Sk8 LND

When I was something like 8 years old, my parents bought me my first pair of skates and enough safety gear to send me into a volcano. Many skinned knees later, I still live for the thrill of flying down the roads with the probability that an unseen pebble can throw me off.

In the first year of uni, my dorms were about a 20mins walk away from the lecture halls and not soon after, a care package from home arrived with my skates. That 25mins stroll became a 7mins zoom down the bicycle lane, saving many 9am lectures. But I was yet to discover the skating culture in London – until today…

I’d found out about the London Friday Night Skate at some point in my 2nd year but with a billion things going on, I had never ended up attending one. Today, however, I rushed out of the Student Centre on campus, grabbed my skates and headed to the Wellington Arch in Hyde Park. I didn’t have to look to far to find my fellow brethren on skates of every shape and size.

With marshals blocking cars, we were given free reign over the streets of London. Music blasting from a backpack-speaker and the thunder of hundreds of rubber wheels on tarmac accompanied as we whizzed all the way through big and small streets, cheered on by the early pub-goers and frowned upon by annoyed drivers.

It was a 20km loop with a short break in the middle and catching the sunset on the Chelsea Bridge. Here’s a map for those curious of the route (and my performance…)

Absolutely surreal. And the adrenaline pumped until I got home after 11 and realised I hadn’t had dinner…

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