Chicken and Whips on a Plaza Extravagaaanza

Last weekend we made a little trip down to Cornwall and while there I was able to spend a day skateboarding in the company of Whip and Poulet.

I don't get to skate with these two enough so I was even more excited when they were both up for skating at Playing Place, legendary but weirdly bad yet fun 70's concrete in a semi-woodland setting in the heart of Cornwall (sorry no photo this time). Why? because it was too bloody wet to skate the place. So onward to Truro Plaza.

We jumped back into Poulet's toy car and trundle off to the Plaza. I almost forgot this place existed. I remember the hoo-ha when it opened and to be honest it's still pretty damn impressive. There's an awful lot of concrete in that park and there aren't too many councils willing to spend that kind of money any more.

One thing that wasn't so impressive was the transition on the concrete mini-ramp. Jesus, that thing is so mellow it freaks you out. It's like a vert ramp that's been cut down to 5 feet. I can imagine the local rippers were probably annoyed and thought it was unfair that they finally got a decent ramp but the transition was more like a saggy flat bank. Well, life isn't fair, the sooner we realise that the happier we'll all be. That transition made for a really fun skate, a uniquely British skate. A session characterized by a ramp with a training transition suitable for 3 year-old micro-scoot-kids and one platform completely covered by a puddle of rainwater.

The rest of the time was spent messing about over at the Wembley/Euro-Gap. When did it change from Wembley to Euro by the way? Who ever invented the Wembley Gap knew what they were doing didn't they (I'm sticking with Wembley Gap by the way)? I'm pretty sure the first one appeared at the Generation '97 Comp at Wembley, hence the name. Ever since, if I'm at a park that has one, it calls to me, with it's siren song of soft uphill landings and and easy-popping downhill ollies, two of the best feelings in skateboarding plus the fact it demands that you hit it with speed, and that's what it's all about. Anyway, we skated that for a bit then drove home to the pub to celebrate the arrival of Scumtash Pob's little baby boy Rhys. Good work Pob and Rach!

Oh, and I'm deliberately not mentioning the yellow t-shirts.

[LIALC]