Thanks for the post from Inline Planet Focke, this is
great information. Things I learned from this post
that we Downhiller's in California (USA) need to think
about. Yes for all you who are familiar with my
commentary, this may be a blog to some and thrilling
to others, my intention is to motivate and get people
here at home (California) thinking about downhill.

Let me qualify the reason I am saying California and
not USA considering the reference of this post, the
first downhill championships in Israel (oh yeah!),
it's because 99% of the American Downhillers are from
California. Five out of the Six IGSA world cup Inline
Downhill Championships have been held by Skaters from
California. We will not mention who was the sixth he's
not from this country, but maybe that's my point. So
on to the blog.

First and foremost, kudos to the skaters in Israel for
showing that despite the world around us and whatever
politics are going on, Downhill Inline reigns supreme!


Yes they held their first ever Dowhill Inline
Championship and they did it with style and that style
is the point of this blog and the lessons that need to
be learned can be seen by their example.

1. They held an event that had enough showing to have
a pro and armature class.

2. They held an event without hay bales and expensive
regulations that keep our sport from growing (leather
requirements etc.)

Except for the IGSA, no one is promoting events in
California currently, the primary reasons. Liability
and mentality of getting a road closed to use is the
most difficult obstical of putting on a race. The last
reason is the kind of safety equipment that is
required by insurance companies and the IGSA
sanctioning body.

Isreal shows that this can be overcome, how you ask?

1. Don't require leathers, I have been to races on
three different contents, only here in the USA did we
have to wear leathers as Inline Downhill racers. In my
experience this requirement by the IGSA is excessive
and keeps our sport from growing.

2. Use the many great roads that we don't use, but
skate on all the time for race venues. Some of the
most awesome roads used by us without leathers or hey
bales would make great race courses. It's the
prohibitive cost of hay bales that makes using these
roads for a sanctioned race the core problem. We need
to be able to just don our usual skate gear with full
faced helmets and race down a hill.

3. If we can't get the IGSA to sanction races without
the above constraints, form our own Inline downhill
body and sanction our own races.

Well that's it for this blog and I encourage you to
check out some of the downhill video that the boys
from Israel have been posting.

Dave Lambert

to visit the public downhill group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DSK8/