Another page i fished out of the archive at the library.

Love the slightly incorrect write up from the local paper...Pete Gossett from Swansea.....Bod Boyce!
A quirky little news item amongst the darts results and cricket scores!

Spent the morning at the library peering into the microfilm viewer.....

....came up with this by chance.

Costa Rican concrete, April 2005

Just as i go and get a new board i go and tweak my knee, so with a self imposed skateboarding ban so i'll be flexible and good to go to Harrow in a couple of weeks it's time to rummage through my old tapes and pictures again. Delving down deep i hit 2005 again and a few weeks in Costa Rica.



Spent a few days in Tamarindo, a surf town on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.....here's a blog post from our old travel blog from the year we spent in Latin America.....
Thrasher has a write up of the park here....Tamarindo skatepark
It was super hot in the daytime so no one was around but a quick look down there at night and there was a full session going off. There was a generator, floodlights and music...coolers of beer and plenty of skaters, this is midnight at Tamarindo skatepark.



The great thing about just turning up in a place or even a whole country with no real knowledge or plan is that it's always going to be a surprise....and in the case of Costa Rica i never could have imagined how good it was going to be. Concrete skateparks surrounded by jungle where you can camp for virtually nothing with toucans flying overhead and monkeys howling at you from the trees. I had no idea there were skateparks dotted around the country until i arrived at the town of Liberia, the first big town you hit heading south on Route 1. Route 1 is the main road that travels through all the countries of Central America and so is the main bus route between the main cities....the Central American section of the Pan American Highway .
We found a little skate shop in Liberia and that's where we found out......concrete skateparks at the beach and next to a lake by a volcano!



Also didn't expect to meet too many people doing a similar thing but as luck would have it Eve and Efren were already camped out by the bowl and we spent the best week there exploring the jungle, skating at a mostly empty skatepark and eating bean burittos late into the night. Amazing place and people. There was also Michael who was like a skatecamp leader with no actual camp to run....he did a few kite surfing lessons on the lake, stayed in virtual luxury at the hotel and skated the park in the cooler evenings, good work if you can get it. Camping at the bowl for $2 a night we didn't have access to the hotel pool and hot tub but Michael was super cool and let us in for a swim and shower......
Then at the weekend the Central American skate scene descended on the park for a contest. From tranquil and peaceful to Red Bull banners, sound system and 2 days of heavy sessions. I got to be one of the judges for the contest with Michael and a couple of local skaters....then it was all gone again on Monday and we had the place to ourselves. Time to head south and move on to Panama.
The two videos are short clips from my mountain of tapes from the trip....the music is; Tamarindo video...The Minutemen "The search". Tilawa video; The Minutemen "Song for El Salvador", Nerves "Over and out" and Mikis Theodorakis "Always look for trouble".




Dan Cates went to Costa Rica too, here's his pics on the Crossfire site

My blog entry from Tilawa bowl contest


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Porthcawl with Tomsk and Ally.

Porthcawl is always good for a carve....even better during the week when no one is around. Tomsk, Ally and Conn got the place rockin.



Away from the park on the seafront Ally pointed out the only remaining clue to the old indoor park in Porthcawl.


Never went there but i found a video clip on youtube....



And the ramp now resides in another warehouse not a million miles from Porthcawl....

Exist video.......

18 and 19...Weekend away..Newport and Brixton. 16/17 and 18th March 2012.

A weekend away in Brighton and early start Friday. Couple of runs down at the West Cross miniramp before we hit the road.



Called in at Newport while the weather was holding, nobody around for most of the time we spent there. The flat between all the transitions is getting pretty rough but i really do like the park. Shame it is all being knocked down very soon, better news is that the council in Newport are actually replacing the park and putting a new one up at Tredegar House.
Onward to Brighton.....the rain hit on Saturday and i had other things to attend to! Sunday morning was still damp so any plan to meet up with Matt was put on hold till next time.
The plan was to head back to Wales via London and get some bagels down on Brick Lane, now the road from Brighton to London passes right through Brixton so it was only right to take a left and stop at the bottom end of Stockwell Road....the hallowed ground of Stockwell skatepark.





....a good bit of carving later and off to E1 for bagels and a Dirty Chai! Nice......more London soon i believe.

Potential for some renegade cement? Llansamlet.....

Small and kinked bank could be transformed with a bit of work...carpark is smooth tarmac. Rounded lip and old style concrete reminds me of an old 70's park....Wicksteed or Rom!




The banks are marked with a big yellow spanner....the new icon for a potential d.i.y. spot.


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Market Harborough is finished, just found this video on youtube......

Found this when Styley sent me the link to a video of the new park at Market Harborough...brilliant that somebody was filming this but i have no memory of anyone there with a camera.....except strangely me. I had a search around and found some photos from that very same day.....join the dots and the picture appears.

Scott Mcabe front rocks a very unstable mini block


Len to tail on the wobbly block


The very height of 80's metal chic

17. Pyle skatepark,Tuesday 6th March 2012....

Porthcawl was dry and empty on Tuesday.....

So tired of the perfection of the park i decided to seek out some rough and barely skateable spots.

The sign hints at problems for the visiting skater

There is potential at Pyle, looks good from a distance.

The sign says no entry if the gate was shut but it was open so i took this as come on in. The obstacles are pretty smooth but the ground in between is pretty weathered and worn and almost acts like a brake. Dropped in on the little miniramp and pretty much stopped before the opposite side. I needn't have worried though as the sound of my wheels alerted someone in the nearby school/youthclub. No entry to the park unless you are a member and as it turns out under 25....failed on all counts. Pretty nice to have a skatepark for your school, shame it's unskateable but good for bikes. I guess i lasted about 4 minutes before i was kicked out so i think i can count this as number 17. Should have stayed at Porthcawl but i'm chasing numbers to reach 42 by June.

Flat bank and school buildings

15 and 16. Crawley and Haywards Heath skateparks. Saturday 3rd March 2012.

A great few days in Brighton catching up with old friends, dodging the rain and frontside grinds!
A damp Saturday morning when Matt collected me from the end of the road in Brighton. Strangely the concrete at Crawley was wet but the miniramp was dry so we stayed there for a while. I have to get back there though as the bowl is the reason for going...call this trip half a spot, the return in a couple of weeks hopefully to set things straight and skate the concrete.


The miniramp at Crawley is new since the last time i went there and pretty wide...the grain on the wood seems to be against you so it's more effort to skate than the quicker ramps i'm used to. Cool size though but still didn't make up for the damp concrete. Onward to Cuckfield which was pretty wet too...called in the day before though when it was nice and dry and it's all been tidied up and the cracks smoothed over, going to make this the regular spot when i'm down south for sure.

I'd heard about the ramps down at Haywards Heath and Matt had been down there before so we left the wet bowl at Cuckfield and drove the 2 miles to Haywards Heath....ground wet again but the small part of the miniramp was strangely dry.....


Managed to catch the sun the day before at Cuckfield bowl.



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