West Beach Skatepark, Adelaide, South Australia

Main Vert Ramp, West Beach.

West Beach Skatepark, Adelaide, South Australia, is one of my favorite skateparks, even though I can barely skate anything in it well. Most of the park is way above my ability.

Located not far from the end of the runway at Adelaide Airport it can be a bit disconcerting seeing how low the planes get as they come in to land. From certain vantage points you'd swear they're about to crash into the park instead of fly over to the runway.

The park is nearly an hour's drive from my house in Gawler so the only time I get to visit is if I'm dropping my partner off at the airport (which is a rare occurrence).

This particular day was a hot 41 degrees celsius. I didn't think I'd skate but the heat guaranteed the park to be virtually empty (except for one other skater who lasted about as long as I did before giving it away). Below is a video with some highlights from my, about an hour long, session.

As you can see, my ability is limited to just keeping myself moving on both the big bowl and the main metal vert ramp.

The street section is mostly a couple of steep-ish banks, rail sliders and the tiny manual pad you see me skating in the video. There is also a mini bowl/snake-run, that is ideal for beginners, but I suspect would be pretty busy on cooler days.

I didn't get a lot of footage of me skating because it was pretty windy and I didn't have a tripod that would stay standing for long. That's why the camera is set so far away from the vert ramp. It was in a spot out of the wind.

Skating Sketchy Girl

Popsicle Skateboard

See more deck shapes

As I mentioned earlier this park is one of my favorites. Largely because of the metal vert ramp, which is one of the largest ramps I've ever seen in person. Even though I can't skate it well it represents 'potential' for me.

I don't think I'll ever get to skating a ramp that big with any confidence but I like to imagine those who can. Vert skating is the pinnacle of the sport in my eyes. There's nothing better than watching someone skate vert well.

Also at the park is a skate shop and kiosk. Well worth checking out whilst you're there if you're thinking about replacing any part of your skateboard or just need to buy a drink.

Comments

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de

Skateboard Trick Tips: Two Ways to Ollie North (Ollie One foot)

You have to be quick to see my Ollie Norths! Ollie One Foots, otherwise known as the Ollie North, is one of those skateboard tricks you learn and then tend not to do very much as more interesting trick challenges grab your attention. However it does look really cool if you learn how to kick your front foot well past the nose of your skateboard. Still shot from Braille Skateboarding's Ollie North tutorial. I was inspired to make my video below, showing two different techniques to achieve a successful Ollie One Foot, when I not only saw that Braille Skateboarding's Tutorial used a different method to the one I had learned but also, when I looked at various other video tutorials, I discovered yet another technique, with no one using the method I had originally learned. Braille's method is to simply Ollie and drag your front foot past the front of your board. The second method I came across in several video tutorials is to Ollie, drag your front foot and tap your

Revisiting My Redbubble Online Store - Here is Your New T-Shirt, Hoodie, Sticker, Phone Case etc.

Unisex T-shirt Skateboard Monkey. More info . Redbubble is an Australian, Print On Demand website that was founded in Melbourne, back in 2006, and has become a global choice for independent artists worldwide to sell prints of their work. I've had an online store with Redbubble pretty much since they launched. For the most part I limited the art I posted on Redbubble to my, popular for a second, whimsical, cat artworks. It has been quite a few years since I've painted any cats, and the followers I had for them have certainly thinned out. I was going to shut down my Redbubble account to focus on my Cafepress online store but Redbubble just has better quality prints all round at very affordable prices.

Book Review: Skateboarding Made Simple Vol. 1 by Aaron Kyro

It's been almost a year since I last wrote about my not so successful attempts at getting back to something that resembles my peak skateboarding abilities of the mid 1990's. I can say I've improved a bit but my confidence level is still pretty low. However my confidence has started to improve since I purchased Skateboarding Made Simple Vol 1: Master the basics of Skateboarding by Aaron Kyro.

A.I. Can Now Create Art Based Upon Text Prompts - DALL-E 2 and CrAIyon (Formerly DALL-E Mini)

"a painting of a fox sitting in a field at sunrise in the style of Claude Monet” Image by DALL-E 2, OpenAI.com One thing people have often said is that machines will never replace creative artists because they lack the imagination and emotion required to create anything meaningful. A.I. technology is now good enough to work as writing assistants, including sites like Jasper and Rytr , where you simply tell the A.I. what you want to write about and it'll produce a complete article on that subject. The article may not be perfect but it can sure save you a lot of time. DALL-E 2: Realistic images and art from a description in natural language. With the release of DALL-E 2 there is now an A.I. that can produce realistic (or artistically styled) images based entirely on text prompts in seconds. We're not just talking about collaging a few images together here either. DALL-E 2 can create images where everything looks fairly seamless and purposefully included. Rather than me try

Checking in on Tesla's Optimus Robot - Managing Expectations

Last year Elon Musk announced at the first Tesla AI day the Tesla Bot, which has since been renamed the Tesla Optimus, that is basically a general purpose humanoid robot assistant with human like appearance and proportions. Elon expected they would have a working prototype by the end of 2022. While very little has been released about the project since, in June Elon took to Twitter to announce that they would delay this year's Tesla AI day until September 30 in anticipation of having a working prototype of the robot by that time. Elon Musk announces the Tesla Bot at the 2021 Tesla AI day. When I initially wrote about the Tesla Bot I noted that both Boston Dynamics and Disney Imagineering are developing robot technologies that demonstrate a streamlined, humanoid robot like Optimus is certainly possible. However with precious few details, and the occasional appearance of static, concept manikins of Tesla Optimus bots at places like the Cyber Rodeo Gigafactory Austin, Texas (see vi

Rock'n'Rolls and My Driveway Skateboard Ramp Building tips

TET Rock'n'Roll attempt on a driveway quarter pipe. Whenever we have a fine sunny day during Winter in Australia I always try to take advantage of it by getting in some skateboarding, even if it's only in the driveway (not that I really skate anywhere else at the moment). In this driveway skateboard session video I didn't really have a plan for what I wanted to try so I started out by revisiting manuals on the world's smallest manual pad. From there I felt like skating my small quarter pipe, which I don't skate often on account of not being able to do anything on it beyond drop-ins and BS 50-50 stalls. However I do kind of feel Rock'n'Rolls are the trick I'm most likely to relearn next so today was the day to give them a real go. As I explain in the video I don't like people who half ass Rock'n'rolls by tapping the middle of the deck on the coping and turning back in. The trick looks super cool when done right with the back trucks pushed

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog