I had a distinct feeling of long awaited anticipation and a whiff of elegance and sophistication that is Paris, as I entered the St Pancreas International Eurostar terminal. The only dampener to the high spirits was learning that two members of the group could not come due to family and work commitments. It’s a good job we go twice a year!

The journey to Paris is even faster now. I put it to good use changing my bearings which were so generously provided by Andrew (after comparing my pathetic wheel spin to his) a few days earlier.

Friday evening street skate

The Paris Roller is one of the ‘must do’ skates for all skaters, at some point in their rolling lives. This mass street skate regularly attracts over 10,000 skaters (every week!) and is supported by the local council, police and ambulance service as well as having a committed team of marshals and organisers.

Unlike other locations around the world (including London and the UK) Parisian street skates are given official right of way through a designated city route where police ensure motorists ‘behave themselves’ and do not obstruct the skate. It is this ‘pro skater’ attitude which I respect and enjoy most about skating in Paris and France. It is forward looking and promotes healthy free activities such as street skates within the city for its residents and visitors (who come every week from all over Europe generating skate-tourism income for Paris).

The cross section of skaters is immense, from children to oldies. It always makes me smile when I see evidence in front (and around me) that skating really is a ‘lifestyle sport’ as the UK Government just announced, something you can learn at any age and benefit from health wise.

I had a fantastic skate as all my clients weren’t due till the next day’s skating. The route was a large clockwise circle around central Paris, with the longest constant downhill slope ever (about 2km) which leant itself very nicely to some fast back crossovers and back crossunders.

Our group on Friday night was Mark from Skateinstructor, my fellow organiser (or rear marshal), Alison, Jeremy, Ivor, Kate and Pete. We successfully met up in breaks (with the waving of the infallible pink knicker bag) which made my arm ache by the end of the night. We met up near the end of the skate and found ourselves in the liveliest street café/bar in Paris, complete with live band, operatic singing waiter and wonderful champagne (to balance out the adrenalin).

Some of us even skated back to our hotels near Gare du Norde at approx 2.30am when the streets were gloriously empty and the legs felt strangely light in their tiredness.

Saturday 10th May

The morning’s challenge began with calming Mark’s nerves as our breakfast coffees took 40 mins to ‘not’ appear. We learned that our favourite café from dinner last night was only any good when the lovely, helpful, smiling blonde waitress was working (and not when the three grumpy French guys were working instead). Luckily my Virgoan time keeping allows for French delays, such as Pete’s made dash to find us which took him several miles before he turned back and found us 1 block from where he’d started. He likes a good skate to warm up!

We met up with the rest of the group Barbara, Angela and Bernadette and began our day’s tour of Paris. Unless on organised street skates, skaters must stay on pavements in Paris. First stop was the lovely Jar dim du Luxemburg, house of the French senate and a gorgeous park but narrow pathways. The weather was glorious and Parisians were out in style, basking in the sun all over Paris. We saw the Pantheon (and learned about Foucault’s pendulum) and then the Sorbonne and St Germaine district. We skated slowly through a great food market, bellies already thinking about lunch, olives, bread, cheese, sausages, pastries, and cherries – the perfect market!

We usually watch the slalom skaters at Notre Dame but it was devoid of skaters as they were all competing in (or watching) a slalom competition all weekend at Trocadero. Leaving Notre Dame for another island (I love skating bridges) we headed towards the ‘cake break’ at Bastille and lunch in Places des Voges. Jeremy won the prize for his extravagant and very French fayre from the market and my raspberry tart was truly sublime.

Cruising the back streets of Places des Voges gave a window into real Parisian life, sophisticated urban living in gorgeous old buildings and vibrant neighbourhoods. A biased view of Paris perhaps (but very pleasant to experience). Past Pompidou and Hotel de Ville (where I showed off my best mates pad when I was 17 where I had stayed for an unforgettable mass and New Year). We continued to the river and a slow section where the biggest hazard was watching your eye balls on the book sellers stalls (helmets aren’t just to protect your head from the floor). Skating through the archways into the back entrance of the louver is a lovely way to see the magnitude of the place (it’s big to skate around, imagine walking it).
Finally to lesson/chill stop by Palais royal. By now the intense heat and developing dehydration started to have effects on our skating concentration. It’s incredible how much water one should drink under those circumstances (exercising in a lot of sunshine). Ali and Jeremy made use of the wonderful big space to perfect their crossovers and suddenly realised how restrictive Albert Memorial or Serpentine Road are for the learning and developing of crossovers.

We managed to avoid the mayhem of cobbles that is place de la Concorde and cross over the river (again) to then follow the river around until we reached our goal, the Eiffel tower and the ‘official’ end of our tour, but not the day. After relaxing and drinking more water we relocated to Place de la Replublique for dinner (and several well deserved drinks).

We were joined by the husbands of Angela and Bernadette from Cardiff who I met in January when I taught a weekend workshop there. As a birthday ‘treat’ Angela invited her husband to Paris and only once the tickets were bought did the girls admit they would be dumping their husbands and joining the Skatefresh trip for part of their weekend! (Good work Ladies).

At dinner I learned so much about everyone on the trip, that Lata and I both lived in Tanzania, that Barbara recently did an MA, that Angela has a 21 year old daughter (!), that Kate loves London and doesn’t plan to leave….etc. This is what I love about skate trips in general, getting to know other people better (and skating loads of course).

Sunday

Sunday morning was spent eating the best Breton crepes filled with mushrooms, onions and cream (yum, it was the best thing I ate all weekend), while Ali and Mark demolished several litres of freshly squeezed orange juice between them. We skated to meet Kate, Ivor, Pete and Jeremy at another café in Bastille before heading to meet Barbara at the start f the Sunday skate. The day was very hot again, shorts, vest, factor 30+, my kind of weather.

Barbara’s nerves quickly subsided as the skate progressed with a log steady (smooth) uphill at the start leading to a lovely downhill glide of what felt like several km uninterrupted – gorgeous Parisian tree-lined avenues and quiet Sunday streets and pavements. It was a glorious skate at a relaxed and enjoyable speed. Skating past the Eiffel tower in the day time is always a highlight for me. Half time at Trocadero coincided with the chance to see the slalom competition, alas hundreds of other people trying to do the same thing prevented us. Pete said he saw Naomi judging the men’s competition but that’s as close as we got.

The second half of the Paris Sunday ‘Stroll’ was a challenging array of cobbles, over 2km in total with some sections uphill, which might have been one of the organisers ideas of a motivational joke, but it did allow everyone to perfect their hot-footed cobbles technique. As I said to Barbara, “if you can do this, you can do anything”.

We parted the skate less than a mile form the end, in fear of missing our Eurostar back to London. It was a solid 3+hr skate, not bad for finishing off the weekend.

Walking (quickly) to Gare du Norde after a wet wipes ‘shower’, I felt as if the weekend had flown, and yet so much had happened in just 2 ½ days. Everyone was happy with the trip and already looking forward to the next trip. This will be in the autumn (I am just trying to juggle several weddings in the autumn, 2 of which haven’t set their dates), and a trip to Pakistan for ICP which is also awaiting scheduling…. I will keep you posted and hope this motivates you to join us next time.

Asha

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