Tatem Park - First Visit

This is the training ground for London Skaters Speed Team. Many of my skater friends have been encouraging me to join them so I finally made the trip down to the park in North London. It's about a 30 minute trip from Liverpool Street to Silver Street station, followed by a 15 minute walk. (probably skate it next time).


It was good check out the training location which was lovely and smooth. The short track is 250 yards long but it was the first time I was using a banked track. A couple of times I deviated towards the centre of the track a little more than I intended. Towards the end I was getting used to the cross-overs on the turns which I was scared to do on speed skates having been out of practice. 

People's abilities were varied, most were much more seasoned to the speed skating than myself. That said there were no egos and everyone was there to train and help each other out. In fact I knew quite a few of the guys already from the other skate scenes. The coach Adrian led us through various drills, including race starts which I've never given much thought to before.


It would be a nice thing to do this more often but the journey for me and a lot of others is quite lengthy, particularly for a week day. There are so many skate events during the week (and/or social events), so it's a case of working out what I want to prioritise..