July 9, 2003
Compiled by Ang Tian Teck.

Have you ever skated in the rain, or got caught in the rain when you were skating? If you live in Singapore, you'll most often experience similar situation. Bright and sunny one moment and then the sky fell.

Most of us are comfortable skating in dry weather conditions. Our skates and wheels were designed for dry weather skating. And so, when it comes to wet roads, we lose traction, slip and fall.

But through some practice and adhering to basic principles and law of physics, we should be able to skate quite safely in wet weather conditions. Eddy Matzger in his article titled "Racing in the Rain", published in the Aug/Sep 1994 Inline Magazine, talks about three of his adventures - racing in the rain. Eddy made the most out of skating in all conditions. To him, he is just having fun.

"Don't use the rain as an excuse to slack off." advised Eddy. "If you don't keep taking up the slack, it becomes too easy to do it again the next time, like quitting a race just because you get dropped from the front pack."

Over the years, in fact, Eddy has made the rain his friend. It may be the kind of relationship where he has to laugh to keep from crying. "... but heck, if it's going to rain, let it pour!"

In the same article, Eddy shared with us how he conquered his fear of water by adhering to the following three basic principles:

1. Abbreviate pushes to reduce the chance of slipping. This means push out only half as far as normal, making sure to keep all wheels in contact with the ground surface. The power output per stroke goes down, but you make up for the resulting loss of speed with a higher cadence.

2. Make sure that your weight is centered over your gliding skate, so that even if you do slip while pushing with the opposing leg, you can still catch yourself in a balanced position. This happens frequently when you inadvertently skate over a painted line or a patch of oil.

3. If negotiating a wet turn, crouch down low and anchor yourself with your elbows on your knees. Keep a wide stance with your weight centered over your skates. That way, when you go around turns, even if you do slip, your feet will never slide out from under you.

In a more recent article titled "The Banana Peel Principle", published in CITY SPORTS Magazine - June, 1998, Eddy has the following points to add with regards to skating in the rain.

1. Shorten up your stride. If you try to get in a major push in the rain, your wheels will slip, especially if you're skating over the double yellow line, for example. Shortening your stride requires a concomitant increase in ppm's (pushes per minute) to keep up to speed. This higher tempo allows you to back off on the amount of power you apply per push – just like the granny gear on a bicycle.

2. Push with wheels perpendicular to the pavement. Whether it's wet or dry, you should always try to push off the tops of your wheels for maximum traction. Pronation, which is caused by improper alignment (=bad balance) and not weak ankles, leads to severely angled wheels which barely maintain any grip on dry pavement, let alone the wet stuff. Pushing down and into the pavement off the tops of your wheels, not the inside edges, allows you to push almost infinitely hard, even in the rain.

3. Avoid paint, polished concrete, and wet leaves. Always look for a little rough stuff when you're skating in the rain. If you must skate over something incredibly smooth, glide, don't stride over it, and maintain a staggered stance for balance (like scissors -- one foot forward leading the way and unweighted, the other foot back and supporting your weight).

4. If you go around a turn in the rain, assume a wide stance. Your skates will slide out from under you if you attempt a turn in the rain with your feet together. Spread them instead slightly wider than your shoulders in a downhill stance too, so that if you start sliding, it's on a stable platform that you can ride out.

5. Learn the frontward t-stop. If you can balance well while gliding on one skate, then you can use the other skate as a lever with which to apply stopping power to the pavement. While sitting deeply on your gliding skate, slowly lower your forward extended skate onto the ground, at an angle that permits it to slide easily. Then start increasing the weight on the sliding skate until you grind to a halt. This stopping method is difficult to master but truly empowering.

6. Make the rain your friend. Chances are, if you hate the rain, it'll hate you back. So work with it the best you can. Realize you may have to curtail your speed just a bit as a safety compromise. Realize, too, that once the pavement is completely wet, your traction will be better than if you skate from a wet patch to a dry patch or vice-versa. So if it's wet out, stay wet and make the most of it.

Content of this article was extracted from "Racing in the Rain" by Eddy Matzger with permission from Eddy Matzger. For the complete and other intersting articles, please visit www.skatecentral.com.