Who says you can't rollerblade over cobblestones? Last Sunday Max and I joined with about a thousand other skaters to prove you can as we skated through the streets of Paris from Le Bastille to a park in Vincennes. An escort of police motorcycles at the front and police vans at the back kept the group together, the front line stopping every mile or two so the vast expanse of moving Parisians (and a few visitors like me) could accordion squeeze into a few blocks after stretching out for three fourths of a mile, maybe more. Yellow-shirted members of the association skated alongside our parade, stopping traffic at all crossroads and attempting to corral the show-offs, sometimes reduced to screeching in French but usually quite friendly. There was a good spirit amongst the crowd as we braked across bad surfaces, sprinted down smooth lanes, and admired views of statues, lakes, and bitter stopped drivers.
You can see a video of the Sunday skate if you scroll down the right side of the following French website. It is not the exact skate we did (we had to change routes due to the Tour de France on the Champs Elysees) but you'll definitely get the idea!
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