Skate park tour continued-

Nice Logo!



On Saturday I checked the Dublin skatepark. The park was well used and had atleast 20 skaters using the park. The park terrain was aimed at beginning and intermediate skaters. A fair number of skaters were probably 10 years or younger and their parents were there watching them. The park was placed within a larger public park and was directly across the street from housing.

One observation that stuck with me was the number of kids who were riding razor scooters. This seemed to be a big hit with the
6-10 year old group.

Sunday was a day of surfing. It had been year since the last surf session. Our family went to a little beach cove within the Ano Nuevo Elephant seal reserve. That state beach is one of my favorites since it's one of the few places that is completely protected from the prevailing chilly northwesterly summer winds.

On Monday, my oldest son and older brother checked out the the Walnut Creek skatepark. It's located within the Heather Farm City park. The entire park is one of the best layed out parks I have seen. It has a lake, 4 tennis courts, an olympic sized swimming pool and a huge play ground. There were atleast a few hundred people using the park and the skate park was packed with skaters of all ages. There were a few girl skaters but most were teenage males with a great ethnic mix.

On Tuesday (yesterday) my wife and I had a day without our two boys and set off to Santa Cruz to enjoy some time without the kids. We also stopped by the new Santa Cruz Skate park. I'll get some pictures up soon. The skate park was once again packed and the street section was probably the most used part of the park.


Here a shot of the Street section




Considering how big the bowls were this made sense. The bowls were HUGE and there was a full pipe as well.


Here's a shot of the full pipe in Santa Cruz. The picture does not do it justice.

The bowls must have been atleast 10-12 feet with gigantic hips. The bowls were lined with pool coping so there was not much room for error without some serious consequences. Needless to say, these bowls were probably a bit beyond a lot of the skaters who had grown up skating on the street and were more natural to those of us who were used to dropping in on large waves. The was one small 3 foot bowl and this was being well used. It just goes to show that if you are going to have some extreme elements in the park you need to have some intermediate parts so that the new skaters are not so intimidated by the bigger stuff.

We also visited the Pacifica skate park. It too was packed with skaters and the easier sections were the most used while the 12 foot bowls were virtually empty. I suppose it's just like the ski hill- the double black diamonds are never as crowded as the green and blue runs. I had collision with another skater, that was a bit painful as his board nailed my ankle.

We also visited the Halfmoon bay skate park- it's falling apart which is not surprising since it's just a few old wooden quarter pipes and an old six foot halfpipe.


The sign is better then the park

Skated the Piedmont skate park again tonight and will visit the Fremont skate park tomorrow. Below is a picture of me in the Piedmont bowl. It had perfect transition eventhough it was only a 5 foot bowl. It had just enough vert to launch you straight up!


BS air (work in progress) in the Piedmont bowl.