The start of a promising Summer of Skateboarding in Aberdeen was marked this week with two epic days of wid and wheels carnage.
June 21st was recognized around the globe as “International Go Skateboarding Day” and Aberdeen was no exception. Despite the recent development of a world class skate facility in the city, dozens of shreaders took skateboarding back to its roots by touring the city’s street-spots that hold a significant history in Aberdeen’s scene.
The day began as everyone met outside Transition Extreme at the beach, then headed off with a militaristic itinerary of locations stretching right across the Granite city.
The “wee dirl aboot the toon” included the wave wall at the sea front followed by a brief session at the ‘spunky’ pumping station which was brought to an ubrupt halt when the mannie said “gettae” . Spirits were far from dampened as the tour headed through the city centre at breakneck speed. A quick pit-stop for a P&J photo-shoot and a couple of pints, before meeting the Grampian news crew at the infamous “denburn banks” who seemed at first slightly bemused at the situation but were happy to film tricks and have a chat with Dobbo & Craig.
Skaters pushed on to a range of up-town spots before congregating at westburn skate park for a security guard-free session and a well deserved beer in the sun. This rest, however, was cut short by the realization that a commitment had been made to skate a marathon in the bowl at Transition that night. This would involve everyone contributing to skating the 26 miles needed in a lap format around the bowl (that’s 1400 laps).
Im still not entirely sure how we did it and where the energy came from but the marathon was completed in an hour and half, despite a few people falling foul of the wooden beast.
With that under our belts there was little left to do but go home and recover. So in true “Go Skateboarding Day” style, we met in the pub an hour later.
Kemnay Comp
“Bring your tricks to the sticks” was the idea behind the 2007 Kemnay skate jam which promised to be another fun-packed day of skateboarding goodness in the Garioch.
This however was almost not to be with the impending black clouds on the horizon, rain halted proceedings at Kemnay before they’d really started.
As we waited for the rain to stop, huddled under trees eating burgers and practicing our ho-ho’s it became obvious that the jam was doomed, we needed a plan B.
Plan B came in the somewhat wobbly form of the Ellon miniramp, a concrete cooncil installation designed by Mark Adam (check yo folk law) tucked away in ye olde “willies shelter” which became the new home for the event.
It totally went off! kinda like that closing session in ‘Animal chin’ were the boys realize that they’ve always had what it was they were searching so hard for but on a kinked to death mini ramp with s**t coping.
Hollas to everyone who made it out to this Reggae Sauce classic.
Spot Check: Go Skate Day and Kemnay Comp
