As useful as a website is, there’s no real substitute for a well planned out book. The Public Skatepark Development Guide is a collection of everything on Skaters for Public Skateparks site (minus the bitching in the forums) that if you are serious, will help you on your quest to get a public skatepark built in your town. The nicely illustrated 128 page guide is published by three organizations; The Tony Hawk Foundation, the International Association of Skateboard Manufacturers – IASC, and SPS, although you’d be hard pressed to find it on their web site. I just got mine and it seems to be well worth the price, which is “free” but you pay the shipping. I think I paid about $6 for mine. It was a while ago when I ordered it. Why did I order it? For the kids, of course! Get yours.
I finally made it to Tigard Oregon’s new park. It’s rad. Quirky, but fun. It was a total zoo there because the weather was nice, but it was still a blast. A few BMX guys were getting bent out of shape by some perceived snaking, but it was really just a case of too many people and too much going on to keep tabs on everyone. If you bring a bag into the park, a city ordinance says the cops can search it. I’m not sure how the ACLU feels about that. So that weird double level coping setup that looks like it’s a big mistake is actually a lot of fun. You’re free to ignore the top layer if you want, but you also have the option of figuring out multiple lines that incorporate it. Lip tricks on the top layer look rad in combination with a roll in or lip trick on the lower layer. It’s set up in such a way that you don’t have to be Joe-pro skater to use that top layer, but if you are then more power to you. I didn’t get a lot (OK, any) shots in the wide open area. I was more interested in skating there my first day, so I made my photo opps as quick as possible. More after the jump.
A lot public buildings or parks projects contain some small portion the overall budget to be used for art on the site. I was looking at a picture of the cheesy sculpture outside of the Tigard skatepark when I realized in my travels I’ve seen a lot of bad skatepark art projects and a few good ones, including one you can actually skate. So I’m going to put together a gallery of skatepark art, which will, unfortunately contain mostly crap. Send in your pics (large versions please) and I’ll include them. Top left, kent Washington invert sculpture with MC in the foreground. Photo by Dan Hughes. Top right, the lovely squiggle art at Tigard Oregon. Larger after the jump.
The granddaddy of NW skateboarding sites, Skate Oregon, has pictures of some interesting Dreamland concrete in Bay City Oregon. The grand opening was earlier today and sadly, those Scotsmen weren’t at the event, and neither were we. We didn’t even know it was going down, actually. Dang I need to look it up on the map, too. Check out the Skate Oregon pics. Thanks for the tip Sam.
Earlier in the week when we were having technical difficulties, Grover put together a clip he felt was not worthy of full GVK status, although I’m not sure why. We couldn’t post it because our web host sucks so EPM scooped us on our own content. Hopefully it will dry up by the time this post goes live and I won’t be relegated to making goofy videos instead of actually skating he new Tigard Oregon skatepark.
I got an email from CSS titled “Ryan Sheckler’s Must-Haves.” First I was grossed out, and then I got curious. Man they are really giving it the hard sell. Buy his crap and you can live just like him kids! Ryan Sheckler signature jeans? FREAKING AWESOME!