2007 Albany Oregon Summer Contest – By Danimal: Posted 8-6-07 This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. This year’s contest was another fun one. The turnout was less than last year, most likely because it was on a Wednesday instead of during the weekend. Much like last year, everybody in each category got one run then joined into a 15 minute jam session to be judged. The 13 and unders skated first with Josh O’Sullivan coming out on top again this year. The 17 and unders went next, this year Robert pulled it out with a rad run. He grabbed some tall airs over the hips and on the bigger back wall. He also stoked everybody out with a backside lipslide up the escalator – sick! The 18 and overs came next and I forgot who got first, as if you care anyway. Last to skate was the Advanced group, open to any age. This was definitely the most fun to watch. Some of the skaters included Chris White who sported a purple ski outfit right out of 1987 skated fast and stylish, Rex Pearson local ripdog, Brian Summers local super ripdog, me, and Travis…

Board of Art at Portland Oregon City Hall – By Kilwag: Posted 8-3-07 This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. Board of Art Show At Portland City Hall The City of Portland held it’s Skateboarding in Portland retrospective art show last night, titled Board of Art. I’m not sure that description is entirely accurate though, as the “history” aspect of the show seemed to be solely visible in the Burnside documentary trailer. The rest was art on the wall of the City Commissioner’s office. Oh yeah, and did I mention, there was a mini ramp in front of City Hall?!! Only in Portland!

Palma de Mallorca, Spain – By Dean Tyrell: Posted 8-1-07 This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. Landscape Architects on LSD – Sadlands on Steroids How about this spot in Palma de Mallorca, Spain? It’s virtually made for skating, it even looks like a bunch of waves! Yeah it’s 100% real!! The site is called Plaza Bellver. This spot used to get skated all the time, but police always promptly turned up and moved people on as it’s in plaza of shops and residential flats (conveniently in the red-light district) Look closely and you’ll see a ‘love seat’/bench, plus rails and steps for the lollipop ollie-sliders. There’s also some well positioned chunks of wood on the banks, and a nice carpet the floor of the ‘half pipe’ section. The latter all added to thwart skaters I guess. Anyway, the town council made up for this by building two skateparks here last year, with plans for 3 more in the pipeline requested by the local skate association, (the Spanish kids are really militant about this stuff) so this site isn’t used much now.

Western Washington Road Trip – Posted 7-13-07. Photos by Kilwag, Mark Conahan, Dan Hughes This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. (In the style of Siskel and Ebert at the Movies…Fade in theme music.) Conahan: Welcome to “Conahan and Kilwag at the Skateparks.” I’m Conahan. Kilwag: And I’m Kilwag. This weeks show we featuring some of the skateparks of Washington, with our cast and crew of regulars. You know Mark, Oregon is known for it’s world class skateparks, but some say Washington is coming on strong. Conahan: I agree. That’s why we decided to investigate. Let me give you some background. Our skate buddy Shawn Fendick has the week around the Summer Solstice reserved for a skate trip for the rest of his life. (“Hey! I called it!” – Shawn). In 2005 we went to Klamath Falls and the Rivers Inn pool. In 2006 it was Idaho to skate the Kuna, Buhl, Hailey and Ketchum skateparks. This year we planned to travel to Montana in a motorhome but those plans fell apart. So we decided to visit the skateparks of our neighbor to the north, Washington state. A side note: This is the second year that…

Seaside Oregon’s New Skatepark Built by PTR – Posted 6-21-07 This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. Seaside Oregon has a new skatepark built by Placed to Ride, a company whose owner Stefan Hauser , actually lives in Seaside. Seaside breaks the trend of having one big standout feature to draw everyone’s attention. It’s a small park overall and the deepest bowl was originally planned to be nine feet but due to drainage and location issues it ended up being eight feet. Stefan’s approach to the layout of this park seemed to be trying to pack in as much skateable terrain as possible into the limited space. Everything is connected, and the result is almost like one big (but tight) snake run. Pool coping outweighs metal coping by about two to one. There is also one long alley that has a bank on one wall and a transition with a sort of slick parking block coping embedded at the top. A spine separates the pool coping side of the park from the metal coping. The biggest bowl with metal coping has banked walls. The street area kind of gradually melts into the bowls, which makes the…

Battle Ground Washington Skate Park Grand Opening, Battle Ground WA – Posted 6-6-07 Want to comment on this article? This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. Battle Ground’s skate park is a fine one to be sure. It’s got a little something to please most types of riders. Heck, I even like the street course. the biggest drawback of the park is that it’s just so crowded now. It can be a hard to get a legitimate feel for the terrain when you are dodging little kids everywhere. Someone needs to break the groms of the habit of parking themselves in high traffic areas, be it on skateboard or bike. Hopefully they will learn soon.

Vancouver Washington Pacific Community Skate Park Construction, Vancouver WA – Posted 5-11-07 Want to comment on this article? This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. This is the second series of construction shots from Vancouver Washington Pacific Community Extreme Sports Complex complex. The first series is here. More information is available from Vancouver Parks and Recreation. This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here.

This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. These are construction shots from Vancouver Washington Pacific Community Extreme Sports complex. This is obviously the skatepark part of it. There’s a BMX track and other aspects of the larger park. The larger park isn’t set to open until 2008, but they are considering opening the skatepark as ealry as July or August, although it seems like it should be ready a lot sooner. The man hold up will likely be the surrounding landscaping. More information is available from Vancouver Parks and Recreation.

This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. Sammaish is a relatively new community that is one of those strip mall suburbs east of Seattle. Until recently their City Hall was actually in a strip mall. The population is booming and there is a lot of Microsoft and related money in the town. I’ve got relatives living there so I visit a couple of times a year. When I heard they were thinking about building a skate park I really didn’t expect much. These little burbs usually don’t get it right, and there is often a combination of busy bodies, power struggles, nepotism, and sheer ignorance of the sport that conspires against the better interests of the local skating population. I figured they’d be bamboozled into going prefab. I even briefly considered getting involved in the process to make sure they didn’t screw it up. Then I remembered I lived in Portland, not Seattle. To my surprise, I heard they decided to go with concrete. I still didn’t get my hopes up, considering the quality of crete at nearby Redmond. What if they followed the example of near-ish Carnation, on the other hand… now that I…

Battle Ground Washington Construction Pictures: Posted 11-21-06: By Kilwag This article was originally static HTML. Original comments can be found here. I’m trying something different with these pictures. Next to each picture there is a companion enlargement of the 3D rendering with the approximate point of view and field of vision indicated in red lines. It should give you more of an idea of what you are looking at.