Way back in August I texted my friend Mark Conahan to ask him if he’d like to go to a newish skatepark that opened in June that was about a half hour away. Mark instead suggested we go to one that neither of us had been to, a brand new park in Sandy, Oregon that was maybe 45 minutes away. I drive through Sandy on the way to Mt Hood several times a year, and I didn’t even know they had a skatepark. A hurried web search turned up the park district page with exactly one picture showing a close cropped view of a kid skating. It didn’t look too impressive but it did appear the park was finished so I figured why not check it out? Three of us loaded up the car and drove out there. When we pull up we found the the entire thing under construction! There’s no mention of this anywhere on the parks page. In fact the new park is due to open sometime in November (Update: Nov 2nd!) and the page still isn’t updated. We nosed around a little, took some pics, and then decided to check out the town’s local skate shop since we were already out there. The new park looks like it’s going to big and fun, and BDK Boardshop turned out to be quite a surprise!
I’ve added 47 ads from the May, 1979 issue of Skateboarder magazine to the Vintage Skatemag Advert gallery, bringing the total number of ads in the gallery to 1093! Some highlights include Wally Innouye for Caster, a skateboard tourism service called Skatour, a Tracker ad with Doug Schneider with some art direction that looks like it might have influenced Thrasher before it came out, Variflex trucks that never stood a chance, and brand new (at the time) Kryptonics vertical beam wood decks.
The Volcano ( or Le Volcan as it is named in France, where it resides) was originally designed by Oscar Niemeyer and opened in 1982. These pictures are from Atelier Cambium, a firm involved in an extensive remodeling project that looks like it involved digging up everything underneath and around it in order to reimagine the space. At first glance it looks like a fun skate spot, although you’ll need big soft wheels to navigate some of the bricked areas. However, If you look closer you can see they have applied a short railing in certain areas to keep people off the walls. Why they want people off the walls? Some will likely say insurance and liability reasons, although I don’t know how big of a problem that is in the EU. I suspect it’s in order to keep the space from being used in more creative ways that tend to annoy the stuffed shirts.
Along with social media posts, Surfer Today has confirmed that Patti McGee passed away on Oct 15th at the age of 79 due to complications from a recent stroke. Patti was the world’s first female professional skateboarder, and the first female to appear on the cover of a skateboarding magazine. Many people remember her iconic cover of Life Magazine as well, likely the first appearance of a skateboarder on the cover of a non-skateboarding magazine. Patti appeared on the TV game show What’s My Line? in 1965 as well as other TV programs with Mike Douglas and The Johnny Carson Show, as well as a Bell Telephone commercial. She was the first female inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame. Juice Magazine has an interview with Patti conducted in 2017 by Steve Olson. By all accounts she was a lovely and inspiring person to all who knew her. A true legend.
Up to this point I’ve avoided posting any AI generated skateboarding content. While researching some pics a reader sent in (anyone ever hear of a Jordy brand skateboard?) my image search came up with some bizarre AI generated skateboards on the stock art site Freepik that were too good/bad to ignore. It looks like someone dumped a bunch of skateboard images that were generated by AI, which is fine and dandy for a generic image, but they must not have proofed these. It turns out the only thing AI is worse at generating than human hands is skateboard trucks, and the spelling of the word “skateboard.”
Aruma Split Garden in Indonesia was designed by RAD+ar (Research Artistic Design + Architecture). Despite its name, the primary function appears to be the restaurant underneath the roof garden. Looks like fun, unfortunately the opposite side of the transition is a dead end. It would be interesting to see this concept replicated in a skatepark either symmetrically or with some sort of return to conserve momentum.
Slek Skateboards (pronounced “sleek”) is an American company owned by the golf company Ping. Based on the front page of their web site you’d probably assume they made standard park/street skateboards but the majority of their lineup is actually longboard and cruiser oriented. The reason they’re here on S&A is because of the Float-Tec funky truck assembly that is designed to let users roll over cracks and bumps without eating it. It’s a strange niche because beginners who aren’t skilled enough to negotiate those, obstacles are likely not going to justify the expense, and you can’t buy the trucks separately. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this kind of setup before, but I may in fact be thinking of the Stair Board from back in 2012. One thing I find annoying, for the life of me I can’t replicate the “e” character with the line over the top that they use in their website and logo. Our character sets are both utf-8 and I cant find it in any character table.
Check out this Ken Park (AKA Krapnek) model on Kryptonics skateboards. It’s the first pro model he ever had and is so rare that at this time he himself does not even possess one.
Day 7 (!) of 7 Days of Jughead! I made it! This is volume 2, issue #34 of Jughead published in June of 1992. It has a couple of stories with skateboarding, I Was a Teenage Jughead and Lessons in Skateboarding. Even Jughead himself asks, is this a joke?
