Kickin it Old School at the Skate Park

The Workout:

2 hrs doing silly stuff with ramps and a bike

This weekend Pat talked me into heading to the skate park down under the 460 bridge in Roanoke. He got a new full suspension Cannondale mtn bike over the holidays and has spent more days at the park with his friend Randy than on actual trails and mountains. I was just coming out of the flu, thought it would be less taxing than a crosscountry ride, and wanted to break-in my bike a little more before taking it back for the free tune-up.

We rolled up to the park in Pat's truck and assembled our bikes. Pat had body armor and pads conveniently concealed beneath his stylish bagy street wear. Randy showed up with his tricked out single speed park bike and also had some cool gear on. I had been threatening to wear head to toe spandex, a yellow safety vest and a sock in my bike shorts on the way there but ended up tossing on my usual ensamble for riding including some board shorts and a long sleeve shirt. I was laughing over the fact that the three of us had collectively raised the mean age of the park by about 15 years. I went to bunny hop the railroad tracks to get over to the park entrance, got front and back tires wedged between the two tracks and promptly fell over in a pile of foolishness. Those guys just chuckled and said they both did the exact same thing on their first time there and proceeded to just carry their bikes over the tracks.

The park is 100 yds long, 50 yds wide and surrounded by a chain link fence like tennis courts. On one end, there is a 10' tall half pipe ramp and some boxes and rails to play on. The rest of it is made of between 4' and 10' high rollers, tabletops and quarterpipe ramps. For the first 15 minutes or so, I cruised around watching Pat and Randy drop in on the QPs, pick up speed, jump some tabletops and hit some of the other features. First I practiced riding up and down some of the larger entry ramps to pick up speed. I still got a "dropping in" feeling but it just wasn't as vertical as the quarterpipes. Once I was comfortable with that I would pick up speed and ride the rollers over and over again. They are ramps with concave curves on the way up and convex curves over the top. It's just like riding rolling hills on a roller coaster. This was a good step because I got to feel out how much my suspension would compress on the way up and down depending on how I positioned my body or weighted the bike. After about a half hour, I got up the nerve to ride up one of the smaller quarter pipes. I was tentative about my largest chainring banging on the rail that is on the lip of the ramp, getting stopped and falling off backwards. It went fine with no scraping so after a few tries of riding up and walking down, I rode up one, carried speed across the platform and dropped in off the qp on the other side. I was expecting a yard sale but the bike took the hit no problem. After that it was pretty much on and we did what boys do... rode around and tried to one up each other with higher jumps or better tricks. I wasn't really in Pat and Randy's league but I had fun and let it hang out there plenty of times.

The only thing I really backed down from was more of a physical reaction than mental decision. I had just come around my 2nd lap of nailing the quarterpipe transitions and still had speed heading towards a 10' high quarterpipe. I just felt like it was going to happen and cranked out a few quick pedal strokes. About 15 feet from the ramp hauling ass I just locked up both brakes and came to a screeching hault. My brain just didn't believe I would have enough forward velocity to make it up onto the platform and would just fall backwards 10' onto my back. Pat was hot on my heels and saw the whole thing happen. We laughed about it and I cut myself some slack it being my first time out and all.

I didn't attempt that one again but there was plenty of other stuff for us to play with. I finally got to that point we all know so well where we're too tired to be trying the stuff we're doing and barely smart enough to recognize it. I rolled out on the grass and practiced track stands and nose wheelies while they squeezed out the last of the goodness for that day.

Man I wish I had taken some pictures or video. That was so fun I just plain forgot about my camera. I'm writing this two days later and my back and shoulder muscles are still tight. What an unexpected upper body workout manhandling my bike up and over those ramp lips. I can't wait until next time.