For the very first time ever…

Revolution in Nicaragua! Nicaragua now has it’s first transition in a skatepark thanks to Nathan Curry and his team.

The quarter pipe was the focus of all the skaters’ attention and it was great to see all the guys throwing themselves at it trying to figure it out. After all, it’s the first transition that most of them have ever ridden. Needless to say, I had to answer a lot of questions about how to do axle stalls and rock-n-rolls. It was great!

Nicaragua gets it’s first transition in a skatepark

I’m a few days late in posting this so keep that in mind as you read this. Photos by Nathan Curry.

good news: press was there as well as potentially big sponsors, the finish was buttery smooth, no chips happened even though it really needed a few more days of curring, and no one injured themselves.

bad news: the overall project went over-budget due to a few issues that arose during the preparation phase. Since we didn’t want to leave the project un-finished, Sol and I ponied up the cash from our own bank accounts. So, we need to try to raise some more donations i order to make all things even. We need to raise about another $250. I am in the process of making a PayPal account for SSML. In the meantime, I have my PayPal account – nathancurry. Or, donations can be sent to my parents home address: 1819 Smallhouse Rd, Bowling Green, KY 42104.

But, all-in-all, it was a great success and we look forward to helping the Nica skaters again in the future. Props to Mike D for his donation to the project and to Sol for flying down with all his tools.

Update from Nathan Curry

Greetings all!

I am sorry that I have not made another update before now, but we have a good excuse. It’s been 8 straight days of pretty intensive work… if not physically working then running around trying to get supplies. But… it’s a success! We have built a euro-gap bank and a nice 16ft wide by 4ft high quarter pipe. There are a few minor imperfections, like a small bulge under one spot in the coping, but the overall quarter turned out beautifully. It’s got a great finish and is buttery smooth. It was a bit of a nightmare dealing with the pre-existing conditions (above ground, on existing crete, old weak wall, etc.), but we made do.

Basically, the location is an old basketball court at a remote private school. The skaters, over the last couple of years, have gotten some things built – primarily a small 3-sided pyramid and a manual pad/grind box. They also have some movable metal grind rails and such. But, they had no flow, no transition of any kind, and not many options for variation. So, the whole point of this project was to provide some tranny and teach them that projects can be undertaken on their own. The pics and videos will give you a good idea of what I’m referring to. We tried to include them in every process so that they could learn how to do it for themselves.

It was also a life-saver having these two brothers helping us. They are workers for the school and have a lot of concrete knowledge. Once we explained the needs of a skate-based structure, they were able to help us in troughing, making a finish mix, and bracing the templates. They really helped fill in the lack of certain types of knowledge that Sol and I lacked.

The final day was also a close-to-nightmare situation. First, the cement truck couldn’t get under the school sign. We literally had to remove the sign and cut a support pole for the truck to get through. Then, once we finished pouring and scree-ing, it started to rain. We got it covered and I ran out with my boss from work to rent a tent. Luckily the rain stopped soon and Sol and the guys could get back to troughing. The bad news was the nice big stack of extra crete that we were going to use to make another small obstacle just turned into a large solid pile of crete. Oh well.

So, the project is done for now. We spent more than we meant to and, unfortunately, I had to cover the extra. So, we could really use some donations to make my bank account even again. Also, if we can get a couple hundred bucks together, we can provide them another small quarter on the opposite side of the course so they can get speed and treat that end of the court as a sort of half-pipe.

Tomorrow (Sunday) is a competition at the site with some sponsors. It’s our hope that the sponsors will see the work and want to kick in cash for another project. For now, though, the seed has been planted…… let’s see how it grows.

for all of the footage, check the links below. On Monday, I will put up footage from tomorrow of the thing being used. We’re looking forward to teaching the guys how to skate tranny. 🙂

More pics and video

Nathan Curry’s SkateNica album on Photobucket.

Nathan Curry’s project and contest videos on YouTube

Related post on Skate and Annoy: No interference from America

There are over 100 pics of the contest on Skatenica.com as well as a write up about the contest in the news section, for all our spanish literate readers out there. I’m not one of them, but it seem like it was a success. Above photo by Dax at Skatenica.com