austin skate notes

Tekgnar held its second annual summer skatefest at the ARC public skate facility this afternoon. Skaters competed in two seperate age divisions and then a best-trick contest. Tia Carrera and another band played. Mayor Will Wynn came to discuss the city’s current skatepark plans and also to announce that the City of Austin has officially designated the Red River Slab as an official skate spot. This is on a temporary basis and depends on the skateboarders taking responsibility for keeping it clean of litter, graffiti, and so forth.

Then I jumped on the mic to further discuss the importance of this partnership and why it’s in the interest of skateboarders to hold up our part of the bargain.Working without notes, I ended up missing a few points, which I’ll throw in here. For starters, Tax Free clothes weekend is coming up. I’d like to encourage all skaters to buy their new shoes, pants, shirts, etc. at area skate shops like Tekgnar, Union, Skatepark of Austin, and Find and Grind. These shops are supporting the local skate scene and need your support. Those internet mailorder outfits and mall stores like Tyler’s aren’t going to be in for the long haul and they certainly aren’t contributing anything to the Austin Skate Scene. The other thing I meant to say about the Red River Slab is that the Thrasher King of the Road tour is going to stop in Austin next month and they’ll probably hit that spot.

Wish I had more photos, but it was a pretty hectic afternoon. Laurie and Philly from Tekgnar deserve HUGE CREDIT for putting this event together. Great job.

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The skatewave demo in Round Rock, Tx was a great success. Lots of skaters showed up and demonstrated a strong demand for a public skateboarding facility. I think the local city officials were impressed.

I really think Round Rock now recognizes the folly of prefab and would like to do a permanent skatepark. Now it’s just a matter of getting the city administration to allocate as much money for skateboarding as they do for Adult Kickball and Roller Hockey facilities.

The skatewave folks were nice enough. Someone told me they are helping the cause by providing a rallying point for getting a skatepark in the area. I said, not only that, but they are also exhaling carbon dioxide, which trees need for photosynthesis.

Skatewave didn’t field any members of its professional skate team (cough..cough..whores…cough). Instead, skatewave contracted with a skateboarder talent agency run by Greg Whitt of Minnesota fame. The two street skaters they hired were so-so. Sadly, they also were responsible for loading the skatewave equipment back onto the trucks.

During the demo, Skatewave gave away Angelboy skateboards made by Powell. These full setups are shrinkwrapped Wallmart boards whose graphics are a pro-Christian twist of the World Industries ‘Flameboy’ graphics. The main skatewave representative told me the tour was sponsored by "Skateboarder" magazine, but I didn’t see any logos for the magazine on the banners or other colateral.

Skatewave organizers played a complete Rolling Stones CD as the musical background to the demo. Someone needs to contact ASCAP to make sure Skatewave has paid the licensing for using ASCAP music at these commercial events.

The media was in force at the event. I was interviewed by the local talk radio station as well as the two newspapers. Mostly I talked about how skateboarding was a great way to get kids off couches and outdoors being physically active. I also talked about how the event was held in a public park where there were no fewer than 20 empty baseball fields.

The event also allowed me to network with some PARD folks in the neighboring towns. One town, Hutto, is planning to redo a concrete ditch where skaters have been riding and installing rails and such. He said the contractor is more than happy to build the ditch to support skating properly.

Here are some photos.

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Round Rock is hosting a sales presentation of Skatewave products at the Dell Diamond Tuesday, July 19th from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. Round Rock Parks and Rec is also holding a public input meeting at the same time and location on what type of elements skaters would like to see in Round Rock’s first public skatepark. If you would like to see a quality skatepark or skate plaza built in Round Rock, you are encouraged to attend this event to express your preferences. Attendance is free. Click the link above for details.

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Mancub just called me. The bridge bowl has been bulldozed. Details are far from clear. I’m making phone calls right now.

Someone stole the two boxes from the ARC park. Either that or the city has taken them for refurbishing for the contest on the 23rd.

I had a lunch meeting with a member of Austin City government. We visited the Red River slab where we found Josh and another skater sessioning. The guy I ate lunch with is enthusiastic about skateboarders appropriating the slab if they can clean up the trash, graffiti, and also do some work on the weeds and other brush. He’s making some phone calls about it this afternoon to see if it can get opened back up.

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Wednesday evening’s work session at the DIY bowl project was pretty strong. Lots of hard workers showed up for shaping dirt and building the retaining wall. Some police officers also visited the scene and were impressed with the project. The Austin Police Department has been getting negative publicity heaped on them for the past year or so, and in this case, they deserve credit for recognizing the positive use of public space that’s under way. They could have been jerks in a dozen different ways, but instead, they said (and this is a direct quote), "Cool!"

Midway between the Claw ramp in San Antonio and the Banana Farm and Death Star in Austin a new wooden monster is sprouting. Details are sketchy on what’s going on here, but the builders could use some plywood. Contact Empire (empirebmx[at]empirebmx.com) to contribute.

Kevin and I made it into the Onion.

Just wanted to drop another reminder that this Saturday a work session is scheduled for improving the Red River slab. Manual pad construction and graffiti cleanup are on the agenda. The manual pad will be concrete with steel edging and short enough for the shortees. Skaters will gather at noon on the slab. Bring a few bucks because concrete is expected to cost about $50 for the manual pad.

The Best of Austin poll by the Austin Chronicle is winding down. Austin Skate Notes readers have until July 11th to vote for "Best local blogger" and "Best skate spot" on the online ballot. Be sure to enter your address and name at the top of that form so your vote will be counted.

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Grindline has finished the Amarillo public skatepark. Tim Kirby has sent Carter Dennis these pics. Their work crews are avoiding the Austin heat and dispersing to more northern projects for the time being. The estimated time for their work to begin at Mabel Davis here in Austin is mid-September. In the meantime, Grindline continues work in San Angelo where the city of is already feeling the pain of having built a public skateboarding facility for its youth. Local skaters have tagged the skatepark with graffiti on almost every part of the park. The response from the city will be to sandblast the graffiti which will likely damage the glass-smooth Grindline finish. The response from nearby Texas cities considering public skateparks is probably going to involve pumping more funds into baseball and soccer fields.

Speaking of graffiti, a street skater named Jason tagged the Best Banks over on 183, so now the property manager turns the lights off at night in the hopes that skaters won’t be able to session there 24/7. I guess the next step would be to request more police patrols.

Continuing this shitty-news streak, rumor has it that Texas Ski Ranch sold its prefab albatross. I wonder which dumbass thinks they got an awesome deal…

Hopefully this will brighten your day-after-freedom-celebration… The heros of the revolution showed up in force on Sunday to work on the DIY bowl project. Skaters and BMX’ers worked side-by-side constructing retaining walls and general earth-shaping. The momentum behind this project is unbelievable.

A S.K.A.T.E. tournament was held at the Alpine house. Josh won with some crazy pressure flip against a newcomer from Florida named Chris. He just moved to Austin after being kicked out of Axl Rose’s new band. I would have shot more photos, but I think my flash was distracting the competitors.

James’ customer appreciation party at the Skatepark of Austin was a major blowout. A contest was held in the new mini-bowl. Mancub broke his foot in the oververt during a backside D attempt. Now he’s pushing around on a walker we got him at Goodwill. Here are the results:

A work session is being organized at the Red River slab for this Saturday at noon. The agenda includes building a concrete manual pad and cleaning the place of the various tags that have begun to appear at the site before they get the spot shut down. Tell your friends.

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