The age old tale… The session looks good, the concrete has dried and cured but the park is closed until the landscape architects are done with the finishing touches. Enjoy some over-the-fence pics that I took after leaving the soft opening of Parklane a month to the day from today. Is it open now? Head over to Berrydale park in NE Portland and find out. Those are giant sacks filled with something heavy to keep people from skating it. Is it rocks or sand? I don’t know because I stayed behind the fence like a good boy. That bowl looks fun to me, not very deep. Public skateparks are popping up like weeds in Portland.

Summerboard, the board with extra caster wheels, skyhooks, motors, and batteries! The only thing missing is a speaker! ( I’ll stick with my Soundboard, thanks. ) I know you’re thinking “This thing probably weighs a ton. I hope it costs a lot.” Don’t worry, they have models starting at $899 and $1699! Oh no, those base models don’t come with skyhooks, “Freshies” or “Launch Pads.” Thankfully, they’ve got packages that range from $1799 to $1899, as well as financing. Success!

From Surfin’ Turf to Bell E. Buttons, to The Turf, to buried, to resurrected and buried again, to dug up and re-poured. The Turf is now open again! This areal shot is from drone footage circulated by the Mayor of Greenfield Wisconsin, Michael Neitzke, who was instrumental in making this momentous occasion move from just a dream to a reality. Midwesterners of the 80’s and skaters of today, rejoice!

I went to the soft opening of a brand new Parklane skatepark in Portland Oregon with a bunch of old men, all of them better skaters than me, one of them probably better than you.

I thought I’d seen every option of the Skatewing until I saw a post with this Turbo II branded abomination called the “Scorpy.” One thing you’ll notice right away is that the Turbo II version has rounded casters on the wings instead of the single, fixed skateboard wheels. Turbo II was a toy store brand skateboard popular in the UK. Digging around on the internet shows that they like to approximate some popular designs to evoke those designs without violating copyright. Maybe the caster wheels were the same kind of attempt to avoid a patent dispute, although it’s hard to imagine that the Skating was ever popular enough to make someone think it would be a good idea to copy it.

A non-skateboarding friend sent me a link to an online auction for the Ital Board, and I couldn’t find out anything about it on the interwebs, except for another auction of a slightly different version. It looks late 70’s to me, although possibly from the early 80’s.

There was a brief time in skateboarding when it was considered the height of hipness to have a full, color coordinated safety gear set. These days you can still buy a full set of decorative safety gear, but it’s’ all for little kids. These pics come courtesy of Butch Olivier who picked up this near-mint gear a swap sale. California Free Former – Made in Canada! I guess Canada Free Former doesn’t have the same ring to it.

If you were more than a casual skateboarder in the 80’s who lived in and around the orbit of Chicago, you would eventually hear tales of a mysterious spot called the Elgin Pipes, allegedly located near a mental hospital, and in 1983, the scene of a double homicide. You could say the spot defitnely had mystique to those who hadn’t been there. Here’s a few pics courtesy of Art Abasolo.

I just wrapped up adding 61 ads from volume 5, number 7 of Skateboarder magazine from February of 1979. There are some good ones in there. A few that caught my eye were for Turning Point, Haut Lamaflex (Lama-flex?), Hobie (skate shoes), Powerflex, Independent (w Henry Hester), and Caster with Wally Innouye. Also of interest, there are four winter-related ads in this issue, two for runners that attach to your skateboard, like the Snow Skate, one for ice wheels (wheels, not blades) and one early Burton ad shot here in the Pacific Northwest at ole Mt Hood. Check it the Vintage Skatemag Advert gallery for Skateboarder v5 #7. The total is up to 1,151 ads as of today.

When I posted the Switch Board a couple months ago, longtime friend of the site Danimal informed of prior art in the form of Qwik Trucks. Qwik Trucks are the same concept, but with a patent, allowing you to switch out your trucks or board in less tha 30 seconds. The Qwik version seems a little more professional looking than the Switch Board, but it its the same concept. Who knows, maybe Qwik licensed the technology. It works, but it’s expensive and the practical benefits are are little questionable.