While I am not building a new slide board, I am always on the look out for new material solutions, as acquiring laminate from Ikea by happenstance is a hard way to build equipment. Lifehacker posted an article about inexpensive surfaces for custom made dry-erase boards, and suggested a material called Hardboard Panel Board. Looking at the material, it looks pretty thin, so it would be ideal to apply this with an adhesive on top of a half inch sheet of plywood. You could basically substitute these two parts for the surface, and follow the rest of my directions to complete the build. I haven’t seen these materials, nor have I tested how well it would work for a slide board, but the surface for dry-erase boards would make a pretty good surface for a slide board. I would imagine this might work well, also. If you are in the market for a lateral trainer, this may be a good parts option for a personal build.
By way of other updates, I am attending the SkateLove Joey Mantia Clinic in Roseville, Minnesota, this weekend. I am hoping to shoot some video and have more information about the event next week.
I am also working on a post targeted at cardiovascular fitness for speed inline skaters that I hope to post soon. After my VO2 Max test, I reconsidered how I have been training for skating, and realized that my training did not include cardiovascular capacity as a focus. Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of sport science specific to speed skating, and even less for inline speed skating. I am planning on trying to relate a lot of what I have learned from various sources to inline speed skating in hopes of having all of this information make better sense for myself, but also get it out there for other skaters to discuss.
The Inline Paceline 