LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

merten · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 7:28 am Subject: Back from Le Mans :)

Whew - what a wicked weekend. I've just arrived home from Le Mans thanks to our cool convertible night bus Wink

First of all - some results:
CONGRATULATIONS to LSST girls for making 3rd rank in the girls team ranking!!!. Great job girls Cool

The LSST boys teams did not make the podium Smile

..., but scored well. LSST boys 1 came 37th overall, don't know the exact position of LSST boys 2. Gav did a great job with Bont, but the team was disqualified in the end (due to some med certificate problems?). They'd definitely have won otherwise as they were two laps ahead by then.

Thanks for everybody making this a funtastic weekend, I really enjoyed racing with LSST and taking part in this event. I think I'll do this again Smile

I've taken lots of photos, need new gallery access to put them up. Let's hear others now, don't want to disclose everything right away Smile

Adam B(GMF) · Joined: 30 Apr 2004 Posts: 237

Can I just say that I had an amazing time and really enjoyed racing and can’t wait to do it again. I felt privileged to be part of such a great team.

Do people want to have a post race get together sometime – in a pub or in the park sometime? We can have a chat about the race what worked well etc. or we could do it on line?

Michi · Joined: 11 Jun 2005 Posts: 652 Location: Hamburg

That sounds really like a lot of fun . . .
Congratulations to all of you!
I wish I could have been there too Sad

But I now look forward to next year and hope I can join then.

merten · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:00 am Subject:

More info on Bont's disqualification...:
http://p196.ezboard.com/fbontskatesfrm2.showMessage?topicID=1531.topic

Fred_Paris · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 11:45 am Subject:

I'm back too... after three attempts I managed to get in the eurostar this morning...

I failed sunday evening because I didn't have my secure ID, it was still with the president of my club (he didn't gave it back to me after the registration in le mans.

Stop laughing at me gav I can hear you

It was not funny at all after this tough week end to get stuck like that. hopefully my sisters were there to save the day, and I finally get my Id back at 1 o'clock this morning.

I failed the second time because I just didn't wake up a 4o'clock in order to catch the first eurostar to london...

I finally get the 8:13 train this morning...and came straight to work...

And now I'm so... not in a good shape, I wonder why...(probably the 2h sleep on friday evening, the 2h sleeep during saturday night, and the 4h sleep on sunday, and some skating at some points Razz

)

anyway the race was great, thank you for the supporting, and all messages received throught my french teammates Smile

For the bont team this story is just too sad, it should never happen... anyway for me my team came 11th and not 10th.

back to work now...

Gav · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 12:22 pm Subject:

What!? Me, laugh? Fred, I would never. heeheeheehee

My race report on SR is here

Had a great weekend... but to be honest, think I might do the swiss inline cup race next year instead. We'll see.

Helen · Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 90 Location: Dagenham

Very well done, everyone. I've heard snippets from Raymond in brief phonecalls. No doubt I'll get more details tonight and on Tuesday at Tatem.

Bad luck, Gav. A great shame the team was disqualified when you'd done so well. Despite the red tape, it was a de facto victory.

merten · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 2:23 pm Subject:

Good report Gav - and nice to have the complete picture now. I'd really have preferred us to be 38th Sad

and you guys on the podium. There were not that many cheers for the French when they climbed it... and how proud can you be of a victory like this? I'd have preferred to be honest second, really...

Any chance the organisers might still change their mind? I understand you finished the race with timing anyway?

Ray · Joined: 30 Mar 2004 Posts: 806 Location: Dagenham

What an amazing weekend,

Phenomenal performance by the ladies team for an amazingly exciting and hard won 3rd position.

Congratulations to Team 1 - you just kept plugging in those fast laps coming back from 40th to 37th in the last few laps. 164 laps altogether!

Well done Gav for being part of the team that won the event on the track.

well done to Natasha and Farhana for their impressive performance for Germany Laughing

As for us in Team 2 we had such fun and tremendous commitment from every one. Alex was a great team captain his fiendishly clever schedule gave us the chance of a reasonable rest overnight and then he put in three great laps at the end. Adam's speed was impressive (team 1 next year?) Dan Barlow put in some sub 9's. I was so chuffed with my fastest lap of 9.03. But everyone played a sterling part: Camberley skaters - Martin and Dan who would just do anything asked of them amd kept the team supplied with pins suntan lotion food drink whatever, Rich who skated his heart out and when immobilised by a really nasty blister stuck around to keep us organised and motivated. Philippe just kept putting in good laps even when there was no-one to pass the baton too - he just went round again! Stephan kept getting faster and faster - if it'ld been a 48 hour race I reckon he would have been putting in 8 minute laps!

Altogether a tremendous team performance - a total of 142 laps at an average of 10 minutes and 8 seconds a lap. We came in 137th out of almost 600 teams

After it all I went back to a hotel with Hans Farhana and Natasha, Dan and Martin had a slap up meal Witnessed the impressive wounds acquired by Natasha and Hans had a lot of laughs, three showers and a good nights sleep.

Thanks everyone for making it a great experience

Official results now up on: http://www.24rollers.com/resultats/resultats_2005.html

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2414

What he said. I'd do it all again - but not this week, my back aches.

Personal highlights:

Finding that one of the stalls was selling hyper +grip wheels in 76mm, so that I could put decent wheels on the front of my entirely inappropriate FSK frames as well as the back
To get 9:05 on the first lap of my proper shift was a tremendous relief - after a really rather unimpressive "practice" lap I was beginning to wonder what I was doing there.
The graveyard shift - all of it. Perfect temperature for skating some fast laps, the commentator had shut up and gone to bed, everyone on the track was good-humoured, and the floodlighting plus the strange patterns that the scoreboard was casting on the track (was it supposed to do that? had it crashed?) gave the whole place a strange vaguely hypnotic futuristic atmosphere. Very cool.
The team spirit on the Sunday was just great: people turning up for shift early, hanging around afterwards, mixing up drinks etc. And it really made a difference to be sharing a pit with the other lsst teams and London skaters: definitely worth sorting this out again next time.

Next year: Eat properly. Get a tent that's less like a greenhouse. Shoot the commentator - or at least in some way persuade him to stop shouting so much. Stay for the end (sorry I couldn't be around for your last laps, Alex). But basically - do it all again: bigger, faster, more. Massive thanks to everybody, and well done.

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5887

Got home 2 hours ago. Tired. Need sleep. Can't be bothered to empty the car.

Highlights
Going under 9 mins for the first time.

Gav popping by with his beaming face saying just did a 6:50. You weren't joking about the special powers of those Bont skin suits.

Ladies coming 3rd

The thanks from Alex after burning myself up to help him go sub 9 for the first time.

The detective work to track down all the teams numbers and colours that we needed to get past to climb the rankings in the last 3 hours. We got past 2 of them and stayed ahead of the one we were trading places with. The top girls team were rather good. They were in the pit next to us and beat the fast team by more than 11 minutes.

Other Stuff
The standard just goes up every year. This year we finished a place behind last year but we skated 10 more, laps even without Gav. The most impressive thing about our performance is that 160 laps is a 9 minute average. We completed 164. 3 years ago only a handful of skaters from London managed to go sub 9 and many of the better skaters could barely manage regular sub 10s for most it was a battle to go sub 11. As one of the 3 skaters to have raced all 4 years that we have been participating I am extremely proud of the achievements of everyone in all our teams.

From my own history, I only averaged 11:05 in the first year and only managed 9 laps with a best time of 10:54. This year I skated 18 laps and had a couple more in me, averaged about 25secs faster than ever before (somewhere between 9:10 and 9:17) with a best lap of 8:51. I have to say that after 4 years I am not enjoying it as much as I did. I am now officially retired from racing competitive laps at Le Mans as I have no more personal goals that I want to achieve there. Might be tempted back as a team manager or a recreational skater but no more major action for me. There is plenty of new and faster talent coming through to take my place.

In case he denies it later, Quentin has expressed a desire to join us in skinsuits next year just to see what he is really capable of.

dan_b · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 2414

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5887

Should have seen his sunburn at the swimming pool last night.

Linda J · Joined: 18 Apr 2005 Posts: 210

Heh heh! Wrestlers outfit suntan!

He's probably dying to get in one (a proper skinsuit) but needs confirmation and encouragement as he fears that it might change his personality!

He was lapping in under 8 minutes by the end and did a marathon sprint supporting us girls in the last moments of our holy battle. I'm dead proud of him and hope to see him sporting the seriously sporty look one day soon.

Gav · Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:23 pm Subject:

I have had 4 crispy cream doughnuts and a chocolate chip cookie this afternoon.

And you know what...? I deserved them Smile