For 3 years, me and my mates had been skating street and stacking clips for a full length video. So in 2019 we wanted to take a break from filming street and skate more skateparks- nice smooth surfaces, decent ledges, transitions, no security guards etc.
I then had the brilliant idea of skating 50 different skateparks in 2019, where one guy would just have to film one clip at each park for it to ‘count’ and I’d put an edit together once we hit 50 parks. This swiftly turned into a target of 100 parks, and then a personal target of 115 to beat a friend’s record of 114 parks skated in a single year.
ANYWAY, a 20 minute video of a bunch of 30-something year olds skating parks is a dull thought, so I divided the parks roughly into seasons. I just uploaded Part 1 (Winter) and I’ll be uploading the other 3 parts throughout January:
Half of our crew only wanted to skate the occasional guaranteed good park, but a few of us were fully committed and were up for driving to as many parks as we could possibly fit in- good or shit. We always tried to guarantee a good park per session, and hit up some shitty parks on the way to up the numbers. It was just as fun figuring out how to skate the shit parks as it was skating the good ones. Most of the time.
Towards the end of the year the challenge consumed me. I would trick my mates into coming to a skatepark, pretending I didn’t know what it was like when secretly I knew it was pure dog shit. I just needed the numbers. When I visited Washington DC I got a train to DELAWARE to skate a DIY. I went all the way to Paine’s Park in Philly only for it to piss it down. I went to the end of the metro line in DC and got on a bus to some jankety ass village skatepark in Virgina somewhere. We would frequently manage 5 parks in one day. On one trip we got to a skatepark and it had been demolished. On December 28th we were skating in the rain to up our final numbers.
My final tally was 120 skateparks. The crew combined tally was 126. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but I won’t be trying to beat 120 parks. Unless someone else does…
No, it’s mainly Midlands based, a few in London and some in Barca. And the ones mentioned in the US. As it was purely quantity over quality we mainly skated what was close to home.
I was up around Sherwood Forest area, Edwinstowe in Feb, and it was quite pleasant.
Used to love Keyworth park.
That Stamford Park used to be a wooden park with more bike minded people catered for.
Surprised you didn’t get to Mansfield’s park as it is an easy reach from Notts.
I remember the wooden Stamford park. It wasn’t the worst park going. The new one looks amazing upon entry but there’s just something about it. For all the concrete there there’s not much to skate.
We went to Mansfield later in the year- I’d never been before and I was pleasantly surprised. Really nice park, definitely going back for a longer sesh.
I’m originally from Stamford, that wooden park was fun enough. Have been back and skated the concrete one once, it’s a bit of a BMX park. It’s all about Skells though.
Lived in Notts for a few years too, Keyworth was rad, skated the wooden Lady Bay quite a bit, concrete version looks sick.
Really enjoyed the Olde Trip vid that someone posted too.
Enjoyed the Cementurians edit looking forward to the next parts
Uploaded part 2/4 today- skateparks from a trip to Philadelphia and DC, some more Notts and Leicester parks and a trip to London brought us up to 69 parks by the end of Spring.
Paines Park looked amazing. It wasn’t forecast to rain, but as we got off the train from DC to Philly it started spitting a bit. As soon as we arrived at Paines it fully pissed it down. I also got a new found sense of appreciation for a prime Bam for skating FDR like he did. That place is no joke.
Shout out to Kirby Muxloe skatepark in Leicestershire for being the worst park out of all 126. The ground was basically gravel.
Part 3 (summer) up now. Hottest skate of my life during the London clips. I’m sure it was 30+ degrees. It was nice to go to Barcelona and check out some of the parks there instead of trawling round all the usual street spots too.
