Upping the ante

Only a few more weeks to go before the bout against Stockholm and practices are showing that it's serious business now. Finally training all those barrelroll- and superman falls is paying off because now they are actually needed in reality. The atmosphere is where it should be, eyes say: "you goin' DOWN!" while butts are getting pinched. Only women can have such double intentions and mean it all!

Boxes, bridges, waterfalls, goats, taking knees, killer walls, recycling. Just a few of the plays that are passing by at the practices. Vi skate our asses into buns of steel and will crush Stockholm with them!

After which we'll grab a beer and a couple of shots with the Stockholm girls. ;)

Derby kisses,
Dutchess.

Summer!

Yes! Summer finally made it to the far North. We've had a couple of nice days here and there, but now we've had a full week of sunburns everywhere. Delicious! This also means we're rolling a lot outside. That really has two sides to it and I can't decide which side wins. Positive side: Rolling outside is fun (!), it trains the small balance muscles in your legs and feet, it makes you adaptable to obstacles, with a bit of luck we make ourselves noticed. Negative side: Rolling outside means we're not rolling inside preparing for our upcoming game (5th of august BTW, hush), we're not doing pack training, not tackling, not learning plays. It's a tough call. Both are needed, so we do both. Today was just fantastic! Look at this!

MADicken in the front and Ra-punch-al (undecided) following closely

In the photo we're close to "home". We rolled a really nice route down and round Hertsön which had new asphalts and nice downhills (of course you always have to go up the hill that you came down).

Perfect summer lined up!

Just one more week of studying my ass off and then my summer holidays start. Yay!

June and July I will be off and therefor have loads of time to skate, promote us and train for an upcoming bout (not sure what I'm allowed to say about that one at this stage, so I'm not saying anything, hush hush). After that bout I'm going to tropical Holland for the first time since three years, woohoo! Sun sun sun! Of course I am taking my gear with me to skate outdoors, but also to skate some Derby. Yeah! I've been in contact with Furr Rocious, of the Amsterdam Derby Dames and it turns out I'm welcome to roll with them on their training. I am SO looking forward to that. I love our girls here in the far North, but it's gonna be so awesome to meet others and play with them! But wait.. it gets better.. ADD are playing their first official bout while I'm in Holland so I get to take my friends and family to a bout to show them what it's all about.

When I come back I have my internships waiting for me. Five weeks at the hospital and five weeks at a neuro rehab centre. I'm even looking forward to that!

Now I just have to clear these exams. If I don't, I'm screwed since the retakes are when I'm in Holland and I need to clear these before I'm allowed to go out to my internships.

Like a naked butt on a soapy waterslide

... but with much more directional control. That's what these slim Stingers are like to me. I say to me, because how you apreciate wheels is very personal. It has to do with your fysique, your skate build and then your personal preferences.

I absolutely love them and I have to get me a set. I tried them out in the skatehall which means slippery, cement floor but as you can see they are moderately hard/soft (88A on a scale that seeems to run from about 74A = super soft to 98A = super hard). The hardness and slimness made them roll fast but the softness gave me enough grip to not slide in the fast curves at all. The wheels I currently have are also 88As, but they are wider and cheaper. The wideness makes them clunky in turns and makes them get stuck in other blockers wheels, the cheapness makes them slip in fast curves. Well, I think the slipping really also has to do with the wideness, because it means that I tilt them to the sides in my cross-overs sooner then the slim wheels, which means I reduce the grip surface.

So.. I don't own a set, but I got to try them anyways? One of our refs bought a set and is still deciding if he likes them. I have been considering them for a while now, but they are a bit expensive, so I hadn't dared ordering them yet. As soon as he posted that he had gotten them I rudely ordered some alone time with the cuties.

Copyright 2011 Joakim Norrgard

 Roll Out Boy, thank you so much for helping me find my love!

Derby kisses,

Dutchess

Derby weekend

The sun was shining, the people interested, the DJ playing and we were rolling... on the main street here in Luleå. We were only 5 or 6 in skates and the street wasn't wide enough to make a real track, so we played some jam simulations (two blockers on each team and only one jammer) on our tiny track wich consisted of tiles, cobble stones and sewage lids.

Me in black trying to pass Badass Babuska in the green helmet

That was yesterday and then today we followed it up by a nice training with the best girls ever. This was one of the few times that I really didn't feel like going to practice, but I'm glad I did anyway. It made me feel so much better!

Derby kisses,
Dutchess

Skatemechanic

 Sooo.. tonight we get to skate at the best floor ever. I am so looking forward to it! A gorgeous wooden polished sports floor. In honor of tonight I started pulling apart my skates and cleaning every single part last night. I even opened up the bearings which I thought I ruined by skating through filthy puddles outdoors, cleaned them in acetone, greased them with 5-56 (thank you Madeleine) and closed them back up.

Now they roll much better than they did before, but when spinning inbetween my fingers I do feel some internal damages. At least I think I do. So I'm gonna keep those for outdoors and will try a new set from the local sports shop in my indoors tonight. I still want to order some harder and narrower indoor wheels than I have now and then I'll get a proper set of bearings for those.

That's all for now!

Derby kisses,
Dutchess

Easter rolling

On sundays we normally have a training at the skatehall and during those hours Slaughters Daughters are the hosts for tjejåkning. That means that any girl that wants to use the skatehall is welcome in. Today we wouldn't be enough derby girls to actually do a real training but someone still had to go and be host for tjejåkning, so Roadkill and I showed up. The weather was too awesome to roll on the dusty indoor cement floor, so we decided to use the parking lot in stead. Normally it's filled with cars from the boule players next door, but unlike us they didn't have any easter activity, so the carpark was ours!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roadkill

Me

 

I hope you are all having a sun filled easter weekend!

Derby kisses,
Dutchess