A Short Trip To Sarasota Skate Park

Posted on Monday, December 29, 2003 by Rob

A Short Trip To Sarasota Skatepark

Photos by Rob Meronek and John Paul Grebe

This weekend, Allen Russell, John Paul Grebe, Ryan Rapp, and I went to another one of those city skate parks run like a baseball field except with too much supervision, which I guess makes it a rollerskating rink or something. I can't complain because it's a free skate park, but I'm going to anyway. Every 30 minutes, some jock dad with a bullhorn ("the coach") would come out and make announcements like "Ok, inline only for the next 30 minutes" and "Ok, 18 and up in the 'advanced area' only for the next 30 minutes." The only thing missing from this rollerskating rink was people skating around in circles holding hands. They're super strict on the full pads thing, but at least we didn't get kicked out. Other than that, we made the best of it and had a pretty decent time.

Rob Meronek

That's either Koston or Micey Reyes on BGP's in this photo of Allen Russell's frontside piviot on the sketchy love seat built on the deck of a quarter pipe hip in the middle of the "advanced area."

This is Bangs on a frontside ollie over one of those weird bowl troll hips.

Bangs makes use of the sketchy love seat by lay back tailsliding over it. Too bad when you roll out, you're on the deck of a quarterpipe and fall to your death after.

Jeff Velena is going to get the coach's whistle blown on his ass for having an unstrapped elbow pad on this backside disaster.

Looks like Jeff Velena is backside grinding a fluorescent light. That's going to make the coach blow his whistle for damn sure.

Luckily, the coach didn't see me without a helmet taking this photo of Jeff Velena's 100 mile an hour backside Smith. I woulda got the damn whistle for sure.

John Paul Grebe is suddenly best friends with SPoT BMX guy Sean Albright after taking this photo. Coach put him on varsity for still rocking the helmet outside the park.

The coach smacked John Paul Grebe on the ass right after he made this boardslide.

Duuuude, this rail John Paul Grebe is boardsliding is like SERIOUSLY above waist high. Yeah, for all the little kids there, it was like shoulder high. Siiiick!

If the coach saw John Paul Grebe doing this, he'd be off varsity immediately. Oh, and you'd hear the whistle blow, too.

John Paul Grebe rock and rolls the sketchy tight quarter. One foot behind him is a drop off into a quarter. Two feet to his right is a drop off into a quarter. Gotta scratch your head at that design, but it was pretty fun for a little bit, though.