On Thursday of this week, long time forum member, holder of the prestigious title of ‘1st woman to skate 100 miles in 24 hours’, web-designer, blog writer and general all-round good egg; Laura Hatwell will be setting off on an epic skateboarding trip called Perimeter. Her website tells us a litte about this whirlwind of a girl:

I’ve  been skating for 3 years. I gave up a cooped-up job in television to raise money for children’s charities on a skateboard journey across Australia and haven’t really stopped moving since. In 2008, I skated 102 miles in a day, and really want to skate even further next time. I’m guessing 700 miles on a skateboard will be good training…

I’m doing this trip because I’ve had enough of passing water bottles to other skaters, bless ‘em - it were great, but this is about me, a personal challenge to myself and a promise made to a grieving partner of a brave Marine, as well as my Grandad Len, or Ganga, as he is fondly known! Skating is my passion, as well as discovering and exploring. Hence why I’ve named this ‘the most curious skateboard trip undertaken in the UK’ - because I literally am excited about what could be around every turn.

At the moment I work as an ice steward, so I get a good workout in my job as well as my spare time, which is spent, of course, skating everywhere. I’ll be giving that up to do this. It means a lot to me that I get this done. For my own personal 2009 adventure quota!

This September I start teacher training teaching Creativity and Media to secondary school pupils. This will fulfill a lifelong hope and dream of helping others achieve their own goals, which to be fair, is why I’m here doing this!

Laura has been planning this trip for quite some time and is fully up for the challenge. She has been ably supported by words of advice from the skatefurther forum members and has got all her kit ready to go (most recently a demonseed deelite donated by the Long Treks on Skate Decks crew of Aaron and Paul). The media scrum is beginning (see the vid on the Perimeter:North Sea Skate media page) and its getting super close. Her route is all planned out, as she explains on her site: 

After making landfall (I hope!) in Shetland after a long journey from Plymouth by road and sea, I will begin my adventure by travelling the length of the islands there.

Catching a ferry across to Kirk wall in Orkney, I plan to skate around the island and hop on a ferry across to the mainland.

Coming round the ‘top’ of the mainland at John O’Groats, my route will roughly take me around the East Coast of Scotland until I make the border with England.

We, of course, wish Laura all the very best of luck. You can read all about her tip on her website Perimeter:North Sea Skate, you can keep up tp date with her movements on the Perimeter Forum thread, you should go and donate to Help for Heros on her Just Giving page and leave a littel message of support in the forum.

Good Luck Hatters!

This just in from Tom who is driving the support vehicle for Ben Colchester-Hall’s attempt at the John O’Groats to Land’s End skate record.

Howdy all, update number three here. Its late evening of day 17 as I write this, and we are currently in Bristol. In the intervening days since you were last informed of Bens where-abouts he has blasted down the welsh borders, staying on night 15 at a coach depot in Cardington, then hammering on south through Hereford to Monmouth last night. He is staying in North Bristol tonight and aiming to hit Taunton tomorrow. He is currently aiming to reach Lands End within the next four to six days.

This last few days hasnt been without drama, Car trouble reared its head, and over the last 2 days the support vehice has changed more than once. He has now reached the end of his bearings, having ridden the Bones Reds from the out of this trip they are now siezed solid, and will be spending some time sorting out his board before its in a skateable state tomorrow morning.

For the last week we have been experimenting with the use of the support vehicle, and have settled on distance support, so ben skates with sustainance on his back, and meets with the support vehicle every 20miles or so. A full support vehicle article will be being written up concering this and other trips, so watch this space.

Trivia - The current JOGLE record was set last year by Ben Stiff and stands at 28 days. The previous record belonged to Dave Cornthwaite: 34 days which was set before Board Free Oz.

You can keep up to date with Ben’s progress on the forum and see how he is doing with the route MAP

Just in!!

Paul Kent aka Fuzzydeer on the skatefurther forum has just beaten the previous 24 hour record set by Barefoot Ted. Paul skated a massive 250.5 miles in 24 hours… pushing the whole way!

Well Ben has certainly been busy over the last week, skating like a mad thing generally by the looks of it. He’s managed to make it across the English border to a pub in the Kendal area, where a mere quarter of a pint of celebrationary bitter with comrade and support driver Tom has left him quite merry. From where they sit, John O’Groats is 422 miles away, and Land’s End is 421…

Check out Ben’s continuing progress here.

Looks like the police weren’t to happy with Ben being alone on the notorious A9 (those of you who have driven on it know it well!) so he had to take a detour today. 40 miles skating and 10 miles walking for a 25 mile gain. He’s resting up in a B&B in Inverness as we speak and is hoping to get to Aviemore tomorrow.

As ever, keep an eye on the forum updates, I know Laura is working hard on the
route MAP

Forum member and SkateFurther founder Ben Hall is currently making his way south from John O’Groats. Ben is aiming to beat the current JOG-LE record set by Ben Stiff last year. Ben is travelling solo with a rucksack after ditching his trailer due to reliability issues.

Ben joined the masses at last weekends Bath to Bristol wearing his full set up and looked pretty comfortable with the weight. Laura has got a map up and running and we at Skatefurther are keeping in constant contact with our man.

You can keep up to date with how ben is doing over on the forum and watch his progress with his route map

A few of us are going to be heading towards Dorney Lake on the 17th (this coming Wednesday) for a lap or two. For those of you not in the know, Dorney is distance skating heaven. 3 mile loop of perfect flat tarmac. Ideal for LDP and amazing for pushing. Just look!

There is a forum thread about the day here. If you need any more info about Dorney, look in our photos (click the flickr button on the left or go here) or read the forum thread about the place.

just wanted to see how it all fitted together with multiple posts and pictures

This will be the news feed, everything will go in here and will be tagged so that it can be found using the search button over there >> all the links will go directly to the fourm so that everyone is taken to the right place.