Saturday 21 February 2009

Running Work

Contributor "IW" posts these in, cars parking on the extended parking area at the junction between Horfield Road and St Michael's Hill, alongside that fine tavern, the Scotchman and his Pack.

"IW" thinks that they may be associated with the running shop across the road, and while the car X385BHT may be parked on some bit of cobbled driveway, the other one, WN06OHH is on the pavement.

Well, that's one that will take a close looking at 1:1500 maps or something similar, but anyway, it's moot. If they are associated with the running shop, they are parked there for a reason. When you get shoes from that shop, you can go out and run up and down the hill to see if they work on your feet. The uphill/downhill stretch tests the shoes absorbance and springiness. Which is not enough for urban bristol running -you need to be able to swerve round cars on the pavement, which means you need good turning abilities, adequate traction, but not too much friction.

By parking cars on the pavement, the shop may be providing a more realistic test facility for their customers.

1 comment:

Chris Hutt said...

The ultimate urban running shoe would surely have sufficient traction to grip on the car bodywork itself since there is often little choice but to run over cars obstructing the footway.

Perhaps the EU should be requiring car to include steps at front and rear to facilitate this, with a suitably tractive surface. It would of course discriminate against people in wheelchairs and pushing buggies, but you can't have everything.