Luxury of Walking Paths Away From Cars

Byrichard

I love to walk and cycle every day. I love to walk from home and not touch the car. This morning I refuelled the car and it cost 90 CHF for 44 litres or so. Every single time I refuel the car I get a shock. Petrol is expensive, and yet people drive every day.

Usually I go for five days per week without touching the car. I walk from home and back. This saves on driving time, parking and petrol. I come up against a clear frustration.

The Need for Foot Paths and Cycling Lanes

When I drive by some communes and villages, for example between Gingins and Cheserex, or between Reverolle and Hautemorges I see a wide pedestrian band where people can walk, far from cars. Imagine the luxury of walking two or three meters away from a road, rather than in the wet, muddy grass.

Consistently Endangered

Yesterday on a stretch of road that is no more than 700 meters long I had three, not one, not two, but three cars that drove too fast, and too close. They did this without needing to. If a car is coming towards them, and they can’t avoid me, then I will walk into the grass, because there is no choice in the matter.

Veiled Threats

Yesterday, a nun, I believe, a white van driver, and a third person drove too fast, too close, without driving to the other side of the road as they passed me. European law says that people must give one and a half meters between cars and cyclists, but also, by empathy, with pedestrians. These people don’t. They just drive on top of you. They want to scare you off the road, and it worked. I did step into the mud when one homicidal person endangered my life.

Give Space and Slow Down

When I drive I always treat pedestrians and cyclists as I would like to be treated. I give them one and a half meters, as required by law, but I also slow down to a humane speed, as I pass them. I don’t want to intimidate people. I want to show empathy. The more people walk, the fewer cars are around, and with fewer cars, so traffic decreases.

Overtraining

I have been frustrated with how cars behave around pedestrians and cyclists for years, so it can’t just be fatigue and overtraining. I still think that fatigue and over-training play a role. If I was less fatigued, if I was going for shorter walks, then the selfish behaviour by car drivers wouldn’t be so toxic. Of course it’s not just physical fatigue.

Exposure Toxicity

Often when I hear a car I go half a meter to a meter into the grass, or even muddy fields, to give space for cars to pass. They thank me but I very often want to flip them the bird. I’m not giving them space, out of empathy. I’m giving them space because I am tired of having cars driving too fast too close, on agricultural roads. It’s not that these people are fast on main roads. They’re fast on agricultural roads, where cars should not be. There is nowhere you can walk, in Switzerland without escaping from cars.

A Desire For More Paths Away From Roads

There are two awful roads, for pedestrians. On one road there is plenty of space to walk, but rather than place a walking path they put bushes, to stop people from walking. This forces people to walk on a busy road where people are driving above the speed limit. If you walk on the foot path you have your back to the homicidal drivers.

On the other road there is plenty of space where a foot path could be added, for pedestrians to walk comfortable between two villages, without being exposed to homicidal car drivers. Yesterday on one bit of road three cars in a row drove too fast, and too close. If I slipped and fell, or fainted, they would run me over.

I saw a woman walking down that road with a pram yesterday. There should be safe options for people walking between villages.

Invest in Walking and Cycling

With a small investment farmers could make walking between villages more pleasant. We could walk away from busy roads and farmers could benefit financially from turning a metre wide band of land into a walking path for pedestrians and cyclists. The space is there, if only someone had the vision.

And Finally

The walks around where I live are nice, but there are two roads that feel really dangerous, especially when the grass is long, and after a few hours of heavy rain. It’s unpleasant to walk half a meter from where people are driving at 80 kilometres an hour. It might not be intimidating for the cars, but it is for pedestrians. I want car drivers to be aware that they can drive more empathetically.

The Case for Reverting to Web Forums

The Case for Reverting to Web Forums

Byrichard

There is a case for reverting to web forums. Web forums are small communities of like minded people that form around topics, ideas, or ideals. They want to have conversations where you look at topics and sub topics, rather than following people. By having conversations on a smaller scale there is more waiting around for answers, but the connections should be more worthwhile.

Recently the ActivityPub plugin for Wordpress jumped to version 1.0.0 from version 0.0.something. In so doing I expected to find that two way conversations would be possible from wordpress to the Fediverse, and back from the Fediverse to WordPress and ClassicPRess.

That isn’t the case. Much Ado about Nothing. I really thought that the experience would have bounded to be a full-fledged solution.

Facebook and Twitter

When they were new Facebook and Twitter were great. Twitter was great because it was a community of strangers who had deep conversations online, so that when they met in person they felt like old friends. With hashtags, and the desire to have more followers people lost track of conversations, and so it became an impersonal popularity contest.

With Facebook we had a community of university friends that we got along with, in person, that reconnected with online, to share images, events and more. At the time this was great. The problem occurred when we went from conversing with friends, to playing Zynga, because after that Facebook became a place to waste time, through no fault of our own. It was designed to become a waste of time, to keep us active.

The Fediverse

For a few weeks, or even a few months I felt that the fediverse had a lot to offer. Eventually I saw that all the problems that I saw with Twitter were also present on the Fediverse. People wanted to be followed by millions, they wanted lists, and they wanted hashtags. I also felt quite a bit of aggression, trolling, and people with baggage. I deleted myself from several Fediverse instances because I didn’t feel that they were healthy places to be.

Enter phpBB.

phpBB is one of the oldest parts of the social web. phpBB boards have been around since the 90s but as we got used to Twitter, FaceBook, Myspace and other sites we forgot about the smaller, interest based communities. I don’t want to invest thousands of hours in a twitter clone. I went to become part of an online community that is small, but convivial. Setting up a web forum is easy. It’s finding a community that is challenging. That’s the challenge I face.

My Ideal

My ideal is to find an online community that is local, to chat with online, before meeting in person on a regular basis. I should be able to find that through a sporty community, like I had for years, before the current doldrums.

And Finally

One of the weaknesses of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other online communities is that we follow people, rather than topcics and ideas. Of course we can follow “hasthags” but for me this is awful because it helps people spam, and distracts people from having conversations around ideas. By following people, rather than threads of conversation we’re on an open web of noise. With web forums we revert to a quieter social network where we wait for answers. in theory we can ask for notifications, rather than waiting.

I think that reverting to web forums is a good idea, because it allows us to re-build communities on a personal scale.

For now I am trying My Friends Misfits

A Skateboarding Journey

A Skateboarding Journey

Byrichard

When I was younger I switched from skiing to snowboarding and I loved the sensations. I loved how quickly I adapted my skiing knowledge to snowboarding. Within hours I felt okay. I often feel that I could have progressed faster if I had been in a group with people who were just experiencing winter sports for the first time.

When I was a child I sometimes played with a skateboard but I just went up and down a street. We played as children do.

For a while I thought that I would take off rollerblading instead of walking or cycling. Within a short amount of time I came up against the fact that I live in a hilly place with cars that do not respect pedestrians, cyclists or other slow moving people. As a result of this I lost interest in skating, but was attracted by the notion of skateboarding.

Two Shoes

The beauty of the skateboard is that you have four wheels, that allow you to go faster, when the surface is right, but when it isn’t you just step, or stumble, off of the board, and you walk until it is friendly for the skateboard again. It allows you to go faster than a walker, when the conditions are right, and walk when they’re not. It gives you the best of both worlds.

Finding Balance

For the first two or three hundred meters I really struggled with giving the board direction, but also with balancing. It would veer to the right when I wanted to go to the left. Eventually I found a slight decline and that’s when I practiced riding the board, and reacquainting myself with the feel of skateboarding. Eventually balancing switched back from the front of my focus, to instinct, and that’s when I could begin to control the board, and get it to do what I wanted again. I was a little surprised by how quickly I remembered the right habits.

Switching from Snoarboading to Skating

Taking snowboarding knowledge and applying it to skating is easy. I was surprised that within an eleven kilometre loop I felt more comfortable. I carried the board more than I rode it but that’s because the slopes are steep and I’m not used to the sensations yet, but also because the steep slopes are roads, with cars. By pushing my ability too fast I could endanger myself, especially near roads. I practiced on agricultural roads where traffic is at a minimum. If bikes or pedestrians were walking I reverted to walking. It’s about being safe, and in control.

Purpose

I was going to say that I want to learn to skateboard again because it’s faster than walking. It is faster than walking but that’s not the only benefit. Skateboarding is exertional. It requires the use of different leg muscles and it’s a proper workout, rather than just walking. For up hill bits, downhills, and rough terrain I will continue to walk, but where the terrain is flat enough, and traffic is low enough, I can skate. By mixing the two I will be practicing interval training, without it being called interval training. With experience going to the train station and back, and going to the shops and back, will be faster.

And Finally

Skateboards are easy to transport, whether by car, by train, or even by foot. Theoretically you can always have it with you, for when opportunities present themselves. I’m happy that I felt comfortable within an hour or two of riding, even if most of that time was walking to a comfortable location.

They say that things are like riding a bike. I think that skateboarding is like snowboarding. It doesn’t take long to remember how to do it.