Rad Days

Just thinking with all these bowls cropping up, nearly all the British built ones seem to have flat bottoms and no split levels. Unlike the USA built one at Safron Walden.

I riden the one in Marsailles, Saffron and the one at Doncaster (flat bottom). It seems more fun and and you can get some really speed with bowls with split levels and more contours.

Is it what the riders want or is it that the British contractors are not experienced in creating bowls with more contours.

Are the councils opting for the off the shelf components contractor as they are on their approved list, how do they compare a park built by Dreamlandskateparks compared to others in the market?

I hope this isn't be short sighted in the long term for the skaters and bmxers, when we were sold something which could have been more creative with the funding.

Just a thought, these questions have properly been asked already.

If split level bowls are the ones we want, then is it the cost of extra depth, which costs too much.

Just concerned that we are building all these nice parks, and its not what we really want in some situations, because we may not know what we want at these early stages of mass concrete Skatepark construction across the country.

On looking around at the parks in design stage and on the internet/magazines it seems that a lot of the parks with bowls in are on one level with differing heights around the top instead of having split level/waterfalls in the bowl section.

I was just wondering if this is the best way/easiest or the cheapest way to construct a bowl section. Is this something we want or what our contractors can provide.

Unless the user has ridden some good parks in the States/Europe then they will have nothing to compare it to. I think we need to have a quick learning curve on these new parks so we do not live to regret some. As it may be a long time coming around for them to be renewed or altered.

I skated Hayle bowl over the summer holidays and they have a rollin area, which I though was good to encourage a new smaller and younger users in to out much loved past times. This bowl area seemed to be used more to me, because of the rollin area, more so than say Saffron where you have to drop in. Which can be they daunting on concrete for the first time.

As long as the budget allows us, is it worth considering on all new projects with bowls to have Rollins. As long as the designs are creative and challenging, isn’t it worth adding a small rollin for the future?.

Should we have a lessons learned database on every major skatepark project to help get it right sooner. We may have it place already, hopefully. I just hope we are getting it right for the future and enjoyment of riding.

I don’t know how competent our concrete contractors are in comparison to the USA ones, if we have inexperience in this area should we get established companies from the States on board to help us out. Alternatively we could possibly have a performanced based contract with an over seas company to get around the tendering process. As like the Bournemouth Artifical Reef project, who used this form of contract.

Do the Councils hold back a retention on the contractor if the project and surface is not up to scratch?.

The other thing, it’s a shame with all these new CDM regulations in the building that Preliminary costs on a project may be 15% of the overall total before anything has started on site. Are there ways to save money here to put towards our parks?.

Just a few questions, that have probably been asked before somewhere already.

I’ve been skating (not much) off and on since 1984, but always paid an interest on the scene and how the skateparks have come and gone. What companies have jumped on the band wagon to sell all these off the shelf parks to the mislead Councils. It’s great to see these new concrete parks cropping up around the country as I think it is positive step forward for Skaters, BMXers and Inliners.  The industry as a whole will benefit as I believe these groups have a good community structure.