How long is long distance?

[Eric Driver]

Here's a question - what actually is long distance skateboarding? I mean is it anything over 1 mile? 5 miles? 20 miles? 100 miles? 3500 miles? or is it any distance at all, so long as it's flat and you have to push or pump all the way? but that would include to the pub, or the post box. Or is it any distance at all, so long as it's long enough to be boring, in a Zen kind of way? Or any distance at all, so long as you don't think you're just 'cruising'. ?? Curious. When I go out for a few miles on the flat I think I'm 'LDP'ing because that's a specific technique, regardless of distance, but I don't think I'm really 'long-distance' unless I'm carrying sandwiches. Is 10 miles really 'long distance'? Or is that just 'SDP'? What's the difference between 'long distance' and merely 'cruising'? Personally I reckon it's the packed lunch that makes the difference. Between meals = SDP. Sandwiches = LDP. Tent = mission.

[robert borek]

long enough to get fed up for me i'll skate about 5 miles... any further than that and get fed up and find a hill to ride.

[Eric Driver]

Wait - so long distance is the point at which you give up?? That should be called 'too long distance'.
[ps - edit for typo]

[wafflesole]

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[Eric Driver]

Food and water - that makes sense. I was thinking along the same lines, but it raises the question of luggage. I hate wearing a rucksac. Actually pumping with a rucksac is worse for me than pushing with a rucksac because of the side-to-side movement. Even a jogging pack with chest and waist straps is a pain if it's got a couple of pints of tea inside.

On that side note.. yeah!!

LDP is the thing. IMO. I reckon it's primitive to travel on a skateboard by pushing it along with your feet. Anyone can do that, up to a point, with a bit of stamina and a couple of pints of tea...
The real appeal I think is travelling fast and far on a skateboard without feet ever touching the ground.
Seems to me that the revolution over at Paved Wave is the development of the technology to cover long distance by pumping in a way which is actually more efficient than pushing. That's a revolution, and when Tom first mentioned the Mermaid over at SF and called it 'The Light' (as in 'I've seen the light') I think he was spot on.

[wafflesole]

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[Eric Driver]

Ok maybe the revolution has a little way to go yet.
Sure road surface is more critical to LDP than pushing, but big soft Avilas make a good difference.
Downhill seems OK providing there's enough road space to carve all the way, even on a Bennett. Anything too steep just gets a bit of brake. A 30mph DH hill has to be made into a 15mph carving hill. But it'd be much easier downhill on those new-fangled Virages I bet.
Up hill is the real problem! but maybe that's the time to get off and walk. I don't like pushing uphill either.
One other LDP-failing would be towing trailers. Useless... but that's back to the luggage issue again.
Oh there's another LDP problem - pushing along next to the kerb in a straight line doesn't freak out the motorists like LDP weaving and bouncing does. LDP feels like it needs more road space. That might just be perception. Still think it's way cooler tho'. I love the feeling of stepping up onto a board and just riding along on it, feet off the ground.

[longlongman]

longdistance is just skating a distance just for the hell of it.
maby it should be called distance.
any distance

[wafflesole]

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[Eric Driver]

But it begs the question 'further than what?' Further than the average skater skates? or further than you yourself skated last time? I take it to mean 'further than most', although I always assumed it was an echo of the Lush 'Skate Faster' slogan, which always seemed to infer 'faster than you yourself skated last time', in the spirit of pushing personal limits. I suppose, like everything it means different things to different people.
So there's the catering issue as a working definition for 'long distance', but does anyone else have another idea? Besides the obvious advice to think less and skate more?

[thermodood]

I think long distance is further than you'd be willing to skate to go do something. Say if the max you'd be willing to skate to get to a nice slide hill was 10 miles then long distance is skating further than that. For me personally long distance seems to be any journey that gets me out of the city (Southampton), I always feel satisfied once I've got to the start of the new forest or something.

It really is a difficult question...the more I think about it the harder it is to think up an answer. This is definitely straying into the whole philosophy thing.

Skate further is weird too. I like to think of it as pushing your limits, but not always physically. More like just going further than you usually do, but then the usual becomes longer and longer. So if you think of it like that skating further is infinite as there is always further.

And now because this has made me think about it. A question: how do we know the universe is not infinite in time and space?

[wafflesole]

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[Eric Driver]

Personal advancement? Skatefurther, Skatebetter, Skatebolder - just pushing the possibilities, and meeting personal goals. Maybe there doesn't have to be a qualifying minimum distance. I did only about 5 miles on the towpath this evening but I reckon it was a distance skate rather than a cruise because I got a bit of a sweat on, simple as that.
Don't think it counts as 'long distance' tho'!

[wafflesole]

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[Eric Driver]

Words words words...!
I reckon Derrida had it straight when he wrote that meaning is never fixed in a way that allows us to effectively determine it. Or in other words... it's all nonsense.
[edited for unnecessarily vulgar language. haha]