Tag Archive: Found Terrain
Another Random Chicago Spot Check
Bridge launch ramp and/or bank in Chicago. Watch out for those bolts. Someone point me to a skate photo of a spot like this.
Pop Up Launch Ramp
This traffic stopping barrier in an alley in downtown Chicago can be raised and lowered. When raised, it’s almost got more of a wall jam or pole jam angle than than a launch ramp. Still, it’s got potential. It would be funny if they had to put skate stoppers on a car stopper.
Red star for you
House of Neil spotted this not-made-for-skate terrain outside Macy’s in Schaumburg. Looks… like so much fun, and not even marked yet. Let the countdown to skatestoppers begin.
Spot Check Melbourne
Troy Sliter sent me this picture a long time ago. Very skate-able public art in Melbourne, Australia. I feel like I’ve seen this in a magazine since then. Hm.. Apparently “skateable” is not a word according to my built in spell check. Art is a word. A four letter word. I am just rambling.
Natural Rock Sierra Shredding
Theres found terrain and then there’s found natural terrain. Outside of the Moab footage, this spot in Sierra Nevada filmed by Brandon Rein is the most skate able natural rock formation I’ve ever seen. It looks natural for the most part, but there are definitely sections that look like a concrete surface, which seems highly illogical. Brendon does not give any info however, so you’ll just have enjoy the clip. The skateboarding only makes up about a quarter of the footage in the entire video, so you’ll have to wait for it.
Loaded in the desert
Some really fun session footage in the dessert of Moab. I swear I’ve referenced the old Element Skateboards (I think ) advert of someone skating on the rocks in the desert before, but I can’t find it on S&A anywhere. I can’t even remember who it was. I want to say Danny Way, but that doesn’t seem right (Because it isn’t right, thanks to Brock and Scotty who pointed out is was in fact Jeremy Wray.) Anyone out there remember who it was? In any case, check out this video from Loaded. Everyone likes to go on and on about ditch skating, but there’s skating on natural ditches in here that looks excellent. In fact, so much of the terrain looks excellent, as long as you have big soft wheels. After you’re done with this video, check out some natural rock terrain skating that you’ve probably never seen before over on Negative Ion, just scroll left when you get there.
Continuity and Big O
It’s been around since 1976, skated heavily since then, and it even has a book dedicated to it. When Big O was in danger of being destroyed an expanding soccer stadium, locals banded together to try and save it. So what happened? Probably the most unlikely outcome, they dug it out, picked it up and set it on a trolley to move it out of harm’s way. That’s got to be a pretty satisfactory resolution, right? Now consider the fact that the relocation has already cost $100,000 (American or Canadian?) and it isn’t even in it’s final resting place. Weigh that $100,000+ against what they could have built with that money instead. They probably could have built two identical Big O’s side by side to the exact same specifications. Still, I can imagine the locals being skeptical of any new “skatepark” built on the location of such a historic spot. Imagine the city of Portland suggesting “We need to tear down Burnside under the bridge, but we’ll build you another spot across the street.” Look at the photo of Big O unearthed. There are no rough edges visible from where the concrete meets the dirt and everything looks completely uniform…
Sadlands to Badlands
Here’s the final installment of Sadlands video from reader KC aka Kieth Cote aka Bill aka… You get the point. “Aaaah TOTally rad….” These guys make it look so easy. This video ends up in the Badlands. Highlights include weird puppets, van surfing, french kissing and a scum pond obstacle at the Egg bowl. Oh yeah, watch for the handplant to unintentional disaster/finger smash. Enjoy! Good stuff KC. Too bad you guys didn’t have any fun…
Hey Lester, Let’s go Sadlands!
Check out this awesome Sadlands video courtesy of reader Keith Cote. Almost 10 minutes of skating with Lester Kasai, Rich Salazar, Dave Church, JonJon Bryan, Albert Sarabia, Lenny Moss and Dave Ullery, as filmed by Terence Yoshizowa. I know that top frame is out of frame, but some of those airs were too bio to be contained by the fish eye. Make sure you watch all the way through or you’ll miss a very nice move at the very end. These guys make this spot look so fun, almost like a… what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh yeah, playground.
Vintage Goofy skateboarder
Goofy has a history of appearing on skateboards. In Extremely Goofy Movie, Goofy’s son goes to college and enters the “College X Games.” It doesn’t seem that absurd now, actually. Goofy misses his son so much that he goes to college too, and ends up skating for the evil frat boy team against his son. There’s also a toy Goofy figure on a skateboard that was made a few years ago. The shot above is a toy that may date as far back as 1977. It’s from an expired eBay auction, but becasue I love you, and have a problem, you can look at more shots after the jump.











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