Ex
A
who could've named a dozen
brands of skate shoes! Now all I
had to do was find these nuts.
So I went to Reno, Nevada.
Supposedly, this was the Mecca
for skateboarding ever since
most of California fell into the
Pacific. My first tries to find the
"underground skating commu-
nity" were all fruitless. Posing.
as a writer from an extreme
sports periodical, I snooped
around at all of the approved
skating facilities and "hang out"
spots. In my conversations, I
casually dropped questions.
about the outlaw ramps and
renegade skaters, but I got no
results. After a week of blank
stares and confused "huh?"s, I
decided to move on. After all, I
didn't want to give these young-
sters any ideas.
My next attempt was to visit
some of the destroyed skate.
sites and view the local police's
file photos of these illegal
structures. Once again, I was
baffled. The ramps and obsta-
cles really sucked. Some
weren't anything more than a
mound of dirt with a sheet of
Masonite laid on top, forming
some sort of rudimentary jump
ramp. In another case, the per-
Clockwise from sequence:
Longtime renegade
Mark Gonzales risks capture
with an out-in-the-open tailslide
transfer on the streets in Bump
City below FBI headquarters.
Matt Field takes us back a centu-
ry to the late '90s, using a metal
desk as his makeshift prop for
this nosegrind instead of a gov-
ernment-approved obstacle. This
backyard ramp is one of the last
shreds of evidence of a time
when skateboarding wasn't
State-sponsored and controlled;
Ryan Johnson's lien air keeps
those days alive.
petrators had pushed an old cement
parking block over a staircase. I
mean, I ain't no skater, but the State-
sponsored skateparks, with their
steel halfpipes, ceramic bowls, plas-
tic "fun boxes," and authentic "street
courses," sure seemed a hell of a lot
nicer than this junk.
In one extreme case, the rene-
gades actually had poured cement
over piles of dirt and rough wood-
en frames, forming a series of
"quarterpipes" in a remote aban-
doned parking lot. Luckily, I was
able to study the remains of this
site in depth. My first find was rem-
nants from some of the rebels'
skateboards. Strangely enough,
they did not use boards made out
of the usual polymer, but of plain
wood, absent of the colorful adver-
tisements which are mandatory!
Based on the fragments of the
ramps which I was able to piece
together, I could only conclude that
these outlaws had attached cement
blocks and steel pipe "coping" to
the top of their ramps. The rem-
nants of these copings show that
the skaters used metal axles,
known as "trucks," which have long
since been banned due to their
destructive effects. Further study
of the surfaces revealed traces of
blood on and around the ramps.
Could it be possible that these guys
were not even wearing the required
safety equipment?!?
It was at this site one evening
where I encountered a wandering old
man. He looked to be about 50, with
long graying hair, a full beard, and a
surprisingly athletic build. I asked
him if he knew anything of the skat-
ing that had gone on here before the
62 THRASHER
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