austin skate notes

Posts have gotten clogged up in the pipeline this week as I’ve been working on the new design for ASN. It’s far more pleasing to the eyes than this monstrosity, and should provide better functionality for readers. I sort of am forced to change how these articles are presented as I’ve got some ambitious literary pieces in the works that just can’t fit into this format.

Those folks down south in San Marcos are holding another CFAN skate contest to help raise money for their public concrete skatepark. There’s lots of momentum behind this project and events like this demonstrate to the community decision makers that there is demand to justify the expense of a public skatepark.

Check the Skatepark of San Marcos website for details.

http://www.sposm.org

Also competing for your attention on Saturday is a critical public input meeting at 10:00 am. This is a meeting where citizens can communicate to the City of Austin what should be included in a bond package to be presented to voters in the spring. At present, the City is considering including money for 2 public skateparks and 1 BMX park. We need to show up in force at this one as no one spoke at the previous input meeting. This page gives the location and other details. If you don’t feel comfortable with public speaking, just showing up and signing your name on the attendance form will move mountains for this cause. These bonds come along once every five to seven years, and they’re pretty much the only source of money for future public skateparks.

In case you were planning on helping Adam renovate the Banana Farm on Saturday, don’t sweat it. He drove back to Louisiana to check on his family in the Lake Charles area. He’s also going to look for lil’ moot’s dad and grandparents. They didn’t evacuate and they have not called Kevin since the storm hit last week. I think he’s postponing the work session for next weekend.

Doug King, aka the Hardest Working Man for Austin Skateboarding, is leading his crew of John Altman, Steve Kessler, and Jaimie (SPoA) in the construction of Smithville’s public skatepark. Carter Dennis stopped by the worksite and shot these photos. They could definitely use volunteer help and donated materials. With free public skateparks in the pipeline in Austin, San Marcos, Round Rock, and Smithville, Central Texas skateboarding is poised to explode in 2006.

Finally, here’s a link to some cool photos of a new park in Mammoth, California. It’s not officially opened, but they had some pros stop by to check it out. Of particular interest is the shot of Jeff Grosso in the first cradle he’s ever skated.

As people have reminded, the other two cool events happening this weekend are a barbecue at Red River Slab starting at 5:00 pm that seems to be organized by Electric Afterparty. The other is the demo at Skatepark of Austin on Sunday. John Lucero, Lance Mountain, Duane Peters, and Chaz Pineda. Wow.

Twitter This

User Name: Password:

Travis Burke is on his way back to Austin for a few days or longer. Hurricane Rita is causing the gulf coast region encompassing Corpus, Galveston, etc. to evacuate. While hanging in Austin, he won’t be able to skate the Banana Farm ramp he helped build. Adam’s ripping out the flatbottom where the wood has started to mush and replacing it. He could use help and money for new wood. You can reach him at 337-794-1370. I’m talking about Adam here, not Travis. His flat bottom is just fine.

There are two skatepark-related meetings going on thursday night competing for our attention. At 6:00 pm, Round Rock City Council will decide upon the budget for their first skatepark project, which has been limited to $110,000 by the Round Rock Parks and Recreation staffers. More money could be made available for a larger facility if the turnout at this meeting is strong. Contact Darrell Lowrance for more details– 388-7204.

The City of Austin will hold a public input meeting thursday night regarding an upcoming bond election in the spring. This is a critical meeting for escalating the priority of Austin building more skateboarding facilities in the next few years. These bond elections only come around every five or so years, so it’s an incredibly rare opportunity to get the wheels rolling on more skateparks. This is a completely different bond package than the one being put together by Travis County. Here’s a link to the coordinates for this input meeting.

As I type and likely as you’re reading this text, Doug King is onsite in Smithville building a small concrete public skatepark there. With just a $28,000 budget, this is going to be a pretty small park, but Doug is pushing the limits of what he can accomplished for that money. Steve Kessler and John Altman are on the crew.
.

Twitter This

User Name: Password:

Out of respect to the people who found and drained the Hawthorn Suites pool at the intersection of I35 and Ben White, I have refrained from mentioning the spot on ASN pending its final demise. That day came sometime last week or the week before, so now I’m posting photos from an early session in the gallery.

An article in today’s Austin American-Statesman describes how the Travis County Medical Examiner has revised his autopsy on the recently deceased frontman from the Big Boys, Randy "Biscuit" Turner. Originally, the autopsy had stated the cause of death to be cirrhosis of the liver caused by alcohol abuse. Longtime friends of Biscuit had protested the report claiming Biscuit never drank alcohol. A second examination found that Biscuit’s cirrhosis was caused by hepatitis C. I would like the record to reflect that Austin Skate Notes’ coverage of Biscuit’s death never mentioned alcohol in the cause of death.

Progress on the Mabel Davis public skatepark is temporarily halted due to the afformentioned housing issues impacting the construction crew. The only availabile house opens up two and a half weeks from now. Until then, no concrete can be poured. I stopped by the site on my lunchbreak today and it pretty much looks like it did in August– a bunch of dirt piles.

Twitter This

User Name: Password:

While travelling to Dallas to pick up a motorcycle this past weekend, I stopped by the new public skatepark in Allen– AKA the BIGGEST skatepark in Texas. It’s part of a fantastic multi-million dollar complex boasting an air conditioned rec center (and restrooms!), roller hockey courts (2), and a dirt BMX track. Of these, the 37,000 square-foot skatepark portion of the facility is hands-down the most popular and crowded offering. The crowd of young users is so dense that it is plain to see that Allen’s main fault is being too popular. This can be attributed somewhat to it being the first and only public concrete skatepark in the DFW metroplex. On top of that, it’s a lot of fun. So it’s no wonder that there are swarms of rollerbladers, skateboarders, bicyclists, and razor scooterers all trying to ride the same things at the same time.

As I waited for trains of young BMX kids to get done circling around the bottom of the bowls, I kept wondering if this was a preview of what we should expect when Austin’s public skatepark opens this Fall. Certainly opening day is going to be a madhouse. But after a lot of mental comparison between the layout of Allen and Austin’s parks, I think the crowds will throttle down in Mabel Davis.

The main difference is that Allen has a lot of wide-open basin sections where even very beginner skateboarders can push around and do flyouts. It’s well suited to maintain the attention of little kids who don’t know how to ollie or do any tricks, which is great because it should serve to grow them into skilled skaters. The Austin park, however, is being constructed with a significantly smaller budget, which doesn’t provide the luxury of these beginner basins. Instead, it’s better suited for skateboarders who have already put some time into learning ollies and dropping into bowls. The hundreds of families who bring their 7-year-olds equipped with newly-purchased Andy MacDonald boards from Walmart to the Mabel Davis skatepark are likely going to find their child spending a lot of time watching other skaters zipping around jumping on and off ledges. Sadly, they likely won’t have a lot of incentive to return to Mabel Davis. But after a few months, there will be a lot of more experienced skaters who will be glad for their absence.

I’m not saying the Allen skatepark is boring or that the Austin park will be full-on burl. Allen certainly has challenging elements in its too-tall hubbas and its over-vert bowl pockets. Likewise, nothing in the Austin design screams, "If you try this, you will die." In comparing the two, it seems that Allen’s goliath budget afforded the builder to construct a skatepark with more accessibility for novice skaters. Grindline, on the other hand, has done a good job with Austin’s limited budget of packing interesting features while balancing the need for open flat area.
Here are some photos from my trip to Allen.

Oh, but in terms of skatepark budgets, Allen is still puny compared to some of the other players out there. Off the top of my head, I know Louisville is larger with something like 45,000 square feet and then Black Pearl in the Cayman Islands (not a public skatepark) is 55,000 square feet. Now China is bursting onto the scene with a facility that will dwarf them all, probably for decades to come. Don’t assume all that money Rodney Mullen has helped these proponents of communism take from hard-working Americans has gone entirely towards AK-47s. Judging from these photos, it looks like they’re preparing to train an army of Super X-atheletes for the 2012 Olympics.

In the meantime, Round Rock, Texas builds more baseball fields.

Twitter This

User Name: Password:

The guys building the Austin Public Skatepark in Mabel Davis are arriving on Wednesday to begin work on the bowl and street course. As such, they’re looking to rent a house for about two months while they’re here. If anyone knows of a reasonbly-priced house for rent, please email the info to me– seth[at]austinskatenotes.org.

Twitter This

User Name: Password:

The City of Austin is planning to float a bond in front of voters in the spring asking for millions of dollars to use towards building roads, recreation facilities, and the like. In my recent conversations with city officials, they have indicated that this bond may include money for two public skateparks and a BMX park. Whether these projects will be included and how much money is allocated for them will be determined by the strength of public demand exhibited at the multiple public input meetings to be held in the coming weeks. Here is a schedule of the upcoming meetings. Even if you don’t feel comfortable speaking in public, your silent presence at these meetings effectively helps to represent the demand for more public skate terrain.

I liked the movie "Wedding Crashers" as much as anybody, but if you’re a single guy looking to meet eligible women, forget barging wedding receptions. Too much to coordinate and who wants to dress up in a suit?!? Instead, take a sewing class. Seriously. I have a kick-ass girlfriend, so I wasn’t interested in fishing, but let me tell you, they were literally jumping in the boat while I was making this pillow on Tuesday night.

Another good place to meet women / girls is going to be the Marble Falls Skate Jam this saturday. Ok, probably not. But there will be some cool stuff to skate and barbecue (vegetarian, too). Here is a google map to the location. Starts at 2:00.

Twitter This

User Name: Password: