I’m thinking of changing the name of this site to “Skatepark Construction Pictures and Annoy.” It’s just a phase, I promise. The Team Pain park in Colorado Springs is getting closer to being done. Check it out on Concrete Disciples.

Hello from G.P.K. (Grover’s Photo Korner) I went to so-cal and the skating is lame except for a few parks you know which ones… They are Encinitas, Clairemont, but you can only ride those certain hours and you pay every where except W.S.V.T. Oh yeah they also have a state wide age minimum of 6 years and above, so my son also learned to lie on his trip to California. Yes “to lie” not “to ollie.”

An anonymous party painted over a graffiti covered bowl in the Corvallis, Oregon skatepark a few weeks ago. It was a solid one color job that covered existing graffiti, including the usual genitalia and swastika nonsense. When the city eventually got around to cleaning it themselves, they were annoyed and/or potentially embarrassed to find that the park users had taken matters into their own hands. They plan on spending an estimated $500 to remove it, an the police are treating it as an act of vandalism. Brilliant! Way to instill a sense of pride and community. I imagine the local activist group, the Benton County Skateboarding Alliance will have something to say about this. I leave it to them to take action, but we’ll report here if anything noteworthy happens. Fight the good fight! – Thanks to Danimal and Joesf for the tip.

[Source – Corvallis Gazette-Times]

Bogtown Boyz is a vintage slide show featuring 149 pictures of most if not all of the historic UK skatespots featured in the excellent documentary Rollin’ Through The Decades. OK, I haven’t fact checked this since I haven’t watched Rollin’ in a while, but the names are familiar, Meanwhile Gardens, Rolling Thunder, Romford. A rare construction photo as well. I still have to make it through all the shots. It’s a Flash player, so it’s a bit less responsive than straight HTML, but you can sit back and let it play. The only thing missing is volume control for that Tony Alva vs. Jay Adams song, which is great, but tedious after the third time in a row. That tune was a blind link on SkateDaily quite awhile back, I still haven’t been able to find out who the band is.

We haven’t reported on the Bennet Colorado DIY project since a benefit from last year. Looks like they got a bowl poured with some help from Team Pain.

We got a ton of help this past Friday. The pool was poured in approximately 10 hours. It came out really well (thanks again to guys from Team Pain). Next steps are tile and pool coping. A new wall tying the pool to the slab has already been framed out, so I’ll keep you all updated. Many thanks to all of the volunteers!

– Ash

More pics and vid at Colorado Coalition for Public Skateparks.

Ah yes, I’m referencing a decade old Saturday Night live sketch, that’s how creatively dry the well is. Yesterday we got two separate tidbits about two new skateparks opening in New Jersey. GardenSk8 is an indoor wooden park that opens Saturday November 1st, and the other is an outdoor concrete park in Princeton (Ivy league.. well la de dah!) being built by Grindline (not listed) which is the good news, but the bad news is they ran out of money for the bowls and the park will be pay-to-play.

I guess making a skatepark with foam for the backfill isn’t such a big deal after all. John Kehoe sent in some pictures of a park under a bridge in Holland outside of Amsterdam in a place called Koog a/d Zand. (?) It was built by a Dutch company called Carve in 2005. They cut the foam by passing a current through a wire stretched across wood, like a bow strung with a toaster element. RC geeks use the same method on a smaller scale for cutting wing and fuselage elements out of foam. Although, in a link from the first time we talked about this, some people just use a chainsaw. Pics from John Kehoe after the jump.

Apparently, four insecure jackasses felt the need to hassle someone they knew, repeatedly taunting and eventually beating up a kid and stealing his skateboard. The kid finally pulled out a knife and fought back. One of the attackers suffered some non life threatening injuries, and all four were arrested after the cop took everyone’s story, including onlookers (non-skaters) using the surrounding park. The upshot? If you watch the postage size video reminiscent of the internet circa 1998, you’ll see the commotion has scared off some younger kids from visiting the park again. Hooray! More skatepark for me! But seriously folks… It’s too bad that happened. Gabriel Park is one of the last places in Portland I would have expected that. Hey douchebags ands bullies, keep your quarrels and your lame asses out of the skateparks. Skatepark users, don’t stand for this crap. – Thanks to Welsh Pete and Troy Sliter for the tip.

[Source – KGW NewsChannel 8, Portland]

Portland’s Ed Benedict skatepark is nearing completion. About two weeks to go according to the boss man on site. Poachers have been a problem so a security guard has been hired. Almost all the concrete has been poured, save about half of the short halfpipe section and a small part of a bank. There’s a lot of granite yet to be installed. It looks pretty amazing. I was overwhelmed when I was on site taking the pictures. Now that I’ve had a night to sleep on it, there’s only a few things that I would take issue with. Mind you, I haven’t ridden it yet. At one of hte entrances to the park there is a really nice looking wedge bank, but it looks like it’s not placed in a very practical spot for hitting both sides. Also, the rest of the banks could use a little variety as them seem to all be essentially the same pitch. Still, there are ledges galore and stairs and rails and gaps. Yes, there is already a line of guys camped out waiting to hit that launch ramp transfer. Portland’s first street plaza is sure to be a hit. Built by California Skateparks and designed by New Line.

Check out the gallery.

If you hear the words “foam” and “skatepark” together, you’d probably think of one of those tick learning pits, not a skatepark construction. I wouldn’t believe it if someone told me about it, but here are the pictures. Apparently, it’s common practice to use styrofoam (or some kind of poly foam) for fill in skateparks in Sweden. I don’t have any details besides these few pics from Placed to Ride, who were applying the theory to a skatepark in Gothenburg, Sweden. The building blocks can be seen here, and the finished result here. I guess it works. If anyone can explain the how and why, I’m all ears.