I just came back from an evening skate with some of the more adventurous skaters I know. It was a good time, but I had to bail out early, due to hunger and fatigue. On the way back to the house, after grabbing some food from Deluxe, I came back up Taranaki. I’ve made this mistake before, but I haven’t yet learned my lesson: I can’t cross onto Webb Street. There is no pedestrian crossing, which means that I can’t take the shallower incline of Hopper St. By the time I killed my lungs getting to the top of the hill, I wasn’t ready to sprint out the downhill home-stretch.

The last couple hundred meters is a lot of fun. The break in the traffic is enough to jump ahead and keep to the road – there should be about 10 seconds of no cars. It’s a fun skate when you’re not busy blowing up your lungs trying to stay in front of traffic.