Road skating

Road skating is the sport of skating (inline skating or roller skating) on roads, much like road cycling. It shares much with inline speed skating.

Roadskaters often skate in tight packs, drafting each other and sharing the lead, which allows a pack to travel faster than an individual skater. The individual members of a pack use comparatively less energy than the lone skater traveling at the same speed. Even the lead skater in the pack enjoys an advantage from the drafting skaters behind.

While gliding downhill, an inline skater in a tucked position can achieve speeds that exceed the speed of a tucked cyclist. This is due to lower wind resistance. The rolling resistance is similar for a cyclist and a skater — it is only when actively skating (i.e., in the skating stroke) that the skater incurs greater resistance. Skating is roughly 50% slower than cycling on flat ground.

Skaters routinely achieve downhill speeds of 60 km/h (37 mph), similar to cyclists. Compared to cyclists, though, skaters particularly suffer on uphills, when the drafting advantage disappears.

A skating paceline going down hills may easily achieve speeds faster than a cycling paceline of equal length. The reason is that the road skating paceline has a much more efficient draft effect. The draft effect in road skating is superior for three reasons:

Skating (especially road skating) is much more like cycling than running in terms of the muscles employed. Cyclists and skaters commonly participate in each other's sports as cross-training. Runners often switch to road skating due to injuries associated with the impact of running. Many skiers use road skating for off-season and pre-season conditioning as well. In addition, skating is an excellent cross-training activity for a wide range of other sports due to the lateral (side-to-side) motion involved in the skating stride.

Road skating in a pack has some common rules that most skaters follow. Such rules include skating in single file except when passing or moving into the back of the pack, rotational "pulling" in the front of the pack to shield the rest of the pack from the wind, and signaling about road conditions, hazards and alike to skaters in the back of the pack. Single-file skating in a pack is mostly dictated by the need to minimize the impact of air resistance on the pack, thus shielding from the wind behind the back of the first person who is "pulling" the pack. "Pulling" is associated with up to 30% higher energy exertion; thus, it is generally accepted that skaters rotate through "pulls," allowing for equal energy exertion through the pack. A skater who has finished "pulling" steps out of the pack and slowly moves into the back of the pack. The skater in front of the pack has a better view of the road ahead and points and calls out road hazards (holes, cracks, water puddles, cars, etc.).

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