Paris Skate

Here's the information on our Paris skate on Friday September 6th. Maria and I were the only PISA skaters to make it to the skate. April decided not to go and Jim had his cell phone stolen on the subway in route to the skate and had to go downtown with the police (he got his cell phone back fortunately). Watch for the pick pockets.

As we exited the subway we started seeing skaters headed towards the starting point. We knew we didn't need to know the way, just follow the other skaters. One was waiting for a friend and was kind enough to give some advise about what the skate is like. We threw our skates on and soon were at the starting point. It was a huge crowd as far as we could see. It started soon and was fast at times and then would stop for traffic for a few minutes. We were packed together for a while then it would break up and we would skate at a good pace again. We did this cycle numerous times.

We noticed bystanders and motorists yell at us, as the Paris-Roller volunteer said it varies from an enthusiastic "go go go" and "hi there!" to "you are blocking traffic, you should respect traffic lights" to sometimes swear words because we are taking quite long to pass...

There was a total of 9,000 skaters on hand. They had at least two large groups, one from Germany and a group of 60 skaters from the Netherlands. There were probably many smaller groups also.

They have two ambulances following the skate to take any seriously injured to the hospital. Usually they don't have any major accidents, however a few minor scraps and bruises. They had 6-8 policemen on motorbikes leading the skate, about 20 on skates and 4 on small motorbikes blocking intersections. The distance was about 25k meters as Parisians would say or about 15.5 miles. Still missing the number of staffers, but generally there are about 60 on average present any given Friday (a bit less during the summer holiday season).

We stopped for a 20 minute break looking across the street at the Eiffel Tower all lit up. We talked to a staffer who just by chance was the person who answered my email about our PISA group coming to the skate. When Maria said we were from Portland the staff person (Mayken) looked at me and said "you must be Jerry". That was amazing to me. She was very nice and provided the statistics above. It was a lot of fun and just amazing to see that many skaters in one place. When you travel I recommend you search the web for skate events, it's well worth the effort.

Jerry

Click here for photos.

You can read more about the Paris skate at:
www.pari-roller.com