Unity Skate Shop

I finally got down to Kankakee, IL the other day to check out Unity Skate Shop. The guy that owns the place is a killer skateboarder and a stand up guy. Dana will not steer you wrong so buy shit from him. They are doing a whole lot for skateboarding in the Kankakee area. Dave, who rides for Unity and also promotes the shop is a destroyer and a killer musician. We used to jam back in the day and had some good sessions in the barn ramp too!! Did I mention that they have a barn ramp. Oh yes.



In addition to the country shred shed, the guys at Unity just built this crazy killer mini to wallride in the Unity shop!! It is at least 24' wide and is 3' tall on one side with big coping. The other end goes to wall ride with q-pipes in between. So the brave can do the love seat thing and wall ride over the Q-pipe!! Or just try to go as high as you can untill you touch the ceiling. As you can see, tons of fun!! The kids in the area are going nuts over this thing and I can understand why. It is great to have people supporting skateboarding out here in the country too!! No attitudes either, just 100% shred. Unity Skate Shop is located at 370 E Court Street Kankakee, IL

Whiting 7/6

It was time for another sesh at Whiting. It was sunny, hot and the bowl was gnar as always. The unique thing is that rather than skating it alone, a few good friends showed up for the challange. You see, anything at Whiting skatepark is a challange. Even more so than Kokomo. The transitions are tight and crazy, the coping is bumpy, big, wavy, and grizzly and the concrete will rip your jeans, tear your pads off and send you home to mamma.

Mike Owen and Cheryl showed up as well as Cappetto, Calabro and others. Calabro had his camera out so I busted out my pea shooter too. I got a few shots of Owen doing his thing. I had a dissapointing session. I think that I was actually thinking I might get an air over the coping or something. I did not even slash the deep. I threw my board a few times and just kinda could not do anything. These days happen.

Kokomo quikie - July 5th

After eating mass quantities of brats, dogs, hamburgers, cactus, skirt steak, dognuts, (doughnuts) and Lemonade I decided to get up this mornng and go to Kokomo, IN. I was thankfully motivated by East Coast Mike's text message reading that they decided to get some elbow!.. A 90 degree full pipe that is. Wonderful Wonderful Wonderful Kokomo.



I jumped into the Fit just before 10am and made it to the park by 12:15 Central time. One of my temporary residences is in Peotone, IL which is in good position for a Kokomo trip. Soon after, Mike, Chris and Dave (??) showed for some fun in the sun. We had a great session, the weather was a bit hot and humid but the pipe must be ridden!! It was kinda odd because the only other dudes that were skating were two guys from Chicago??? They came down on the 4th to camp and stopped by the park.



After my third run some little darling rolled his freakin' scooter right in my line. I luckily dodged it and stunt rolled out. I then screamed at the little pudge and he just stared at me. The two dipshits still did not get out of the bowl so I got to yell at them some more. Great start to the day. They stayed away for about an hour until dad finally showed up and drove his mini van practically in the park. Was that supposed to be a threat?? Luckily. he never got out of the car.



Every time I go to Kokomo, I learn something new. Even if it is a small carve line or a different way to hit a hip. Good stuff!! I really need to get down there more often. I think the next trip will be a 2-3 day Kokomo, Bloomington and hopefully Homewoods camp-skate trip. Oh Yeah!!

Road Trip: Lake Delton - Day 2

We got to the park at dusk on Wednesday night. We were able to skate for about an hour and a half. It is great to have light until 9pm in the summer!! It was cool out and the air was nice. The skatepark was even better!! I have been dying to get here since we began hearing about it last September. I was actually able to skate with the Dreamland crew a few times at Wilson. These dudes started showing up with killer work trucks and would just roll in and destroy. Calabro was the one to actually talk to them and ask them where they were from. Great guys and an incredible job they did indeed!!

The concrete is flawless, this is one of my favorite parks in the immediate Chicago area. I kind of think of the bowl as a little Whiting, only well constructed. The coping sticks out a good 3" and is well set pool block. You can feel each block as you grind that stuff. I love it!!! Most guys that don't like Whiting because they can't do a 50/50 on top and do whatever ramp riding tricks they do will not like this park. Those of us that like to thrust into the coping and get that GRRRRALP sound will love it!!

The transitions in the bowl are crazy tight. The opposing flat walls are something like 5-6' transitions with 8-10" of vert. The long wall in the middle is much mellower and really never gets to true vert but has similar transitions. It is just a little more forgiving. The opposite wall from that witt the extension/loveseat is 4' of vert. Scarey!! The oververt pocket really does not go to oververt but it is fun going frontside because you kinda feel a lil' upside down!!

I am usually not a fan of bowls without waterfalls but this one gets you plenty of speed if you take the right lines. It is all about the X and the infinity in this one. Soooooo fun and challenging. Because of the big coping and tight trannies, you will fall and get pissed at first. But after a few runs if you stay with it the bowl gets really fun!!

The street/flow area is superb. There are so many features that I can not explain them all! Some highlights include vert quarter pipe with stamped brick 2' transition 3' vert. Every side wall where you would normally have a fence or a flat retaining wall, Dreamland built transitions, banks and wallrides. The hubba had trapezoidal wallrides going up to it. There is a 9' transition/bank/wallride, there is a mini bowl that goes to a vert Q'pipe and a hip that is bowled on one side so you can either carve back into the lil' bowl or transfer into the flow area.

We had a great time and skated most of the day on Thursday.

We actually got to ride a private bowl on the way back home!! I did not take pictures because I am not sure how they are about all that and blowing things out. It was rad, great and thanks so much for letting us go there!!!!!

Road Trip: Lake Delton - Day 1

Dacia was not able to go with us on the Ohio trip so we promised her a skate trip on her next day off. She had Wed and Thursday free this week so we piled into the Fit and pointed it north. It was a funny thing because I was really bummed lately that all the parks up north had been closed due to flooding. We ran into this rad young guy that we skate with at 4 seasons and he gave me the green on Lake Delton. You see, they had massive floods, winds and tornadoes a few weeks back and they actually lost the lake. I know this sounds crazy, it was a man made lake used in the Tommy Bartlett water show and a earthen dam broke and the lake literally drained into the river. Poof, no lake. So, the park was closed for a time but is re-opened now as most of the attractions in the area, accept the Water show, still not lake.

It was raining Wednesday morning and strong storms were predicted for the afternoon. I pushed the fact that we could take our time getting up there, check out some roadside attractions and eat a lot... So we did just that. Our first mistake was taking I-94 instead of I-90. I guess that we all are so used to going to Milwaukee that none of us realized we were heading the wrong direction until we hit Evanston. We decided to take the scenic route once we got over the border to get over West to the correct Highway.

We drove through Lake Geneva and out through all these great small towns. We stopped off to check out this big fiberglass elephant and clown. I guess it is a replica of an actual circus elephant that worked in that area in the 1930's. Wisconsin had scores of traveling carnivals in the 30's and 40's hence Circus World Museum and such. My father actually had some carousel horses that he got at an antique dealer up there but he sold them of probably 25 years ago. But there was a time when you could actually buy that old circus stuff cheap in upper WI. I doubt there is much left of it these days, or it would cost you stupid amounts of cash.

We stopped for lunch in Madison at this crazy Kosher Deli/Ice Cream Carnival. They had all of these animated Popeye's and Superman. They had the Beatles doing Sergent Pepper and every table had some cool shit going down. Our table had a train where the entire town was either robbing, pillaging or knocking buildings down. Good stuff and good food!! Of course, Calabro was upset with the portions of the Ice Cream scoops. He ragged about it for an hour after we left...

We saw a huge barn that was about to fall over, and lots of flood damage. Also, tornado damage, it looked like all of these fields of trees were just ripped out of the ground and broken all over each other.

We finally got to our destination and found a great campsite not to far from the park at Mirror Lake State park. I love camping. I woke up the next morning in the outdoors and was really feeling great for the first time in weeks. I am camping from now on for the summer. Good FUN!!!

WTF??? The Wild West at Wilson??

So it rained the other day, everybody took off. I was hanging out in the trunk of the Fit (hatchbacks give great rain cover) when suddenly a horse trailer pulls up. Well you guessed it, out come two horses and three cowboys??? Suddenly these guys were riding around the parking lot at Wilson and yelling out "ride the horse 5 dolla"??? I was surprised buy this. The city kids were freaking out, they probably had never seen a horse face to face. It was a cool experience for them but I was skeptical about the whole situation. I don't think these guys had permits, they just showed up and started giving rides. Odd.

DPEDW - Bonsai!!

So it was time to get back on the road again. I was really getting bummed about hanging at the local park too much. I personally needed to skate different parks. So the last week has been different park every day week. I hit the micro in Frankfort, the mini in Peotone, Whiting Grindline gnar a few times, Northbrook and Glencoe. And then back to Wilson.

I had a great session with East Coast Mike and Mike E. at Whiting last Sunday. ECM did a 50/50 on the 9' side, impressive. Mike E. did the door. ECM took pics, I did not.

Above is a pic of Randy at Glencoe from an earlier session. We miss Randy at the park very much. Hope he heals and is able to skate!! This little mini has captured many of the old guy's hearts in its janky nostalgia for what he used to ride. However, my last experience with the ramp was questionable. I think it really needs to be re-surfaced. The skatelite is really dead now and I do not feel it has much speed?? The ramp is still fun though but the rest of the park is down right dangerous now. The lower transitions now sink below the sheetmetal and would probably take an ear or finger off if an unlucky person slid down one of the ramps. They seem to be doing major construction on the school so hopefully the park will get a face lift too!!

During an excursion to Northbook Dacia, MC and I went to the Botanical Gardens. It was actually a great change of pace. I think I skate too much? We were particularly impressed with the Japanese garden. Once you crossed the bridge, it was like transcending into another world. A world where all that matters is your thoughts and your breath. We also were able to see a bonsai tree exhibit which was really a treat. I kind of felt sorry for the little trees though. The were all wired up and tied in a silent torture for the benefit of the viewer??? It was cool though, some of the trees looked like mini forests and others were fully grown maple trees. All kinds of styles were on display.