Bergse Bos & Rottemeren.

Like ice-skating in summer,
(how it started...)

"Zwoosssh-zwoosssh!"
"Zwoosssh-zwoosssh!"
When cycling through the Bergse Bos, with or without my companion Anton, we often have encounters . Cool, sporty young people on wheels. A couple is riding along with us for a while. In ice-skating posture, deeply bended. Even not so much slower than our bikes. Than they turn off into some bypath, and disappear into the bush with regular strokes.
"Looks a bit like ice-skating", I sadly think at all those superb icetours I ever made. I have some experience. Not in speed, as I would loose the game from any scholar on icehockey skates. I'm more interested in making distances. Skating on natural ice, like I did in the legendary "Eleven Cities Country", as we call Friesland, our northernmost province. Then there were about 95 kilometers left on the counter.
But, when is natural ice skating possible at all in my country? Many winters the ducks just splash on, without beiing disturbed by Thialf. Last winter, the '97-'98 season, was another sad dip in recent glacial history. Before the contrary had been predicted, by weather prophets like Cees v Zwieten (Lissoft Meteoconsult) or the illustrous Wolfgang Röder (Berlin University). How different it turned out: really no freezing at all, and still some meteo-gurus falling through the ice !
For keeping our skate technique in shape, we had to do it again with the artifical sliding layer on the concrete bottom of the "Schaatscentrum De Uithof" icerink, in The Hague. Skating laps under a roof, when rain is falling! Do you call THAT skating? Gnashing my teeth, when reading my cyberfriend's e-mails from Sweden and the USA. There they skate the stars from heaven now!
I usually don't follow each new trend, sprangled out over us, but I'm interested more and more in the possibilities of rolling foot-wear.
"I once should buy skeelers too", I inform Anton about my plans.
"If there's no ice in winter, I'll skate my tours in summer."
(Skeelers is Dutch for inline skates with 5 wheels)
"Be careful in what you do, when you stumble down, you'll graze your skin completely open!" as he warns me in his characteristic manner. "It really doesn't make sense at all!"
He has some skeeler experience, and knows the risks. It's not without a reason, that most skaters we met in the Bos area, look like my son Jaco's modern Nintendo knights, with their plastic knee- and wristprotectors on.
"Now-you-lost-your-last-life. Game-over".
Yes, it's really very trendy!

I see myself, pictured "on wheels" in an idyllic Alblasserwaard polder, together with Anton. The pictures in my head are struggling for priority with other ones. Pictures of emergency doctors, blood, and screaming ambulances.
My dear skate friend Arianne next door, used to live in the skating paradise between Alblasserdam and Noordeloos herself. She doesn't mind taking more risks than Anton does, but she has as less experience on wheels as I have.
We made each other mad with wild ideas for the summer season to come. See ourselves whisking on twenty wheels along the Graafstroom creek. We should take some lessons, but only make some short laps around the circus we live at. By turn on Arianne's quickly bought "Intertoys" special offers, and a pair of Bauers, borrowed by myself.
It's almost September now, and I still didn't start any new inline initiatives. Psychologic threshold, I suppose. Always difficult for me to take one. With two wheelchairs at home, I surely know, thresholds are natural ennemies of any kind of wheel transport. However, the "Threshold of a dream" is really a different thing as "die Schwelle einer ungewissen Zukunft". . . .

Already given up the "skeelering" for this season, my wife Jeannet suddenly makes headway in this matter. Because of my birthday. As she insists, I have my measure taken at Haitsma's in Bleiswijk, regional dealer for rolling and sliding footwear, for a pair of brand new Zandstra's. Laced hard plastic boots for real ankle support. Under each boot there's a black, sheet steel frame with five yellow wheels.
I see no brakes.
"You won't need them at all", the experienced Haitsma senior sets me at rest. "Zandstra even doesn't want to mount them. Every experienced skater knows how to stop. Mounted breaks only would increase the risk of falling."
Hiding my lack of experience, but not convinced, I affirm his viewpoint. Getting a free set of knee- and wrist-protectors, as a part of the Zandstra deal, doesn't contribute to my peace of mind. "Only for just the case that. . ."
It takes another week for me to struggle myself through the Bergse Bos in the Rotte creek direction, with the birthday gifts on my feet. They don't suit as I imagined when I got them.
The Bos is close to my home, and has beautiful, smooth asphalt tracks. Ideal for starting skaters to train on. Usually you meet here possessors of all kinds of rolling footwear. Today there's not a single one on the move. Suddenly I find out why. The industrious park manager made every hole in the tracks covered with bitumen and a king size portion of stone chippings. So, with maximum intervals of about fifty meters, I continuously run into lots of those rubble. It feels a bit like a "Westveense Polder" skating tour on frozen snow-ice. Of course such things aren't constructive at all, for speed and motivation. I keep myself upright, but only at the cost of my technique. Haitsma's free armouring protects my knees, wrists, and self-respect effectively for the moment.
A second reason I can't keep my skate cadans as long as on ice, has to do with the earlier mentioned lack of brake-power. The speed therefore shouldn't increase too much. Even in my terribly low tempo there is a long, dangerous braking distance needed. Long before a road crossing appears, I should anticipate on possible close encounters with other road users, not only trusting on their alertness and braking power.
The dikes along the Rotte come to the starting skater with two other, complementary problems. So you have to skate up the dike with short strokes. That feels a bit like stair climbing, combined with headwind ice skating. On the contrary, down the dike again, you have a really bloodstaining experience! The "Recreation Authority Bergse Bos" designed an important traffic road just along the foot of the dike. You'll always meet it at the end of any slope you take. "Gravity force, combined with brakeless footwear, produces an uniformly acceleration," I remember from my grammar school history.
"Let's go on," as I stumble myself into the depth, with a real contempt for death. "I'll see where it ends. Just straight on now, steersman! "
"Speed increases uniformly with the time of descending." Another such law in physics. I feel my speed is nearing that of Erik Hulzebosch (a humorous Dutch skeeler crack) nearing a finish banner. But I certainly miss his braking power. The only way to prevent a tough confrontation with asphalt or road traffic, is crashing down into the road shoulder. The protection plastics on all of my limbs prove their good services. I only get an enormous graze wound on my self-confidence.
"I'll never ever do this again," I tremble in the grass for a long time afterwards. For the moment the skeelers are stored far away in a very dark corner!

The Hague ice centre "De Uithof" is a warm haven ("warm" in different meanings) for all those ice fanatics having had so little natural ice in this heartless winter. The ice season is closed with a skeeler course. For a starting, brakeless wheely they find a solution, as good as for a frustrated outdoor ice skater. When the ice machines get stopped, and the Zamboni's get revised, a mirror smooth concrete oval appears under the melting ice. It forms a good surface for roughly the same clinics as usually are given to ice skaters.
Of course I subscribe. With the professional help of teacher Jan technique and self-confidence grow. He gives us faith on the ten wheels, he teaches us to find our balance, to lift our feet over each other when skating bends, and, of course, he teaches braking. It's a small but difficult trick. You should lift your feet alternately, pushing the other one down forwards at the same time, perpendicular to your skate direction. Just a special technique, only the hardness is growing with the speed. My own result after some training, is a braking distance of more then twenty meters. Not good enough for a faithfull confrontation with the road traffic. But fortunately, the instructor who's taking over also has an emergency stop in mind. She demonstrates it by placing her skeeler tips outwards at full speed, to stand still immediately after making a half round turn. Within a few meters only. Reproducing this manoeuvre without accompaniment isn't without risk. Better students than me make gracious rounds after some attempts, and really stop in opposite direction. I myself don't succeed in turning round, even when the sweet instructor takes me by the hand. She's my personal supervisor and I keep on training, till I make a turning circle within seven meters and still keep myself upright.
The training course fulfills its purpose. My fear for any crashing and grazed limbs is much smaller now. I suppose. The wheels under my boots even start feeling like ice skate blades.
However, inline skating is still slightly different from skating on ice. The resistance you feel, and the efforts you make, they are much more on concrete than on ice. So mileage and speed will be certainly less. Beside it there's also a bit more motor traffic on the road of course.
Now I don't need ice any more, to make terrific skate tours in unspoilt nature. I'm going to taste that unique nature tour atmosphere on my Zandstra's soon!
Arianne, Anton and Alblasserwaard, I am coming!!!

Route map...

Route description and info...

Hereby some info for interested people, having questions after reading my story.
For more information I suggest to visit the links, and the organisations behind them. The Skeelerbond Nederland has answers on many questions.
The story about my first inline skating took place at one of the most beautiful skating courses in the Netherlands, the recreation area "Bergse Bos", between Rotterdam-Terbregge and Bergschenhoek, near the Rotte lakes. From these places the area is reachable by car; from Rotterdam-Ommoord only by walking or cycling (or skating).
Specially built for rolling humans, there's a car-free parcours of about 4500 meters around the artificial skiing hill. Everywhere around is smooth asphalt, usually flat, and wide enough to pass by others. You'll only meet some cyclists, pedestrians and other skaters.
The track is especially good for training purposes. Depending on the wind direction, the ski-hill shelters from the headwind, skating in one of both directions.
On two places you can choose for an alternative. So you can climb the ski-hill. Downhill you meet a steep slope with a hairpin bend, so you should be experienced for this. You also can cut off two small steep bridges, making the same distance via the flat cycle path along a traffic road.
Situated at the course there is the "Skatecenter Bergschenhoek" (Rottebandreef 10; Bergschenhoek), where you can rest (and have a drink) in the skeeler's café. There's clothing room with lockers. You can rent skates (4 wheel), skeelers (5 wheel) and protection pads, and you can get lessons.

There are lots of smooth, car-free asphalt tracks in the whole area. Not often you must cross or follow some motor route. There are many skaters enjoying the recreation park. Other routes to follow are a 7500 meter one, passing along the older Lage Bergse Bos. Combined with the lap above you get a 12 km. route. There were times that it wasn't possible to skate the Rotte dike from the Irene bridge in Terbregge till the A12 motorway bridge. Then the "Recreationship" authorities decided to destroy the route by covering it with gravel!!! If you understand Dutch, read the part "Rot Rotte" with more info. Today the situation is better again.