HARDCORE
Skating and sessioning in the area
of our Nation's Capital and the Annandale Ramp.
Words by lan Mackaye. Photography by Glen E. Friedman.
TEAM AHARA
WASH D.C.
HENRY GARFIELD
JOHN HARGADON
DICKY LARDNER
KOLL
CALL
JAN MACKAYE
SEAN MENCHER
JIM ROBBINS
MARK SULLIVAN
D.C. 1977-77. A tight-knit gang of city
skaters decide to go official and form Team
Sahara. There's absolutely no meaning
behind the name (except perhaps a
reference to the heat of D.C. summers),
but the 10 to 12 skaters rally behind it. No
sponsors, no clubhouse, no park, nothing
but skateboards and black and gold mesh
jerseys that unfortunately are 100 percent
nylon. Nylon shirts are (1) hot, and (2) will
melt into your skin when you kiss the street
at high speed. But they wear them
everywhere...or should I say we wore
them everywhere? To the suburban
contests we always took by storm; to the
crowded Georgetown streets with the
human slalom-poles; and to the 4 a.m.
visits to the various pools, banks and
tennis courts in the area.
feet wide, about six feet high, and flush
with a 50-foot brick wall. Many people
came to skate it, and the rides got more
and more insane (four-brick frontsides and
fakies may not seem like a lot now, but
then...) and naturally there were the
injuries that seem to slide away on plastic
caps these days. I for one did a flying head
dive and was a babbling idiot for a day.
Just when we started to make really
elaborate plans, a halfpipe inside the huge
lighted police garage, they came and took
it away. Now it's condos.
It's fair to say that late night was a time
for action. Out of sun, out of heat, away
from people and away from cars. A.M.
raids for wood were a favorite pastime, as
was running from the American University
campus police. But the best thing about
late night is the open roads, which brings
us to a story.
Let's say it's 3 a.m. John, lan and Henry
are kicking off at the top of a half-mile-long
downhill. "Goodbye, John," Henry yells, as
he whips past John. "Goodbye, lan," Henry
yells as he whips past me. Maybe it was
the
Now a special mention of our ramps: the
Monster, the Gordon Ramp, Church
Ramp, Garage Ramp, Skateporch, and of
course the wooden skatepark, Police
Station. This last was an actual abandoned
police station parking lot in which we set up
three ramps (all quarterpipes, mind
you-there were no halfpipes yet). One
just-on-the-market Kryptonics he had,
was a throwaway, one was a huge
but whatever it was, he was blazing. At the
patchwork of wood 20 feet wide by 12 feet bottom of the hill one finds the pavement
high and the third was the first curved
switching from smooth to coarse. Henry
wooden ramp we'd ever seen. It was four found this when he reached the bottom of
Author/singer/skater/wailer lan mugs it on the deck while Pat Clarke slashes a layback air on the big A.
Original colonist and Sahara team member
John Hargadon shaves the coping edge of the Annandale Ramp.
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