Our Small Time homies in Columbia, MO have recently launched an entirely new website that I invite you to check out right here: http://www.smalltimecomo.com!
There’s more good stuff on there than I can list properly… video, photos, local updates, you name it, they got it up there!
Congrats on the new site, and congrats to all of our Missouri friends that have a new place to stay up on what’s going down in the mid west!
On Saturday, September 1st, local company Forest Skateboards will be hosting a mini ramp jam, cookout, get-your-groove-on bro down in celebration of Forest’s anticipated release of a brand new graphic… I know what it looks like, and it’s sick.
For info about the jam, call Ryan or Josh Ew Uhh, and they’ll fill you in on the details:
Ryan - 504.908.8519
Josh - 504.628.7431
I’m almost 100% sure that I’ll be there… I hope you can do the same. By the way, if you go, bring some meat or something else to introduce to the skate herd in attendance… it’s the right thing to do. Whoever brings coleslaw will get a big hug from me.
Our very good, personal friend Terry Adams is in the hospital right now recovering from an appendix removal, after the one he had decided to go and blow up in him.
Terry’s a great friend to us, and though we know he’ll be OK, we sincerely hate seeing him in a hospital, when he could be out there winning more flatland bike competitions. If anyone would like to send some props to him, he’ll be at North Oaks for roughly a week. Feel free to post a comment here if you’d like… he’ll see ‘em when he gets back home.
Anyway, get better fast Terry… we want to see you back on your bike kicking everyone’s asses. Much love, man.
I want to give some big props to Phantom Dave, as he’s our newest moderator. Phantom’s been helping me curb spam in the forums, and now he’s been given a couple of new tools to help even more. Thanks, man!
Click the pic:
…good friends, cheap beer, skater-made art, and a really hot and muggy night. Thanks to everyone who came by, and props to all of the artists that helped to turn the shop into an art gallery!
On Tuesday, BREC will be hosting a meeting of the minds… skaters and bikers will have the opportunity to meet with the Site Design Group regarding what may potentially be a real skatepark in the capital city.
Click the image below for a full size version (with all the info you need if you’d like to attend):
Come by the shop around 5-ish until way-too-late and check out some skater made art, cheap beer, and a good time!
If you park in downtown, be aware that you might be trapped once they close off the streets.
Thanks to the ever-watchful eye of our friend Steelpulz, we were alerted that Mandeville was going to use the tried, tested, and failed formula of using prefabricated ramps for the city’s only skatepark (as a tentative “first phase” before engaging in the construction of a proper skatepark).
I spoke with Jim Cook from Pelican Park about a meeting that took place yesterday, which will eventually result in a bid between competing pre fab ramp companies, one of which will be the supplier and builder of Mandeville’s official park. Mr. Cook was very responsive and understanding of my concerns about this strategy, but the process is too-far-through to proceed in any other direction. The city has laid down a concrete slab, now they’re choosing a vendor. My hunch (I may be very wrong here) is that they’ll go with ARC, as the company has monopoly on BREC’s skatepark choices, it would only make sense if Mandeville’s park folks might be partial to a company that’s sold so much junk to the capital city. They don’t know it’s junk, the amount of knowledge they have about skateboarding mostly comes from ESPN or from what the skatepark vendors tell them.
I want to clear up some myths so future Louisiana towns don’t make the same mistake.
Myth #1: Pre fab is cheaper!
This simply false. Consider these two different parks, each sitting on a 30′ by 20′ slab (that someone has to pay for separately). At ARC’s prices, the equipment, installation, and freight would cost $25,000:
One “park” is a mini ramp, the other park is just slightly better than some driveway/homebuilt private skate compounds I’ve been to.
Here in Hammond, we have 15,000 square feet of permanent concrete for roughly $325,000. Yeah, that sounds like a lot at first, but consider the fact that we’re not talking about ramps sitting on a flat slab… we’re talking about a park that barely has any flat because nearly every nook and cranny is a skateable object. We’re talking about an entire landscape that looks like a Salvador Dali painting.
Plus, there’s basically no structural upkeep, unlike Baton Rouge’s pre fab ramps that started getting shitty a year after they were installed. I’d also ad that because the ramp designs that these companies use is proprietary, patching them up when they start falling apart (and yes, they will fall apart) is a major pain in the ass.
I’ve seen ARC ramp coping basically tack-welded down as it was the only way to secure it to the ramp. Hell, even Zachary’s brand new skatepark has a pyramid with a corner on the rise. In summary, expensive crap.
Myth #2: Kids Need “Intermediate and Beginner Ramps”
Hell no!
I live right around the corner from our big beautiful Dreamland park, I’ve skated it since day one, and I’ve seen plenty of beginners and intermediates excel to such a degree that I find myself trying to learn their tricks. I’m talking about young people too… kids, even. If you give a young skateboarder a challenge, the skillsets they gain are enormous… and honestly, with a park like the one we have in Hammond, beginners are only beginners for a very short time. Luckily, we have a place that will still provide a challenge 10 years from now, unlike the prefab junk that skaters tire of quickly.
This is what will happen: The Mandeville skatepark will start off with a lot of traffic. After two or three months, the place might be used by a handful of people on a sporadic basis. Then they’ll all come back to Hammond… which is great for us, we love having our neighbors over, we just feel sad for the Mandeville skate community when it could be possible for them to have something much better than us.
Of all cities in the State, I really though Mandeville would try to one-up us… but they dropped the ball. It’s a shame, really… as a person who’s seen what a great skatepark can do, I really wish Mandeville had a place to skate better than ours.
Last bit of info: From our conversation, Mr. Cook informed me that there would be an observation of the park’s usage… if the park is seen as highly trafficked and the city sees a need for new skating accommodations, they’ll go onto a phase two. I just want to remind everyone that BREC’s Velodrome is also “phase one”, and it’s years older than our park. Hell, we get more Baton Rouge skaters than they do.
C’mon Mandeville, you can do a lot better than that.
Check out pics and observations in the forum… (link goes to forum thread).
I think our stance against prefabricated ramps is pretty well known… they’re overly expensive, typically not designed to challenge a skateboarder, void of any soul of it’s own
Don’t get me wrong, I know that every city can’t have a Dreamland park, but I get bummed when I see these little pens that are supposed to satiate skate communities. From what I understand (local hearsay, I don’t know this for a fact), the current Zachary park is a “phase one,” meaning that this facility is supposed to be a temporary fix until a much nicer skatepark can be built. Let’s not forget however, that BREC has done this before. The Velodrome is a glaring example. It’s been in “phase one” for years now… six years or so?
I digress… the park in Zachary is what it is, and though it has plenty wrong with it, there are some interesting things of note (and please keep in mind that all of this is the opinion of one random dude falling asleep on a keyboard).
From left to right:
There are two 4-footish quarterpipes with what appear to be dog cages strapped to the top. To the right you can juuuust see a little funbox. You can see it better in this pic:
…which leads to a kind of weird collection of centerpieces. It’s like every kind of step up, stair, rail, wedge, euro or whatever else, but miniaturized. You can’t quite see it here, but there’s a five stair over by the white rail in the background… but a weird, tiny five stair… really unnatural, and kind of annoying if you were heading towards it after sketchily landing from one of the quarterpipes that faces it. One more thing about this picture… in the foreground, you see that rectangle with the two little wedge ramps? It serves no purpose. It’s as big as it looks in the photo, too… about three Baton Rouge phone books high, and shorter than your skateboard. The wedge ramps were pretty clack-clkackity.
In the foreground here, you see all the stuff you saw in the last photo… but in the background is what I really enjoyed. Two four foot quarters that hip into a mini ramp on both ends. I found myself just doing repeated transfers into and out of the mini ramp… it was fun, and I’d go back if only to do that some more.
Before I go any further, one word of advice about the ramps themselves (this especially pertains to anyone who really likes to skate transition)… the ramps have really dark surfaces, and when it’s hot, you won’t want to be touching them too long. Also, the surface of the ramps is pretty grippy… when I went, I was riding Bones Street Tech formulas… which is a pretty slick wheel on it’s own. I do a lot of reverts, and I figured with my slippery wheels I ought to be sliding around the transitions with no problem… I was mistaken. The surface seems to grab on to your wheels to prevent slip outs. If you revert a lot, come prepared with a really rock solid hard wheel or you’ll grip to much.
The transitions are mellow, but better than the ones at the Velodrome.
See the pyramid? From left to right, it has five “stairs”, a rail, a euro, and then a half-pyramid. The only problem is, most of the tricks you’ll want to do will result in you rolling into the dirt. This kind of setup teaches kids to skate too slowly (as they’ll land the trick at so slow a speed that they’re able to stop). Speed is very important for a strong skateboarder.
All in all, it’s something that Zachary didn’t have before, which i reckon is a good thing. I will go back to skate the transitioned hips into the mini again when I’m in the area. I mean, if you’ve skated here in Hammond and you know how to handle it, you might feel a bit confined in Zachary. The mini is fun, but really go for the hips.