Bradenton, Florida has a relatively new Team Pain skatepark on the riverwalk. It’s mostly waist high or under, with the exception of a 10ft or so vert wall on one end of the park and a large bowl on the opposite. The park is long and narrow, dissected in the middle by an overhead highway bridge that crosses the river. As with Louisville, KY, it’s more or less across the street from the hospital. I’m not sure if they do that on purpose or not. It’s on a stretch of land that would otherwise most likely be vacant, which means plenty of room for expansion! The non-skating locals I spoke with are very pleased with it, and consider it a destination worth hanging out at just to watch and enjoy the location. More photos and a video skate through after the jump.
This is a nice collection of benches with different heights, angles and materials, it even brought out the long hibernating (dormant, retired?) street skater in me.
A couple shots of this really nice bowl. They build them different in Florida by comparison to your typical Northwest build that tends to incorporate more of the flat into the same pour as the transition. Not a critique, just an observation. This bowl is kind of hidden at the end, (See top of photo above) raised up a bit to accommodate a higher water table. If you didn’t know it was there you might not notice it, but it’s quite large actually. I’d say the deep is around 10 foot. Tile on a bowl is always a nice touch.
The big vertical wall at the end may seem a little arbitrarily out of place, but it shields a maintenance shed behind.
These photos were all taken at mid day, so the lighting is harsh and surface irregularities are artificially exaggerated. It’s smooth as you’d expect from Team Pain.
Some of the local talent.
Shaky skate-through of the park. I need a steadicam rig for my iPhone. Yes, there is a healthy scooter population.
http://youtu.be/3ypgnsFsygQ
Bradenton is a fun park and the locals are friendly. Check it out if you’re near the Sarasota/Tampa area.
11 comments
Rudy
Next trip, give the Brandon Skatepark a ride; you’ll like the pool/bowl there – it has a bit tighter tranny in the shallow end & a pretty aggressive waterfall into the deep end. Also, we have our park in Lakeland opening in the middle of May. We’ll have one of the few square-cornered bowls on the East Coast, along with a rad flow bowl & a fun snake run!
kilwag
I thought Lakeland had a park already? Maybe it’s some othre town with Lake in the name. Orlando-ish?
Chris Eggers
Theese scooters are a global virus…….terrible
kevin
too funny was there 2 weekends ago on a saturday . lots of bikes and lots of kids. a fence would be a good thing too keep the creepers out .
the bowl was ok just the tranny in the shallow a bit mellow.
unlike team pain pools . all in all it was a cool spot to ride. for me dunedin skate park and sarasota are better for the pools the sarasota one is a legit backyarder , 1 foot of tranny in the shallow.3 feet vert.
Well
Though only good skaters can skate 2 foot tranny, they can go fastest only in bowls. In fact, that’s one way to determine what to call it… if you can really mach in it, it’s a bowl, not a pool… which taint a bad thing.
kilwag
Sarasota pool is a whole different animal. Bradenton is definitely a skatepark style bowl. I haven’t been to Dunedin. I went to North Port years ago before any of these were built.
kevin
i agree on the Bradenton park , sarasota is just a gnarly pool for season backyard skaters . next time you go down you gotta hit dunedin it is a great park and not a ton of people. i like better than sara . florida has some cool skate parks for sure , englewood and and naples. ext…
Rich
Looks fun. Nice spot report SnA.
kilwag
Baaah! It reads like a AAA trip guide. Awful. It’s a fun park people. Go while school is in session or it will be packed.
tito
next time you come down to FL, hit me up!!!
kilwag
I swear I’m not avoiding you man. Family vacation – i get one half a day to skate each trip.