Although not all these guys are officially part of the OMSA crew, skaters from Germany, Basque country and England got together for a proper shred in the newly rebuilt NorthBrigade skatepark in Cologne, Germany. Although these tricks aren’t the gnarliest you’ve seen, keep in mind most of these guys are over 45 and a couple of them over 50. Let’s see you do a double truck 50-50 grind in a tight pocket when you’re 50!
The town of Zarautz on the Atlantic coast in Basque country has a long skate and surf tradition. A town well known for it’s world surfing championship held every year since the late 1980s also has a skatepark build on the beach back in this time which was a copy of the La Kantera skatepark.
A few weeks ago I visited my friend Matt from Minus Ramps and Pools. I hadn’t seen him for more then two and a half years. Reason enough to go for that ten hour drive from my place to Matt’s home. Another good reason was that Soup, the mastermind behind General Sherman’s Radius Floats, was visiting Matt. I had planned to stay just for the weekend, but I soon realized that this was not enough time.
Fiesta Des Ursulines is a renegade community event that takes place at Square Des Ursulines in the middle of the city of Bruxelles each year. Conceived by the Brusk collectif who also organized and built the skatepark, the Fiesta des Ursulines is not only a skateboarding event, but also focuses on culture, food, beer, silkscreening, photo exhibitions and social events such as dressing up in animal costumes or face paintings and going across the street to entertain the old people living in the retirement home.
After we had built a sweet kidney pool in the lovely seaside resort of Mers les Bains on the northern french Atlantic coast last year we were invited to come back this year for more. The plan was to extend the street area with some kind of pump track around the whole park and mixing some street obstacles in there and just try to open up as many lines as possible.
Halloween session at Lasa Skatepark in Getxo, Basque Country with Kako, Jaime Ruiz de Gopegi and Pablo Viar.
NorthBrigade is one of the oldest skateparks in Germany, established sometime in the 1980s. About three years ago the locals built the first concrete bowl in Cologne at the far end of the skatepark, called the Owl Bowl. Plans were later made for a full rebuild of the outdated skatepark, finances were put in place and before you knew it, the destruction of the old park was underway…
In the highly specialized field of skatepark archeology, the stream of inspiring discoveries flows without an ebb. It goes without saying that the unrelenting efforts of skatepark archeologists, highly qualified specialists in their own right, confirm the omnipotent mantra that conceives the inconceivable, manages the unmanageable and constructs the unconstructable: “It is right as long as it belong to skateboarders (not the cities)”.
I guess most skaters’ dream is to settle down at some point in their lives on a property with a little bowl in the backyard, or at least some kind of private shredable terrain such as an indoor miniramp.
Again, unity is strength, so a CREW united by the skate is unstoppable. Twenty people willing to work to improve the image of your skatepark, an OASIS result in the middle of the city, a delight, cement painted bright colors, a light source, a breath of fresh air, new motivation, bueno…
We had this small skatepark in the early 90s where we built skateable obstacles. Some neighbors complained about the noise and the city people tore it down. We didn’t have a permit to build anything but that didn’t stop us because there was no other skatepark anywhere near. We ended up building several different parks but every one of those were destroyed by the city of Helsinki….
