Those Darn Rollerbladers!
 

I was out on a 100 mile solo ride last Staurday, which started on the W&OD bike path west of Washington DC.

I came upon a group of 3 rollerbladers, which were drafting a slow moving bike... go figure.

I was riding the yellow line when I passed the rollerbladers. I passed the first two with no incident (yes I said passing on your left a number of times). As I passed the third rollerblader, the little pissant pushed me into oncoming traffic. So I did the only thing that I could think of and jammed on my brakes, with my bike perpendicular to the roller blader. The blader had to ditch it in the grass. He stated that I crowded him, as his left skate crossed the yellow line (AKA using over 50% of the path) After a few minutes of telling him that he should never push someone, we left peacefully.

Luckilly I have about 10 years of crit racing experience, so I was not fazed by this lunatic pushing me.

Has anyone had a rollerblader push them before?

No - but still rollerbladers suck!

They hog the bike path for no apparant reason (I know they need room to push foreward with thier blades but good grief not THAT much). They NEVER look for traffic behind them, They are usually wearing Walkmans, oblivious to what's behing them. They hold hands because they're in LOVE (makes me want to gag) further hogging the path.

Not all of them are like this,of course, but there are some that I would like to see thier blades shoved up thier ass! (Rant, sorry!)

I've done extensive roller blading and BTW it's very complementary to cycling for working out, and drafting works the same way as a bike pace line. Works real nice tucked in behind a cyclist :D But ya, I agree that many bladers don't have a clue. Try blading past another blader that's wired in with tunes and clashing skates as both take a stroke. I've had more road rash from blading over the years than from my years of USCF racing :eek:

A couple weeks back I saw 2 groups of very organized rollerbladers riding in file.. They signaled oncomming bikes to the ppl behind, whom in turn would relay the signal...

They never took more then one lane, would inform their group when bikes were passing to the left.

In general here, they have a tendency to sundenly swerve into the left lane without ever looking back. It was a refreshing sight to see some conscious rollerbladers.

They used to bug me but now that I've been commuting for so long, they've become predictable. They always seem to keep right if I announce a pass or if we meet head-on (so to speak). Sometimes they just parallel their skates, others they take shorter "strides" so they don't take up as much width.

Rarely I'll get the headphone-wearing middle-of-the-trail taking-up-most-of-the-pavement blader. Those are the only ones who still irritate me.

I've had fun with them, too. One time I was behind a guy who was easily blading along at 15MPH. I was so impressed by this that I stayed behind him for a while. Eventually he saw me and got spooked. I let him know I wasn't trying to pass and he was moving like I've never seen a blader move before. :)

Another time I was climbing a hill at 20MPH after passing a blader. I stopped at a stop sign and the blader was right behind me! He said he was ready to puke and collapse, and we had a good laugh at that.

I had a rollerblader draft me at 32mph on flat ground.

Just yesterday I got passed by two rollerbladers on a flat. I looked down and saw that I was going 15MPH. I figured I'd keep up and got up to 20MPH, but they were still leaving me in the dust. They were doing 22-25MPH and they looked like they were out for a stroll. It was amazing.

Still, my experience with Bladers has been as mixed as my experience with bikers - it just seems that when a blader is inconsiderate, it's a bigger deal because they take up so much room. But like a previous poster said, they're usually pretty predictable. For bikes and pedestrians I usually only give an "on your left" when it looks a little tight. For bladers I give it close to 100% of the time.

The only thing that I ask is that you please coast when it's narrow and i'm trying to pass. Don't freaking splay out and do an olympic skating impression. I don't usually ride anywhere near any multi use paths as i'm on the suburb/rural line.

:eek: Obviously we don't have "serious" bladers up here. That's... Impressive...

For you non-bladers, keep in mind that it can be very noisy while rollerblading.

We have two, four or five hard wheels on rough asphalt, and the road vibrations can drown out a nice quiet cyclist approaching.

I rollerblade with my dog (on leash) and I bike without her. I have more problems with bikers who don't call out behind me - it is very hard to hear a bicycle when on rollerblades even without a walkman (which I never use when rollerblading) - I am happy to move over (dog is always in grass and so I am already close to the right side) if someone will let me know they are back there - too many times bikers blow past us very close - sometimes going on the right into the grass right past my dog - which is a good way to spook dog and get me hurt or the biker bitten.

slvoid speaks the truth. we have some roller bladers here that are just bad ass. no other way to put it. we're talking guys that get so low their head touches their knees. they can draft a few inches behind a bike then break off and pass them just like a pro going for a sprint. they can turn on a dime and even reach amazing speeds going backwards. a real serious roller blader is a treat to see in action. i just wish more of them were better. some of them on the MUPs look completely out of control.

Seriously, this is grounds for a swift, sound beating. If some little bastard on blades pushed me, I would feel no remorse for putting a hurt on him. Unreal.

Maybe this will make you feel better-it makes me smile just thinking about it:

A couple of years ago I was riding with a friend on a busy bike path. She had brought her dog along, sort of a border collie mix, and it was running along beside us, off leash. The dog would run ahead of us and take the lead, then look back to make sure we were still "in the pack". I watched in disbelief as the the dog-running nearly flat out at over 30km/hr-looked over it's shoulder for it's owner, unaware that it was on high velocity collision course with a meanering roller blader coming the other way. Neither the blader or the dog saw one another until after the inevitable collision. Despite a large weight advantage, the roller blader was literally flattened by the little collie. He was laid out in a big, hairy a$$ed way. I almost fell of my bike laughing. The dog was relatively unphased.

No, but had that happened to me, the clown would have had a deep cleat mark of a Speedplay Zero after I side kicked him to his forehead!

I was discussing this subject with a fellow cyclist a number of years ago and he said that a rollerblader was listening to Kenny G on the Walkman (I think she must have had it turned up way loud so others could hear it) and she started doing some kind of ballerina dance in the middle of the bike path. WTF!!!

Did he just start doing it with no communication at all? Or did the two of you understand each other?

I actually had a rollerblader grab my rack once to get towed. In the dark...... :eek: So I went as fast as I could, he let go as a slight turn came up, hit the curb and went flying. He was OK.

That probably would have not disturbed me in a negative way, AAMOF, depending on the girl, it might have given me wood! :D

I wonder what they do when squirted with a water bottle?

www.cora.org has some movies of rollerbladers doing marathons, that kind of race is becoming popular since it's the same distance as a running marathon, but only about 1/3 or so as hard. Some of those folks move! And some.... don't.

It was a nice ride in a pace line. And out of nowhere, I see this shadowy figure to my right with like 5 blinkers on. I'm like, who the hell rides THAT low on the drops? Then I realized it was a guy on speed skates. Well we passed him and we all went to slow down around a corner, he must've caught up. When we made the turn, we all accelerated back up to speed again, I was in the back of the pack. About a minute later, I looked behind me and there he was, a mass of blinking lights swishing around me... The guy was a maniac.

:eek:

I'm impressed! (heck I'm impressed that you were cruising at 32mph)

How funny did your friend think it was when the roller blader sued her for failure to control her dog? This story isn't funny, its an example of why its important to keep your animals on a leash when in traffic (cars or pedestrian). What if the blader had been a cyclist....or a kid, would you still be laughing?

Heh, it wasn't me, it was a bunch of fast guys at the front of the line pulling us all through.

Never been pushed off the trail trying to pass one. Had one headed towards me a couple of times and not staying on their own side.

Last Sunday I was riding up Rock Creek on Beach Drive (fyi. closed to autos on weekends, bikes, blades and peds only) just above Pierce's Mill. I found myself behind two bladers going side by side. One was very inexperenced, the other was giving her lessons. The two of them took up the most of the 25 foot wide road bed so no one could get by safely in either direction. The better blader finally grew a brain and dropped back to let other people by.

I don't really know, but it seems to me that skates don't stop very well. At least he was smart enough to get onto an existing pace line, instead of a single rider.

the only people I've seen on rollerblades around here are people in neighborhoods on sidewalks trying not to end up on their butts. I live in the south where laziness is king. One of my skater/bmx friends referred to rollerbladers as "fruit booters". Obviously, they're not exactly looked highly upon down here. :p