Another win at Classic City!

Another great weekend of derby! I could really get used to this whole winning streak thing!

Asian Invasion, BOA and I all rode out extra early to Athens, GA on Saturday morning to take on the Classic City Rollergirls. Its about a 4 and a half hour trip, but we lose an hour because they are on Eastern time, AND I was quite a bit paranoid of traffic jams due to the UGA game that was blocks from the venue. We actually made great time, and ended up there a few hours early to nap in the parking lot.

The venue is the local Skate Around USA rink, and was unfinished hardwood. A little more slippery than our rink floor. It was also a LOT warmer than we're used to, which is going to come into play in just a sec... This bout was considered an advanced B team game, so I was playing power for this bout. After a string of bouts as a jammer and one middle inside bout, I was a little frustrated in our only practice for this bout trying to retrain my brain for power. It's a completely different skating style and frame of mind between how I prepare for jamming and how I prepare for power.

The bout was great! We all are really meshing as a team. It was HOT out there, but since I'm a FL girl and love heat, and because I'm used to jammer conditioning, the blocker pace didn't affect me. We led at the half by a little over 20 points. BOA, ChaChee, and CU Afterclass were doing a great job of getting through the pack and scoring well, but the heat definitely was affecting them.

BOA asked at the half if I could take over for her jamming -- which I gladly did! I ended up with 24 points total, and another 15 point power jam. I really am liking this whole jamming thing! I ended up in the box only once with 4 minors, unfortunately it was while jamming, which is never a good thing. But overall a great game! FINAL SCORE: DDG Ragin Rockets 96; Classic City Rollergirls 75


The afterparty was right up the road at a bar called Fat Daddy's. It was really a great little bar. Since I'm new, I had never met most of the Classic City girls. I was told that their visit to Huntsville last season was one of the best afterparties many of the girls have had, and of course they proved just that at this one.

After some very yummy pizza and some PBR pitchers that really hit the spot, we took over the stage on Karaoke. M'Shell O'Bomb-Her sang Sir Mixxalot's Baby Got Back and had the crowd going. Then the Classic City girls got up on the mic for a great rendition of Touch Myself. Knowing how silly I get, I'm sure you are not surprised to know that my song of choice was Vanilla Ice- Ice, Ice, Baby. I also tried some Paramore, but I'm not really sure how that was received.

The venue was literally a few blocks away from the UGA stadium, so when we decided to leave and all piled into the vans to head back to the hotel, we weren't exactly thinking that the game had JUST ended, and that the streets were lined with some really *excited* Georgia fans. It took us a good hour and a half just to get out of the Athens area. I've never seen so much red and black in MY LIFE. I was pretty darn tired once we got done with a late, late night snack at Dennys, so I promptly crashed.

I wish I could find more photos to share, so I may be updating this post later, but enjoy the link below.

View eRacer X's Photos

UP NEXT: DDG-B at Central Arkansas Roller Derby, October 17th

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DERBY WORLD TOUR NOTE: Classic City becomes stop #9 on the Derby World Tour.

Derby World Tour

Possibly one of the best added perks of being a rollergirl (like you needed more benefit than the obvious badassedness!) is the amount of travel associated for someone with wanderlust such as myself. What's better than being able to travel city-to-city kickin some serious ass!

As I get to travel quite a bit for work and many of my other exploits, I've now made it my personal goal to go on a Derby World Tour. (and for your added amusement, I'm going to blog about it too!) My tour will include both scheduled away bouts in other cities as well as my random drop-in to a league practice in another city that I may be wandering through. For those that don't know, it seems to be common derby courtesy to allow visiting rollergirls to attend a practice to meet their attendance requirements while traveling. I'm taking full advantage of that courtesy to both boost my skills training and to meet some awesome people and see how derby is done across the world!

Not only are there HUNDREDS of leagues across the US, but there are quite a few across the pond in Europe, Australia, etc. It may take me some time, but I hope to do a skatebag trip to Europe and skate with as many leagues as possible while I'm "Skatebagging" through Europe.

Since I'm a few months behind in this blog in terms of my derby-associated travel, let me catch you up with my to-date travel summaries....

• Sin City Rollergirls -- Las Vegas, NV [April 2009]
  While in town for work, I was able to make it out to a practice with the Sin City Rollergirls. They practice outside (I can't imagine skating in that summer heat!) on a roller hockey court at the local park. Pretty dusty, so next time I'll bring my outdoor wheels/bearings.
• Ohio Rollergirls -- Columbus, OH [April 2009]
  My very first bout. They skate on sport court, which is much different than I'm used to skating on.
• Roller Girls of Southern Indiana -- Evansville, IN [May 2009]
  One of the nicest teams around. They skate on sport court, in the Ice Arena.
• Hard Knox Rollergirls -- Knoxville, TN [June 2009]
Had the pleasure of skating with their B team as a fill-in skater. They skate in the convention center on polished concrete. Perhaps one of the slickest tracks I've been on to date.

• Sintral Florida Derby Demons -- Orlando/De Land, FL [June 2009, July 2009]
  Orlando is home to me, so anytime I go down to visit family I've been dropping into their practice. Very cool team, they skate on a concrete rink floor.
• Nashville Rollergirls -- Nashville, TN [July 2009]
Not only are they just up the road, but they are a great group of skaters. I went up and joined their scrimmage practice and took plenty of notes. They skate on polished concrete at their State Fairgrounds' gamehouse.

• Memphis Roller Derby -- Memphis, TN [August 2009]
I joined a full day of mini-bouts at the Honky Stomp this year, 6 hours straight on their polished concrete. We'll be headed there again in October for our WFTDA game against them.

• Mobile Roller Derby -- Mobile, AL [August 2009]
  Always nice to be able to lay on the beach AND play a mean ass game of derby all in the same day. They skate on a concrete rink surface. Nice team too!

I will be tagging all Derby World Tour stops and compiling a map... look out for future stops! And if you have any "Gotta See It" suggestions on stops I need to make, let hear them in the comments section!