The Maya Pool (DIY Backyard Pool)
I think it’s a dream of every skater to have his own ramp at home. Sure, I have my own ramp at home. Sure, it’s a crazy big ramp, half bowl half mini ramp, etc. But sure its not a pool….
I think it’s a dream of every skater to have his own ramp at home. Sure, I have my own ramp at home. Sure, it’s a crazy big ramp, half bowl half mini ramp, etc. But sure its not a pool….
Caltrans is gonna shut down Channel Street for a year and do construction on the freeway for the freeway expansion. Already in the works is a new project at Peck Park that the local kids and the makers of Channel are helping design which they are trying to get done as soon as Channel closes which will be sometime next year.
…I am flat broke and live day to day. People think you design a shoe, or a frame, they see you in films or TV commercials, they see you on the covers of magazine around the world, they see your book of poems and they think that guy must be loaded, but its just not the reality of what’s happening especially in skateboarding. Sometimes I don’t even believe it. I look at my life, my accomplishments and all the places I have seen my name, and face and I go fuckin nuts…. why the hell am I broke??? But that’s not the point, the point is to be driven, to love what you do and do it, and that’s the joy I have in my life.
How can a Bowl be transformed from a certified piece of shit into a deep and sweet reason to visit Paris? Skater wise naturally you’d say that it is alway good to ride those smooth sidewalks they get here and to jam (sometime literally!) into the traffic of the big avenues. But after sometime you can be bored of some of the humans living in Paris… ego trip on any levels can be really disturbing for a good ride. And you suddenly realize that there is nearly no tranny in town, this fact finally leads you to leave town in search of a good pool to fill your addiction to adrenalin.
October 1st was a momentous day in Cologne with the opening of the first concrete bowl in Germany’s fourth largest city. Built by IOU Ramps and the local skaters of Cologne, the OWL BOWL is located at the NorthBrigade Skatepark, which has been open since the 1980s. Skaters from around Germany showed up for the opening party which was graced with sunny skies, which at this time of the year is a treat, as there was just as much chance the rain would shut down the event.
This is a home made pool with obstacles around the deck, somewhere in the wooded mountains of Willets, CA. The pool is real good – an amoeba with a death-box in the deep, shallow stairs, and pool coping all the way around… except over the shallow stairs where there is river rock mortared in for coping (up the ante!). This pool is not the easiest pool to skate. I have skated backyarders that are easier, but it is great nonetheless.
The concrete bowl at Berg Fidel in Münster, Germany was built in 1989 and marks the early development of concrete bowl skateboarding in Europe. It was the same year Titus held the world championships in Germany, and pros from America like John Cardiel, Matt Hensley, Chris Miller, Christian Hossoi and Danny Way all have skated the Monster Bowl in it’s early beginnings. 22 years later…
4:00 am. Darkness hid the world away. I rose and looked out of the window. A streetlight glittered coldly across the street. Shadows. The night and darkness held a thousand horrors. I made coffee & thought that someone was probably bleeding in a gutter somewhere. I thought of those that have it all & those forgotten. It’s a crazy world. Society. Respectability….
Coming this Saturday and Sunday, in Düsseldorf, Germany is the 4th year of BEST OF BOTH. Two different bowls, the mellower, but recently amped up FACTORY BOWL(with a new cradle, loveseat, and extra bowl), and the upstairs backyard style OMSA POOL!
The bowl is located in Konstanz. The construction company is Bowl Construction from Switzerland (they also built Hard, St. Gallen and München Hirschgarten to name the good ones).