Vancouver really does rule. All the great things
you hear about it are true-the low drinking age,
the strippers, the weed, and the skateparks. All
true. Whether the first three contribute to the
skateboarding scene is arguable, but point num-
ber four, skateparks, are a major part of skate-
boarding around these parts. You can look at how
the Richmond Skate Ranch bred the Red Dragons
or how the parks now are pumping out kids like
Alien, Mike Hastie, and Ryan Smith. The parks are
varied too; a skater can master the fine art of
carving in the North Van snake run and then roll
up his pants and just chill at Ambleside in West
Van, which for some leads us back to points one
through three.
While you can skate hassle-free at the
skateparks in the outlying suburbs, skating down-
town is a bit of a different ball game. Vancouver
used to have more skate spots per square block
than anywhere else. Unfortunately the city lost
them about as quickly as everyone found them,
starting with the "New Spot," which will forever
be Vancouver's EMB. Luckily, Vancouver is filled
with nice shiny new buildings; whenever a build-
ing gets to be over thirty years old, they just
doze it and put in a new one, so every day
potential skate spots are going up.
The last factor, which contributes to skate-
boarding in Vancouver, is the rain. One might.
think that this would make skating difficult. Well
it does, but that only makes the skaters stronger.
Vancouver is not blessed with any indoor park
that actually lasts for more than two months or is
more than some plastic coping nailed to a few
wooden pallets.
So what's a skater to do? Usually everyone
gets together and skates what they can find.
Like a lot of skate scenes, Vancouver full of
little cliques, but the winter brings them all
together. The tear-aways mix with the Dickies
and everyone gets along just fine. Last year
several obstacles were put in the basement of a
parking garage at the university. Surprisingly
enough, the security didn't mind the skating;
they did mind the sorry-ass tagging though, and
who can blame them? Somehow the skaters can
get over the hundred-plus days of rain a year
but can't get over knuckleheads who time and
time again screw up their spots.
HYSI
Clockwise from left: Machnau takes this double-set
and pop shoves-it. When he's not combing the fur in his
1975 Ford van, you can find Jon West 50-50ing steep
ledges in Surrey. A blocked-off staircase at Fraser College
gives Alex Gavin a small margin for error on his ollies.
82 THRASHER
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