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In April of 2001 Swedish inline speed skater
Daniel Edman traveled with 40 other skaters from Stockholm
to the island of Mallorca, Spain for a holiday week of
skating and fun.
Daniel Edman Skating in Mallorca
Photo Credit:
Ulf Haase
A WEEK OF SKATING IN MALLORCA, SPAIN
by
Daniel Edman
of Stockholm, Sweden
My name is Daniel Edman and
I am a Swedish ice and inline
skater living on the east coast of Sweden in the City of Stockholm.
Maybe I should really regard myself as an "inline hang-around",
but I sure do like the sport.
In April of 2001 a group of Swedish skaters made a
trip to the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea.
The objective was to get in some early-season inline skating
in better conditions than Sweden can provide during
that time of the year.
Inline Skating in Stockholm
To give you a better understanding of the inline skating season
in Sweden: the Swedish summer is fairly short. From April to September
there might be conditions suitable for inline skating, but
the weather is not always reliable. The summer weather conditions
can be very different from
year to year. Last year the summer weather was dreadful with almost constant rain. And inline skaters do not like that, do we?
Last fall was pretty dry
and we could skate fairly late even though the evenings
got dark early. When daylight
savings time ended, it got completely dark around 5 p.m.,
which made skating in the evening somewhat tricky.
When it started getting dark so early, we found
a parking garage in the basement of the
Stockholm Fairground in Alvsjo, which provided good and
dry concrete conditions with something like a 650 meter
"oval track". Not that it turned us on, but at least
it was a place where we could skate and keep ourselves fit
until the lakes froze and we could go on ice again.
Most inline skaters over here began as long distance ice
skaters. When inline skating grew popular a couple of
years ago we found out that the technique was similar and
inline skating was a good way to keep fit during the
summer.
Photo Credit:
Ulf Haase
Planning the Trip to Mallorca
While doing lap after lap in that parking garage last
fall someone came up with the idea of going abroad to
skate during the winter - someplace nice and warm.
Johan Cerne told us he had been to Mallorca the
previous spring and found excellent skating conditions
there. We all got very excited about that and I remember
I envisioned 8 to 10 hard-core skaters leaving on an
airplane in the middle of the winter.
A few days later there was an e-mail circulating with
travel information and the rest is history.
On April 21st approximately 45 Swedish inline skaters
met at Arlanda Airport for a 7 day skating trip in the
surroundings of Port dŽAlcudia on the northeast coast of Mallorca
This article is a description of the week from my perspective, seen
with my eyes and heard with my ears. IŽm trying to give
a little more than just plain route information since I
hope to inspire some of you inline skaters out there
to either do a similar trip or even join us when
we take our next trip.
(For those who are fluent in Swedish there is a
Swedish version of this article available at
SSSK.se
the Web site of the
Stockholm Ice Skating Association).
Finally I would like to say a huge "Thank You" to
Johan Cerne
who spent 9 days on Mallorca the year before and covered 700
km in his search for excellent skating conditions.
Ulf Haase also made a huge contribution, since he is the one who carried
the camera and took most of the photos.
Marten Ajne carried a GPS receiver and could therefore
provide some interesting speed and distance data.
Last but not least,
Kathie Fry brought international feeling
to the trip by her participation. Thank you, it was great
having you with us, Kathie.
Part 2 of this Article
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Related Links
More Articles by Daniel Edman
Skating in Spain
Skating in Sweden
Skating in 100 Countries
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