Skating around UoN Jubilee Campus

So, often when I go skating around Jubilee campus, I end up doing a lap or two for a warm up for roller games after a break at BladeSoc, between practising slalom, or just for fun! I downloaded a new app today called Runkeeper to test its distance, speed and GPS route storing and to document the laps around Jubilee (short and long).

Here are the screen captures taken from the app Runkeeper for the long route.  On the left, it shows the route on the map, as well as the duration, distance and average speed. On the right is the speed and elevation graphs for the duration of the route.

Here are the short routes taken from the app Runkeeper. As you can see, the app is a bit glitchy and doesn’t accurately map the route, but it’s close enough.

So from the app, you can see that the short route is around 1 mile long, with the longer route being (shockingly longer) ~1.3 miles. Towards the end of each route, the road surface gets quite uneven and annoying to skate on, but the majority of the route beforehand is really smooth and relatively flat. To get a better feel of the route for anyone who wants to skate it, I’m going to post photos below with text commentary and route lines! Follow the red line for the “long route” and the green line for the “short route”.

Start the the top of the hill just outside of the carpark near to the YANG Fujia Building. Roll down the hill and start skating towards the tennis courts!

This is the first divergence of the two routes! For the green route, take a right before the path leading to the tennis courts and follow the road around. Now this is a road with parking spaces, so watch out for vehicles moving/ parking. For the red route, take the second right onto the footpath leading past the tennis courts. Follow the path around to the right (don’t exit the campus!) and continue to follow the path with grass on either side. As this is a footpath, be careful of pedestrians.

The routes now merge together again! Watch out for the metal bollard and take the path to the right.

From here, the route is pretty smooth. Continue along the front of this conference centre building. Be careful of pedestrians exiting the building doors and be prepared to slow down as there is a sharp left next up!

Here is the sharp left mentioned before! Continue following the path straight on (it will be straight on for a while now).

Follow the path straight on. Once again, this is a pedestrian path so watch out for those walking!

The floor tiles in the middle of this photo are a bit uneven and wobbly, so watch your footing here.

Skating straight on along the building frontages. Watching out for the concrete bollard!

Follow the path veering left. Watch out for happy couples/ pedestrians! (Even though the route lines say otherwise!)

Another divergence of the route! For the red route, follow the path alongside Melton Hall and turn right at the top of the slight incline. Follow this path around (it’s a bit uneven here from now on) and turn right again when you reach the road again and follow the road down to the roundabout. For the green route, follow the path veering right and at the top of the slight incline at the roundabout, turn right and skate on.

Here is the view at the roundabout. Watch out for vehicles entering the campus and of course give way at the roundabout (or wait on the footpath until the cars have gone). Follow the road straight on once past the roundabout.

View from the roundabout. Continue straight! The road surface is quite rough here so watch your footing. There are also speed bumps along the road, so you can either skate around them or roll over them (bend your knees and scissor a lot and you should be fine).

Here you could continue straight, though the routes say to turn left and then turning right again as the road surface is nicer this way. This is normally a bus stopping place, so watch out for buses that may be there, and remember to check up and down the road before exiting and continuing.

Continue straight! If the road is too rocky, skating on the pavement is much smoother!

And we are back to the starting point! Laps finished!

I hope those pictures help with demonstrating the lap routes. Here are the aerial map views of both routes (“long” red and “short” green) for those who prefer a circuit view, with the green and red filled circle representing the starting point:

Of course there are shorter routes you could do from looking at the above maps, so feel free to experiment!

…So what is BladeSoc?

The majority of the event posts I’ve written (in fact all) so far have mentioned BladeSoc, so I thought I’d explain a bit about BladeSoc and why it’s so great.

BladeSoc is my university’s rollerblading society (or maybe its ex-university since I am now a graduate!). They organise weekly skating sessions (Saturdays 13:00-16:00- indoors and outdoors dependent on weather), Hockey sessions (Wednesdays 19:00 – 21:00), and Slalom sessions (Sundays 20:00 – 22:00). (Though these times may change- check their SU page for up-to-date information!) They even provide the skates and pads to hire each session for free, or offer year long hiring for a small cost. As with all societies, there is a membership joining fee but at £6 for the whole year you can’t really complain!

        

Outside of the weekly sessions, one-off skating events are also held such as a slalom competition, ice skating, Ice Hockey Varsity, and an end of exams rollerdisco! (As well as the events I have already written about- London Santa Skate, Preston Roller Marathon, and Le Mans 24hr Roller). Non-skating events are also held such as bar crawl socials, themed club socials, picnics, treasure hunts (to name a few). They also team up with the local skating group “The Nottingham Skaters” on Tuesdays to skate around the city!

BladeSoc’s slalom competition!

Hugely popular roller disco event!

BladeSoc club social!

BladeSoc is the friendliest society I had the pleasure of joining, and it was a privilege to have served as a member of the committee during my final year (I definitely recommend joining the committee for a society or activity you love!).  Not only has it allowed my skating skills to advance, I’ve made a huge bunch of friends along the way, found through our love of skating!

Some of the BladeSoc group!

I joined the society in late January 2014 and it is were my skating adventure began.

Follow them on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/UoNBladeSoc

Join the Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Bladesoc/