February 15, 2003
Story by Kieran Chapman
Photos by Kieran Chapman and Brian Chapman
To a resident of eastern Massachusetts (like myself), anything west of Worcester is No-Man's Land. (For all intents and purposes, western Massachusetts might as well be another state.) So on a cold February day, my wife and I decided to spend the better part of a Saturday in a skatepark in No-Man's Land.
OK, so Southbridge isn't really in the middle of nowhere — it just seems like it. I haven't been to this park in a couple years — not since it was called "Over the Boarder" and I interviewed Jon Demers (who was announcing the contest, but not riding due to a wrist injury). The skatepark is medium-sized with ramps built for bikes (not little rollerblader ramps), and although the ceilings are kinda low it didn't seem to bother many people.
I hadn't been to a skatepark contest since the last one at Impact, and it was surprisingly refreshing to breathe in the musty smell of wood, bikes and sweat of an indoor skatepark. There seemed to be a pretty good number of riders who entered the three classes — Good, Great, and Really Great. And though sometimes things dragged (as bike contests are wont to do), for the most part the contest was kept moving at a decent pace.
Unfortunately I could only identify about three riders in the place, so there's not going to be any "so-and-so did that" part of this story. Suffice to say that there was a lot of good riding going down, and a whole lot of BMX/trail style (not a "freestyle" bike in sight — you'd need at least two bikes to get 4 pegs). Though there were some good tricks thrown down — 360 variations, truckdrivers, high walltap variations, a flip, and even a couple rail fufanus — the riding seemed to be more about style and flow than burly tricks. (Then again, I missed the Really Great final jam, so perhaps that's the price I paid for leaving early.)
In summary: the contest was fun, it was good to shoot riding photos again, and this story sucks. (And if you know the results or can identify any of the riders in these photos, let me know.)
Pro Class Results
1. George Dossantos
2. Keith Goguen
3. Keith Gratton
|
