skatingforums
On the Ice => Sitting on the Boards Rink Side => Topic started by: twinskaters on January 11, 2015, 07:26:09 AM
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Last year people were skating on a nearby pond that froze over, and it's in a particularly picturesque spot. Neither my girls nor I have ever done it, and I was thinking about it this morning, because it's been so cold lately.
But if we do this, are we basically going to trash our blades? Is it worth it? We are all in pretty low level blades but still need them to skate. :)
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Your not going to completely "trash" your blades just skating on pond ice. You'll just have to move up your sharpening schedule somewhat, especially if you skate a lot near the shoreline where there may be some sand. If you stay away from the edges of a clean pond (and why not?), the debris is greatly minimized to help maintain your edges longer.
I used to skate outdoors all the time in the 70s (actually, I didn't have a choice). It's great fun, and so much more liberating than a rink. Smells a lot nicer too!
Here's me skating with a friend back in the 70s on a pond near my childhood home, and I have the fondest memories of skating on natural ice - especially at night if there was a bonfire on shore and stars in the sky.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/70s_skating_600px.jpg)
I'd do it again in a heartbeat if ponds would actually freeze around here.
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I'm saving my old boots/blades in the hopes that we'll have pond skating here in Maryland this winter. Could happen!
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Your not going to completely "trash" your blades just skating on pond ice. You'll just have to move up your sharpening schedule somewhat, especially if you skate a lot near the shoreline where there may be some sand. If you stay away from the edges of a clean pond (and why not?), the debris is greatly minimized to help maintain your edges longer.
I used to skate outdoors all the time in the 70s (actually, I didn't have a choice). It's great fun, and so much more liberating than a rink. Smells a lot nicer too!
Here's me skating with a friend back in the 70s on a pond near my childhood home, and I have the fondest memories of skating on natural ice - especially at night if there was a bonfire on shore and stars in the sky.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/70s_skating_600px.jpg)
I'd do it again in a heartbeat if ponds would actually freeze around here.
LOVE that photo! What a treasure!
Thanks for the info. I don't know why I got it into my head that it would be awful for the blades beyond what sharpening could fix. Of course we all just got sharpened, but those are the breaks. I don't even know if we'll make it, but now I am glad to know it's not an issue. :)
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Beautiful picture!
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Gorgeous photo! I used to skate on a pond in Connecticut and it was so great. You are right about the smells! I hate the harsh smell of sweat when you enter some rinks. Eww
Also right, you'll just need to up your sharpening schedule.
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OK, I am excited! I had to be out near the pond this morning so I drove there and walked up to the pond. It's part of a nature sanctuary on the grounds of a church, so it's open to the public. I saw that it had definitely been skated on recently, and then I ran into a man who works at the church, who was so friendly and encouraged skating, plus gave me a few pointers. Perfect timing! I am going to make a thermos of hot cocoa and pick the girls up from school at 3:30 with skates, cocoa, and extra layers in the car! It's a beautiful sunny-but-cold day. Will try and get my own happy nostalgia photos. :)
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Oh, I'm SO jealous!
Please let us know how it goes. (I imagine the first observation will be how different the ice feels. ;D)
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Me too jealous! Where in L.I.? Have fun!
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So jealous :) That's something that I want to do one day. Ideally on Tenaya lake. :)
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So jealous :) That's something that I want to do one day. Ideally on Tenaya lake. :)
Me too.....on a clear night with a full moon in the Adirondacks.
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Me too jealous! Where in L.I.? Have fun!
There's a pond at St. John's church in Cold Spring Harbor. It's also a nature sanctuary. I wish I could take you all with me because it was so fun! We had it to ourselves at first, then a bunch of guys came with pucks and sticks. But someone had cleared the snow so there were a few "rinks" and we all coexisted happily. Skated about an hour. The only bad part was right at the end one kid caught a toepick and bashed her knee (just bruised but there were tears) and the other put a foot through the ice right at the shore, because the rock people use to get in and out wobbles so it doesn't freeze hard. I hope that skate is dry by tomorrow afternoon's lesson!
Either way, this was the best surprise school pickup ever and my kids think I'm awesome. :-)
(I do have actual pics of my kids' faces, but feel a little skittish sharing them here right now...)
(http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/01/15/4a37dea9d92049fe258e32b1fa6ac16b.jpg)
(http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/01/15/9add5b1bdf9e6859cabc5eaf7c40384b.jpg)
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Wonderful! It looks like a winter wonderland with the quaint church at the edge.
Your children now have a memory to savor for the rest of their lives.
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Wonderful! I looks like a winter wonderland with the quaint church at the edge.
Your children now have a memory to savor for the rest of their lives.
And so do I! I wish I had gotten one of the hockey guys to take a pic of all three of us, but they snapped one of me and I took a selfie (with no stick, LOL). Thank you for encouraging me to go!
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Looks fun! I'd meet you sometime.
I have a business - you can find me online easily, LOL!
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Looks like it was so much fun! What a beautiful setting.
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That looks like fun. I've had the opportunity to skate on a couple of ponds close by but was put off many years ago when I considered skating on local canals until someone told me that a few years earlier they fell through the ice :o
Maybe I'll give it a go.
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Looks fun! I'd meet you sometime.
I have a business - you can find me online easily, LOL!
Apparently not easily enough, since googling your screen name just tells me you're a Yamaha bike. ;D
I'd meet you if you feel like coming out this way. Even pick you up at the LIRR if you're not driving. :)
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LOL wow that is/was my Yamaha motorcycle!
My biz is biscuitsbylambchop.com - all the rest you can find from there! : ) And my name is Annette Frey.
I would probably just drive.
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OMG, such cute doggies! And I'm a cat person so you know they're extra cute! :) I will have to mention it to some friends who I know have doggie digestion issues.
I'm Betsy. If you plan on coming out, I can drive over there ahead of time to make sure it's all good. Nothing worse than hauling out from Manhattan to look at cold water with chunks of ice. :'(
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LOL wow that is/was my Yamaha motorcycle!
Chasing this a little further off-topic, your screen name has reminded me of my older motorcycles. I assumed that it was merely a coincidence.
FWIW, I still own two Yamaha RD400s plus a different one, but they have been in a storage locker since the 80s.
Small world!
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Somehow figure skating and motorcycles seem compatible. Wind in the hair and all that.
BTW, reaction from some of my Facebook friends to my pond skating pictures is fascinating. A lot of faintly judgmental "I would be too scared to do that with my kids, what if the ice is too thin?" Suddenly the biggest chicken on the block is seen as a risk-taker!
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They are just jealous!
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They are just jealous!
And wimpy. :laugh:
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Oh Bill now I'm jealous! I don't have any motorcycles now! I had a 1975 RD350 (a Honda CB650 for about a minute before that but the center of gravity was in the stratosphere and I dropped that clunker about every time I stopped!), husband had a 1984(?) RZ350 Kenny Robert yellow racer version, we had a 1974 Suzuki GT750 with a sidecar for the dog (video on my website but IN the side car rig) - yay for 2-strokes!, and husband had a 1975 Sportster. My bike was mint!
Betsy, that's funny about the biggest chicken on the block! Okay, we will have to plan on it. How far from the city is it? I know I have to come out to LI in a few weeks for something....
Yeah definitely some synergy between motorcycles and skating! On many levels. Wind in hair, balance, risk.
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If you plan on coming out, I can drive over there ahead of time to make sure it's all good. Nothing worse than hauling out from Manhattan to look at cold water with chunks of ice. :'(
That's how they used to do it in the 18th and 19th Century. Someone would check the ice and then send postcards to the club members to let them know skating was on. The postal service was pretty good back then. You could post the card in the morning and it would get across the city by the afternoon!
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OK, this is probably going to tip the forum's off-topic balance point but here's my MC contribution: http://mid-atlanticmusings.blogspot.com/search/label/R%C3%B6dqvarna
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She's a beaut! Tipping OT even more, my third motorcycle (alas, it's also in storage) is a Swedish Husqvarna - the off-road variety.
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I feel guilty now, so I have to tip it back on topic a bit. Here's a satellite map of the longest outdoor skate that I did (probably early 70s). It was easy getting to the beach area of Dillon Lake near Zanesville, OH (wind to my back), but it was a BEAR getting back. I had figure skates on, but I had to bend into the wind like a hockey player to return. The wind was so strong that it about canceled out each forward stroke.
I got a true workout.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/dillon_lake_skate.jpg)
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OMG that bike! Reminds me (a little) of the Indian my friend restored!
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Well, it's raining and supposed to hit near 50 today. Pretty sure pond skating is out until the next polar vortex!
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We've got black ice here, and not the skating kind. You know it's bad when NJ Transit shuts down bus service statewide.
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Yeah, black ice here, too. But from the Facebook posts it sounds way worse in NJ and Philly. It's raining hard now. If the pounding water doesn't drain and it goes below freezing overnight, we might be able to skate in the backyard.
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Yeah, black ice here, too. But from the Facebook posts it sounds way worse in NJ and Philly. It's raining hard now. If the pounding water doesn't drain and it goes below freezing overnight, we might be able to skate in the backyard.
;D
My driveway and yard slope, unfortunately. Dreaming of demolishing the deck so I could use the little patch of patio underneath...
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;D
My driveway and yard slope, unfortunately. Dreaming of demolishing the deck so I could use the little patch of patio underneath...
I think this belongs in the "you skate too much..." post! Ours slopes at one end and we have a lot of trees. We just had to have one taken down (hollow oak cracked. Terrifyingly close to the house) and I am unsuccessfully trying to convince husband there's space for a rink. But wow, right now there's a lot of water building up because the ground is so frozen. Eek.
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I heard the same that it's really bad ice wise and the LIE is shut at the Midtown Tunnel but walking in the city you would never guess!
Rink in the yard would be beyond amazing!!
I was thinking of skating at Great Neck (adult night) tonight but thinking it's not a good driving idea right now. I only skated 40 minutes (once) this past week. That is unacceptable! Was that sick.
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I just have to say you ladies are making me a bit homesick. My dad is from Great Neck (three generations lived there, actually!), and my grandparents retired out to Locust Valley. Every time we'd go up to visit, we'd go skating so my grandparents could see what I was up too....the Colosseum and Beaver dam mostly (awesome outdoor rinks there back in the 80's). Except for the odd flight into/out of JFK, I haven't been back to LI since my grandfather died just after 9/11. I miss it so much! Enjoy what you have!
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My personal experience is that if there is dirt on or in the ice, that can dull your edges a lot. But if the ice is clean, it only takes down the edges a little faster. Be sure to use blade guards up to the ice - maybe even remove them while you are on the ice.
The ice will probably be rougher, less level, and (if the pond is cold enough to be) harder than indoor ice. So you want sharp blades, which will cut through everything. Borderline edges don't work very well on outdoor ice.
You can search for various people's safety guidelines, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=inches+ice+safety+skating&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb. Some people tell how many inches there are of ice by drilling a hole in the ice. But if the temperature has warmed up to within a few degrees of freezing, the ice may not be safe even if it is thick enough. Be safe.
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Good memories @Loops! Come out and skate with us on the pond!
I admit pond skating is a bit scary as far as knowing it's safe. In Connecticut, where I used to do it, they tested the ice and posted signs daily! Of course I was a teenager then and probably would've risked it anyway.
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Had to follow up that pond skating does indeed require one to step up the sharpening! I am pretty sure I fell because of my lack of edges on Wednesday, and when I took all 3 pairs to be sharpened today, I got a "wow, these are really dull" comment and had to 'fess up to the pond-y fun. Still totally worth it for the experience. :)
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Oh interesting. My fitter even recommended I don't wear my new skates on an outdoor rink, but where my old ones and only wear the new ones in indoor ice! I'd imagine the pond is much more of an issue. I would wear my old skates.
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I would agree with that. If I had old skates, I would wear them there, too! I don't think either of my girls can fit into the one old pair I have left from them. Size 13, while they're on size 2. :o