Some of you may have been wondering, where is Lou?? It is true, I have not been around for the early Sat/Sun morning sesh at Wilson. Well, truth is that I have been hitting up the afternoon evening sessions. My schedule for the last few weeks is this, work on the ramp
until 2pm, get my ass on the road to Wilson for shred.
Yes, I did say
ramp!
And if you did not get the fact that I hooked up a link you can access the blog
here. Ha! It is with great pleasure that I blow this thing out. I set out to do this at the beginning of September. But it has been in the works for some time now. As many of you know, I closed the gallery down, moved home for a while to help out my mom while she recovered from knee replacement surgery and also to pay off like 9G in credit card debt.
Well, for some damn reason I am still there, mom recovered very well and I set my cards to zero in July. Then I went crazy and went out on that big once in a life time road trip. When I got back, all of my electronics (lap top, phone, x-box, DvD player) dumped out. I had to get a new laptop. Which my school does not pay for and most of my work involves using it... I had to stick around for another month or two to pay that thing off.
At the end of August after realizing my Fall fate I got a little bummed. Some of you Wilson locals probably noticed that I was repeatedly enraged, swearing, talking to myself, throwing my board, etc. Well, I was kinda burned out, but also ticked off about work, life, women, everything.... So, suddenly I got this crazy idea (like when I pointed my car towards Oregon) and went with it.
I got permission to use my father's pole barn. Mostly because he really never used it for anything other than to pile stuff up in. But also I think he could sense my current insane state and knows that I do not do too well in winter. I usually spend most of my time driving to either 4-seasons in Milwaukee or Modern Skatepark in Grand Rapids, MI. Lots of driving and $$$..
This ramp comes out of frustration, and as a pure need for winter survival in the Midwest. As some of you know we tried to cure some of the winter pain last year by building the stuff in the carwash. I love the ramps we made there but I just wanted some big tight transition to ride this winter too.
As you can see, the ramp is almost ready for plywood. It is open to whoever wants a sesh but you have to ask me. You have to come when I am there and have no say as to how the ramp has been built. This is kinda rude but I did it this way because compromise always creates a mini ramp and we have enough of them to go around. I wanted something taller than 7' with vert, tight transitions, both metal and concrete coping. So this is what I came up with.
The barn is 30' by 40' so I was very limited in terms of size. The ramp is 8' 1/2 tall with 7' 1/2 transitions allowing for 1' of true vert. Yes, tight. It has 16' of flat and is 20' wide. SO it will be tight, fast and not too wide. THIS IS an old school vert ramp.
But it is also a reflection of contemporary skatepark design. When you think about it, my two favorite companies,
Dreamland and
Grindline both work with tight transitions and design everything they touch with vert and a variety of coping. So why not build a ramp that reflects that tradition?? Also, the way I see it, skateboarding came out of surfing, riding pools, then skateparks closed down. People began making ramps and the early ramps were right around this size. All of those tricks were invented and learned on this ramp. So why not try to learn them on the kind of ramp in which they were invented on??
I have no interest in doing 900s or riding contemporary vert ramps 12-15' tall? 13' transitions? crazy big.
I am more into tight transitions, fast and fun ramps. So here it is. I won't tell you where it is though. Not that it is a secret but you do need to come when a session is going on. You need to be respectful of that. This is not my property and I will not abuse it. This is not skatopia. If you trespass there will be consequences. But I will be skating it often this winter and will probably have a usual pattern set up when I'll be there. Tuesday nights or Saturday mornings, etc.
You probably won't like it anyway but that is Ok by me. There will be a group of us riding it regularly though and if you are one of those people or want to help out I am not going to ask for money directly. What I would like to do is offer anything on my art website
EXPgallery for a super reduced rate of $125. I will post up some T-shirts, painted decks and other art soon. All proceeds will go to pay for the surface. I have the rest covered at this point.
