| IT
was an otherwise calm Friday evening along
Montana Avenue in Santa Monica,Calif. I was
strolling with a friend past the chic outdoor
cafes when suddenly-whoosh! Dozens of brightly
clad nutters on in-line skates suddenly shot by
to the wild strains of "Ride of the Valkyries"
blaring from a boom box on the ringleader's
back. . It looked exhilarating and slightly
dangerous at the same time--Marlon Brando and
the Wild Ones with smaller wheels and day jobs.
"Who are you?" we yelled, but they were moving
too fast to chat. If you want to know about
these characters, you're supposed to go to
fridaynightskate.org.
Fast forward a couple of weeks. This time it
was me standing on top of Montana Avenue with
the same pack of 40-odd breathless revelers.
Some carried flashing red reflectors, one wore a
helmet festooned with white Christmas lights.
We'd already skated some seven miles at this
point, provoked a police man who blasted his
horn at us and stopped traffic as startled
onlookers yelled encouragement.
Montana's steep slope fell away before us at
20mph, making it problematic to stop for red
lights. Our leader, Christopher, punched on the
Wagner, and we moved on. I giggled from nerves.
So did Craig, the bad-boy mortgage broker next
to me.
Fueled by the internet, this scene gets
repeated in cities all over the world on any
given night of every week. Not only does the Web
provide a means of rallying disparate groups of
skaters through email lists, it lets them know
where and how to assemble.
Paris is the big daddy of pack blading. On
Friday nights an average of 20,000 skaters
stampede past the Place de la Concorde and the
Eiffel Tower. They even get a police escort.
These excursions exclude no one. "The idea of
skating at night never occurred to me. It seemed
sort of ridiculous," says Nathaniel Antler, a
61-year old San Diegan. Antler had never donned
blades until a fifty-something neighbor coaxed
him into them a few years back. On his first
time out he completed a 20 mile night
skate in San Diego, from the beach to downtown.
"I was hooked," says Antler. "As far as a
late-life crisis goes, it's a little more fun
and a lot less dangerous than a motorcycle or a
mistress."
It all started ten years ago in San
Francisco. A group of skaters led by pied piper
David (D) Miles began skating the abandoned
stretches of the Embarcadero Freeway shortly
after the 1989 earthquake. After the highway was
demolished in 1991 Miles and his followers took
to the streets and showed the rest of the world
how to do it.
Every Friday Miles and several hundred
"Midnight Rollers" still assemble at the Ferry
Building, and head to Ghirardelli Square, the
Palace of Fine Arts and beypnd. Mercifully, the
route avoids the city's steep hills, but it's
still taxing.
Regulars like Tsutomu Shimomura wouldn't miss
it. He's the Web sleuth famed for tracking down
hacker Kevin Mitnick. There's a vaguely cultish
undertone to the San Francisco skate. At its
peak it draws 700 bladers, making it the biggest
pack skate in the U.S. Says Miles, "It's a
movement."
On the Friday of my first night skate, the
crew of 40 gathers. Every age is represented.
Christopher straps on a homemade harness he's
rigged with a car stereo and a couple of
computer speakers, and we're rolling toward
Venice Beach on the wings of K.C. and the
Sunshine Band ("Do a little dance, make a little
love!").
I haven't skated for three years, but my
rustiness vanishes as I pick up the rhythm of
the group. An experienced blader encourages me
to hang on to his waist as we hurtle down into
Santa Monica Canyon. Next time solo, I promise
myself. Two people take mild spills. One girl
gets her foot stuck in a sewer grate. On the
whole, injuries are rare, although helmets and
wrist guards are strongly recommended.
Thomas Grosspietsch, an art director for Leo
Burnett in Chicago and a devoted night skater
there, braved a monstrous Paris skate last
summer with 65 other Americans. One of his
friends timed how long it took the pack to roar
past at full tilt: 20 minutes. Earlier that same
week the Pari-rollers had taken their American
visitors on a Monday night "boy-girl skate."
(Men and women take off in opposite directions
and the boys hunt down the girls.)
This got Grosspietsch thinking, and he is now
organizing themed Friday night skates past the
historic sites of his native city. Upcoming ones
will include a gangster skate, a blues skate a
junk food skate. Last summer Grosspietsch led a
skate that traced the entire area burned in the
Great Chicago Fire. And of course the city's
historic beer halls are the last stop on every
itinerary.
All of which demonstrates that while a night
skate provides a nifty alternative to the pub,
it doesn't guarantee you won't end up there. |
