The Pain in Spain…
I haven’t been on my roller skis for more than 3 months. First it was because of my calf injury, then simply because we never seemed to be anywhere with a decent smooth surface on quiet enough roads.
The very roller skis that I haven’t been on for a while.
Los Duques. Home to Mrs P’s brother and lovely, quiet roads.
Now we are in Los Duques however, I have no excuse, so I set off out into the vineyards with Mrs P in tow, on her bicycle, to take some photos.
No expense spared drone shot of Los Duques
I remembered the route out through the vineyards as being nice and flat. Maybe some minor undulations, nothing more, but it is actually quite hilly.
Strava says, “No!”
On the one hand this is great. I could certainly do with some practice going uphill. On the other hand it is not so great. Roller skis have no brakes and I have not used them on downhill sections before. Oh, I know the theory of slowing down, but theoretical knowledge is not going to get me down in one piece, as I am about to discover.
Lovely day for a roller ski.
My outrider, Mrs P, was not only showing off her one handed, Tour de France style, video skills, but also scouting ahead to see what kind of hills I am going to encounter. I am in good hands.
Mrs P - Expert videos of incompetent roller skiers. She is also available for Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.
After a couple of miles she cycled back to say; “The next hill is quite steep. Maybe you should turn back now.”
With a level of confidence borne entirely of ignorance I say, “I’ll be fine. I need to practice my snow ploughing.” Mrs P frowned, but seemed to buy in to my misplaced self-assurance.
It started off so well. My inner voice maintaining a running commentary, reminding me what to do…
“Ok Neil. Slowly enter the downhill section, get your legs wide apart… that’s it. Now angle the roller skis inwards (just like the classic skiing snowplough technique), good. Now keep your weight evenly balanced across the whole of your foot so that you don’t speed up rather than slow down… I said, keep the weight evenly… No! Don’t lean back! You’ll start to go too fast… Oh dear!” My inner voice covers its eyes, “Too late!”
“MAN DOWN!” I cried as I hit the rather hard tarmac and slid a couple of metres along the road on my painfully exposed derrière.
“MEDIC!” I added, by way of clarification that this impact did in fact rather sting.
Now many wives would burst out laughing and immediately take multiple photos of my sad, pathetic body, lying on the ground. Limbs tangled at strange unhealthy looking angles whilst I emit strange whimpering noises, but not Mrs P. Mrs P is always oddly sympathetic when I take a tumble of any sort. Regardless of how stupid and/or inadvisable the activity.
Whilst this is a lovely, heartwarming reaction there is a downside to her affectionately compassionate reaction. It means that there is never a photo of me lying on the floor and bleeding to share with my readers.
Neil demonstrates the classic ‘upright’ method
The second time I fell over (yes, I managed to take two tumbles onto the unforgiving tarmac) I even said, from my horizontal and rather uncomfortable position “(Moan) I’m (Ow!) fine. Take a (groan) photo.”
She refused, citing my welfare as more important than a stupid photo. Can you believe it!?
All I can say is that it it is a good job that the roles weren’t reversed. Because I’d be there, quick as a flash, clicking away with the camera. Saying unhelpful things such as, “Can you just twist that leg round a bit further so I can see the blood?”
Anyway, because of Mrs P’s inability to be an unfeeling gatherer of social media images I can only show you a photo of my injuries after we got back and cleaned me up a bit.
Body of Adonis. Pain threshold of a 4 year old
I also grazed my elbow and scratched my thumb, but that’s enough photos of my semi-clad body for one day.
