It is a commonplace that the streets of Taipei are not the friendliest place for pedestrians and people wanting to get some exercise.
However, the Taipei City government, to its credit, has done much over the past decade to create public spaces in the city that are friendly to people wanting to spend time outdoors. This has taken the form of building new parks and paths or renovating existing ones, of which many are particularly suited to inline skating. As a result, on any given weekend, the parks and riverside pathways of Taipei are filled with adults and children learning how to skate.
According to Geoff Le Cren, owner of Mono Club, a sports store specializing in skating products, learning how to inline skate is a breeze. He suggests that a person can learn to balance after only twenty minutes on the blades and feel comfortable on them within a day.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MONO CLUB
With a variety of classes on offer, Mono Club seeks to introduce beginners to the sport and provide more expert skaters with tips on how to improve their stride. Le Cren says wearing proper equipment and dressing appropriately is an important part of learning the sport and strongly advises novices and veterans alike to wear elbow and knee pads and be sure to have hand and head protection before, er, hitting the pavement.
With Taiwan manufacturing a lot of inline skating equipment, the sport doesn't have to be expensive. According to Le Cren, inline skates are particularly cheap to buy in Taiwan because the molds for the skates are not subject to intellectual property legislation. "To make a skate, all the expense is in making the mold for the plastic injection," he said.
For every size of skate, a new mold has to be created, usually at an expense of US$50,000. "So to bring out a whole line is extremely expensive," Le Cren says. This expense is then passed on to the consumer, who sometimes pays as much as NT$8,000 for a pair of brand name skates.
Because skate molds in Taiwan are not copyright protected they are cheap to make and therefore when they hit the store shelves are often half the price of brand name skates. Le Cren admits that quality suffers a bit, but adds, public molds are improving all the time.
Unless you are a veteran skater or athletic, Le Cren strongly recommends avoiding skating on the streets as the traffic can be unforgiving. Instead, he says there are a variety of areas throughout Taipei that are ideal for beginners and advanced skaters.
Though most commonly known as the location for dragon boat races, Dajia Riverside Park (大佳河濱公園) on the Keelung River has a rink for inline hockey and speed skating. The rink is well maintained and there are always people there willing to give pointers on how to skate.
The recently constructed paths along the riverside close to the Taipei Zoo in Mucha are one of the better areas to skate. With relatively wide paths and a smooth surface, it is the ideal spot for beginners to practice on. Rarely used during the day, the path is usually free of pedestrians or cyclists and the trees and grass make a pleasant environment to skate in.
Similar to Mucha, the paths along the Keelung River are also good places to skate. One drawback is they are not as wide as the paths in Mucha and are also populated with considerably more pedestrians and cyclists, frustrating the beginner with obstacles.
When it comes to scenery, one of the best places to skate is Bali (八里), across the river from Tamsui (淡水). The recently constructed paths are wide and there is an inline skating culture has gradually developed. This would be more of a day trip because it requires taking a ferry from the Danshui MRT over to Bali.
For those that don't have the time or inclination to travel up to Danshui or down to the zoo, National Taiwan University campus provides some of the best surfaces to skate on in Taipei because of the many wide avenues crisscrossing the campus.
The skating rink located at the northeast end of Daan Park is also a great place to go especially because there are coaches there who usually offer free advice to anyone who is having difficulty picking up the sport for the first time. For those who want to experiment with the sport before investing in equipment, Mono Club offers rentals at NT$150 per day.
On the net: www.monoclub.com.tw
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