TNS - Tuesday Night Skating in Frankfurt

Every Tuesday night, between March and October, around a thousand inline skaters take to the streets of Frankfurt. Participation in the Tuesday Night Skate (TNS) is free and open to all. The route varies each week, but always starts at 8.30pm on Frankensteiner Platz in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen (see map). The tours are between 35 and 42km long and take around two and a half hours to complete. The group is accompanied by police, ambulances, and a team of volunteers on skates.

The Tuesday Night Skate has been taking place every year since 1999. During the 2000 and 2001 seasons around five thousand skaters would take part each week. The number has dropped in recent years due to the event becoming less open to beginners and more dominated by race-skaters. The organisers are trying to reverse that trend with their "Back to the roots" skate nights - newcomers are now encouraged and more emphasis is placed on having fun rather than racing.

See the TNS homepage, as well as the photos, route schedule and statistics, and the chat forum.

By the way, there's a similar event in Munich called the Münchner Blade Night. It takes place Monday evenings.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain, but I met a fellow here tonight who's been and confirms that you can go really fast on the TNS. That appeals to me, as I didn't like the Munich Blade Night because it's so friggin' slow and family-oriented and stuff. Yuck. If I end up going I'll post back here. He does say the streets are not in very good condition.

Yep they do skate pretty fast. Too fast for me as I actually still do not know how to stop properly.

Also Frankfurters avoid driving back from Sachsenhausen over the Alte Brücke on a Tuesday night at about 21:30 completely blocked off as the skaters finish

Hopefully I will have improved by next summer and will be able to skate

it is really raining though and rollerblading on wet pavement is a huuuuge no-no. Maybe next week.

oh well the TNS people say they go rain or shine. It's dry here now anyway. Here's a better map link for it: Frankensteiner Platz, Frankfurt.

I'll be there at 8:30, anyone else? They're doing a Back to the Roots summer special with easier routes and a slower tempo, the next ten times.

The Tuesday Night Skate was awesome but my knee... well it doesn't hurt when I'm sitting still. Definitely NOT family-friendly, that Back to the Roots slogan is bull-hockey. I could only just keep up and I'm quite good and really not that out of shape. The knee didn't help though, snap crackle pop all the way. Only my *ahem* excellent technique helped me last the whole route. Didn't do the extra fast round at the end.

They took lots of pictures of me, probably because I was near the helpers at the end all the time. Yeah, you know there's more room at the back and you can take the wide energy-conserving strokes. Just like XCountry skating skiing.

Wish I could have taken pictures but damn do they start at 8:30 right on the minute and I was a little late and had to really skate hard to catch up to the end... and skating in the rain was not as slippery as I'd thought it would be. Maybe the first 20 minutes, then I guess the street's oil has been washed away and then it was pretty much fine.

And I think Frankfurt's streets are in better condition than Munich's, much smoother asphalt in general. Even going over the streetcar tracks wasn't as terrible as I'd thought it would be. Munich's Blade Night (which I last went on in 2003 when it was too full of beginners for my taste) is now sponsored by Löwenbräu! And they average 11,000 people, people pushing baby carriages along etc., but this event averages about 800 (I can check those numbers tomorrow when I'm not dead tired) and not a baby carriage in sight. One wheelchair, but it was a racing wheelchair...

To motivate myself to really get out of the office and go to this every week I've put it in the calendar. If anyone wants to come along just show up in front of the Ikonenmuseum on Brückenstrasse, as the meeting point itself is really crowded. Sign up on the other thread if you want me to look out for you.