Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota Florida. Used to be that the closest park was a Team Pain effort in North Port, which is about 45 minutes away. Now they’ve got a new park built by Team Pain as well. I’ve got in-laws in Sarasota that I visit every other year or so, and I’d been waiting to check out this park for about a year. I finally got to skate it over X-mas 2004.

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When I first got there it was overrun with kids. Tons of roller bladers too, and skater’s with no shame who would switch to blades for the latter half of the session. I guess there is no stigma attached to rollerblades in Florida. I met one older guy named Taylor who informed me that the older crew tended to hit the park right when it opened to avoid the crowds of groms. What’s this you say? When the park opens? Yes, unfortunately. The Sarasota skatepark is another fenced in and supervised skatepark that is only open during certain hours, which is a concept that is utterly baffling to someone who is used to being able to skate whenever it is dry and light enough to see. Compare affluent Sarasota to a town like Aumsville Oregon which has a population of only a couple thousand people and a lighted skatepark of equal if not better quality and is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

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Cities need to get over the urge to restrict skateparks to supervised hours. Basketball, baseball, soccer, and playgrounds are open dawn to dusk, unsupervised, why not a skatepark? Now there is even talk that the city wants to add a café, pro-shop, and bathroom facilities. In order to pay for construction and maintenance they plan on charging a fee to skate. That is wrong on so many levels and probably meant for discussion elsewhere.

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In any case, the Sarasota park is a nice park. It’s free (so far) and well made. There is even a simulated pool complete with tile, deathbox, and loveseat. Over the limited time period that I was there, the pool was largely ignored by everyone, but would occasionally have a couple kids in it. Not surprisingly, I’ve heard that the older crowd tends to dominate the pool. The park is pretty much shallow everywhere with the only vert being in two extensions and a 12 foot over vert pocket. One of the longer walls goes up to vert and has maybe an 8ft transition with a very short extension. The metal coping is set well and covers the whole park except for the pool, two big extensions, and the over vert corner pocket, which are pool coping. The pool coping is about half missing from one of the extensions. There is a small beginners area that is kind of like a trannied ditch with coping and some hips. Also present is a ledge and wedge street park which I can tell you nothing about since I ignored it.

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Good park with friendly locals, but what else is there? Well there is a private vert ramp somewhere in town as well as a mini ramp in the local shop of choice Underdog. Tampa is an hour or so away and has the well known SPOT and a Vans park if it is still open. They get some bands through town too. I saw evidence of a subversive element in town, mainly some stencil art. Lots of old folks, vacationers, hippies, Florida Punks (a special breed) and probably metal too. Perhaps someone should send in a scene report? Oh yeah, empty pools in Siesta Key. Just look for where the rich folks’ houses are falling into the ocean.

UPDATE: Ash from Bad Egg has informed me of a rumor going around about the park monitors sitting in lifeguard stands and barking out orders through a megaphone like, “ROLLERBLADE ONLY SESSION IN THE BOWL” or “OVER 30 YEARS OLDER ONLY!” Well, I can’t vouch for that, but the lifeguard stands do exist. They were empty while I was there. However, while signing the release and having my picture taken in the office I noticed a note on the board that said they were out of batteries for the megaphone. Too funny if it’s true. (It is true!!) I also noticed multiple security cameras feeding into a video camera. Be careful kiddies, Big Brother is watching you…