2008 Oregon Cannonball Run - By Conahan: Posted 2-22-08
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2008 Oregon Cannonball Run

You know how visiting museums is an ordeal because there is just so much stuff to look at? If you go frequently and just look at a small section or a single painting you don't get so wiped out.

The cannonball run is silly and wasteful but it has its appeal, You go to a park, take a few runs, make a few tricks and then hit the road again. It makes more sense if you are visiting spots where you've already spent hours and will likely visit again. Expectations are low so if you can get a few good runs in, it's not so hard to move on. You can always go back another day. On a real road trip, I'd want to spend more time at each place.

So here we went again. The goal was 16 on the 16th.

Sunrise was 7:11 there should be enough light to skate to Burnside by 7:00. Which left 10 hours and 40 minutes until sunset. MC was ready to go by 6:30. It was dry outside but there was frost on the windshield. Rich showed up a little before 7:00, Randy's skate stuff was on the porch but his boy woke up and the dog needed to go out...

Burnside 7:31 a.m. the place where it all started. Rick MacDonald was there to join the adventure and a couple of guys were skating already. Showing up early is cheating. All the intensity and gnarly skating happens much later in the day. It's easier on middle-aged men though.

Vancouver 8:07 a.m. An old fashioned bank and bump setup with a couple of organic, round-lipped pits and lots of colorful graffiti. None of the locals were around. Kind of fun, Kilwag recommends the bank-to- curb. It was a new one for MC. The drive-through and the bathrooms at the McDonald's hamburger restaurant took more time than skating any of the parks.

Woodland 9:02 a.m. Yeah, it was dry this time. The sun was out. Glare was bad and MC managed to eat it going over the hip but the bowl is fun. After skating the bowl and fooling around in the flat section with No one else there, it was time to move on.

 

Battle Ground 10:00 a.m. This might have been the biggest disappointment of the outing because it is such a great park but it was filthy. Construction around the park - they're adding observation decks and more sidewalks and maybe a new community center - resulted in a lot of mud around the decks and in the bowls. It was dangerous to ride fast through the bowls because of rocks, bark and dirt and no time to sweep.

Vancouver 10:49 a.m. The midbowl was full of bikes but the big section was empty. Bryce Kanights joined the convoy. BK had photos of one of the new Vancouver skatespots just down the road and on the way back to Portland it looked promising.

Vancouver skatespot 11:23 a.m. A big concrete slab with a ledge along one side and a small crescent-shaped transition bank. Really fun to goof around on. Fifty-fifties, nose grinds, laybacks, airs, inverts it was just the five of us skating but a couple of dog walkers stopped to watch. "I didn't know old people skated." Great.

Pier Park 12:14 a.m. The Vancouver graffiti is much more interesting but Pier Park is a great skatepark. A few people were out by this time. MC didn't get to do his three-bowl combo. After a couple of door jumps and a few carves and airs we were out of there. Grover and Brad Krohn were supposed to meet the crew at Pier but they missed the window.

Glenhaven 1:10 p.m. Guys from the new pizza place were handing out sample slices in the parking lot. There were a lot of people at Glenhaven but the Peanut was empty. Tom Miller was poolside. He was working on a rad line, rolling into the shallow backside, hitting the other shallow wall and then going over the steps. He made it after a few tries. Grover and Krohn missed the connection again, plans were made to meet in Tigard. Larry DeSanno and Jay Smay were sited on the freeway between hay deliveries. They couldn't be persuaded to take a skate break at West Linn.

West Linn 1:52 p.m. The coping is getting pretty beat up. A few oververt grinds, a few airs and out. Remember when West Linn was the raddest thing around? The local pizza establishment had some skateboarding-related decor. Nice show of sensitivity to the local culture. Skateboards hanging from the ceiling and skate company banners and broken decks on the wall - too bad all the trucks were mounted backwards.

Holly Farm 2:49 p.m. Holly Farm is a inspired little skate spot, plenty of challenges including the little center spine and the loveseat. BK went down hard. A couple of guys we hadn't seen before were killing it. Tom peeled off at this point.

Tigard 3:16 p.m. Really crowded, Childress and Hewitt were leaving as we got there. A couple of guys were tearing around doing crazy stuff at the top of the big bank wall. Roy did some sweet corner-airs. Rick had just been there the previous day. Grover and Krohn were there.

Donald 4:00 p.m. Donald was deserted. The bowl is still one of MC's favorite spots. The local intellectuals have spray-painted the outline of a penis with flanking testicles and an exhortation to suck me on the the pump bump. Haw haw!

Newberg 4:33 p.m. Childress and Hewitt were just leaving again as we pulled up. Grover and Krohn were there. It would have been easy to end the trip at Newberg. It's still a great skatepark even with a big crowd.

McMinnville 5:10 p.m. Over the hole in the bowl seemed like a good goal but Mark Scott had been through replacing the coping a couple of days before. The mortar was still curing. A good session was in progress in the half-pipe pyramid area. That thing is pretty gnarly, the transitions seem to be about a seven-foot radius and there's three feet of vert in one spot. One of our new friends from Holly Farm was floating huge ollies over the pyramid. MC was feeling conspicuous in helmet and pads and bails but he brought the house down with an Andrecht invert on that big vert wall.

Salem 6:09 p.m. The sun set during the drive from McMinnville to Salem. Fortunately the Marion Square Park skatepark had lights. The original park is a small, lumpy snake run that seems to have been ceded to the bikers. The newer section of the park is a flat topped pyramid in the center of a big slab with small taco trannies in each corner. The locals seem to like it.

Aumsville 6:50 p.m. One of the best skatepark designs ever! Ricks first visit to the park. A fair crowd and easily the most obnoxious locals of the day. Maybe small town ennui and meth addiction will thin out a few of the little shits. A couple of guys were ripping - Gabe from Salem had some cool tucked Andrechts.

It was 7:15 as we pulled out of the parking lot headed home. 12 hours after we started. Google maps has it as 209 miles, 5 hours 48 minutes of driving. (265 mi – about 6 hours 50 mins if you ad the return trip to Portland - K.ed) Add at least an hour for a couple of pit stops but that still left 5 hours of skateboarding. A good day. MC skated three spots he hadn't been to and one of them, the little Vancouver street spot was really fun. Cities need to build more of those.

There is an amazing amount of great stuff to skate here in Portland/Southern Washington. Thanks to the Arizona group who set up their own run on Old Man Army for the inspiration to revisit the Cannonball Run. Will we do it again? Once Portland finishes up our 19 skatepark system we might just have to give it another go.

Want more?

Rich has some good photos and a short write up over on Earth Patrol Media.
Mark has cellphone cam coverage on Antigravity Remote.

2008 Oregon Cannonball Run - By Conahan: Posted 2-22-08
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photos © Skate And Annoy