Ramps are the skater's natural reaction to the lack of concrete.
Back in the late '70s, ramps were the thing, especially for those who lived in out-of-the-way areas where there was no concrete to be found, other than sidewalks and streets.
See, street skating had not even been thought of yet.
Sure, we rode on the streets, but the basic Ollie had not even been invented yet! (I know - hard to believe that the Ollie wasn't always with us - I still, to this day, do NOT know how to Ollie very well!)
Anyway, the half-pipe in these photos was mostly made of wood that my friend Bret and I "acquired" from local industrial areas, late at night, as we placed the 4' by 8' sheets on our skates and "rode" the wood home!
(We were teens with no access to a car and no way to tell our parents that we wanted to take wood that didn't belong to us)
But my dad did help us build this half-pipe.
It had no flat bottom, because, again, flat bottom wasn't even thought of yet!
It was a perfect radius half pipe and it helped me learn a lot of the basics of skateboarding, like fakies, airs, (sometimes punching through the 1/8" wood on landing) and frontside kickturns...
The other ramps in my "skatepark" included a 1/4 pipe up against the wall of my house, and a wedge shaped "ditch" ramp that was really just a couple of pieces of wood leaning on top of some chairs.
So I had 3 ramps in my backyard, at one point and we learned a lot on these ramps.
Then, we graduated to hunting down pools and it was all over from there!
the history of your ramps is so interesting and at the same time I still enjoy the concrete waves as much as the first day skating
awesome memories @daveespino1
Ramps are more forgiving when you fall - great place to learn lots of things!
I know bro, is awesome you still enjoy skateboarding
That would have been a sight XD
And you could have told your parents but I'm not sure how well that would have gone down XP
Was your dad not curious about where you got the wood from? o_O
Also I always thought street skating was done in the streets and ramp skating was what you're doing here and in skate parks. I grew up skating streets (literal roads which were horribly rough where I grew up, and also the local school which was much smoother and had some pretty good "ramps" which were pretty steep, though that was overall bad because they were supposed to be accessibility ramps x_x) and there were no skate parks.
Were you coming down off the roof? O_O Or just riding up the ramp and it looks like you're jumping off the roof due to the angle of the photo XD
I'm sure my dad asked, and I probably made up a story about the wood!
Yeah, when I talk about street skating, I'm mainly talking about the genre of ollies, stairs, rails, ledges, etc. None of that had been invented yet.
On that first photo, I'm doing a handplant near the very top part of the ramp, which was almost vertical. So, I am hanging on for dear life because vertical tends to pitch you IN toward the flat bottom.
Ahh okay that is what I'm familiar with as far as street skating goes .
Oh wow O_O Vertical terrifies me, I hate ramps ^_^;
They're fun - just got to start out low and work your way up as you get more comfortable.
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