SE Michigan Ramps Up

Trevor Staples claims skateboarding is the ultimate connection to the Earth. "You're using gravity and the ground," says the third grade teacher at Burns Park elementary school. Or, as the case may be, wind power.

Fellow skater, Tameka Gallien, takes the skyward approach – kiteboarding.  In this free-wheeling adaptation of kitesurfing the waves, skateboarders careen down a terra firma jet-way, powered only by the wind in their kites. "You drive it sort of like a motorcycle," she offers.

Two years ago, at age 45, the personal trainer and yoga instructor at the Sports Club of Novi joined the national band of skateboarders – over 12 million strong, according to research firm Board-Trac. She spends nine hours a week swooping the bowls on her TWC skateboard. "I really like to carve. I like going around the pool. It's like surfing, only you're surfing on cement," she says.

Rolling at Riley Skate Park

Gallien is eager to have a go at the new Riley Skate Park in Farmington Hills' Founders Sports Park, where spectators can ogle ollies and kickflips at this Grindline-designed free public concrete facility. Groundbreaking is set for May 12 and construction will take four to six months. Nearly 30,000 skateboarders and in-line skaters are expected annually at the 29,000 square foot park, which will be more than twice as large as any other Metro Detroit offering, says Farmington Hills recreation supervisor Bryan Farmer.

The Farmington Hills-based Riley Foundation donated $500,000 towards the $850,000 park. Planners are still raising funds for such extras as ornamental fencing, lighting, web-cams, and a granite-topped ledge.

"The aesthetics of it is not just throwing out a park and putting a chain link fence around it," says Farmer. "It's more of a west coast design, like in California or Arizona – all these parks where these pro skaters go, we've taken a lot of these elements and brought them into this park."

The city sought design input from local skateboarders like Rob Woelkers, owner of Plus Skateboarding shop in Farmington. 
"Riley Skate Park is going to be the Pebble Beach of skate parks, whereas the majority of skate parks we have in southeast Michigan are like a local par three [golf course]," he describes. "This will be something that will challenge both pros and beginners forever." And, "realistically, it will draw people from a three hour radius every day."

Weekly summer camps, pro demos, and local, state, and national competitions are all on the game-board. As visitors eat, shop, and need a place to hang their boards at night, the park will have an information kiosk and area directories on its website to benefit local businesses, Farmer says. "Believe it or not, I've had three people contact me from other states asking me about the skate park because they're talking about moving to Michigan, particularly Farmington Hills, and they want to know more details about the skate park because that'll influence them moving here."

Skaters will be roller-coasting in a 10,000 square foot amoeba-shaped bowl with pool coping (edging) and 4-10 foot levels of depth. The most skilled can go topsy-turvy in the oververt – picture a cupped hand, turned slightly over 90 degrees. While similar Michigan parks – in Lansing, Mason, and Bay City – are highly rated, "We're going to have way more [features]; none of them really have pool coping, none of them have this oververt capsule, or beginner and advanced sections," Woelkers explains. "Luckily, Farmington Hills was down to build one of the best skate parks in the world."

Build it and they will come

The parks closest in scope to Riley Skate Park are several hours' drive away, in Kettering, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky but there's a growing national trend to build more. The Pacific Northwest, Seattle in particular, is prime real estate for skateboarders. With 26 proposed parks, the city is committed to serving board culture. Its Ballard library even has a bowl outside its entrance – you can't get more mainstream than that!

Meanwhile, local skateboarders are tired of being marginalized. After all, free baseball fields, basketball and tennis courts, and pools are standard issue for city recreation facilities. So why not free public skate parks?

Exactly, says Staples, the co-chair of the Ann Arbor Skate Park Action Committee. 
The group's goal is to install a free public concrete skate park in the college town. Veterans Park is the proposed location for the 30,000 square foot skater sanctuary, budgeted to cost between $800,000 and $1 million. At the coalition's public meeting with the Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation department last week, the overwhelming majority of attendees supported building a skate zone at Veterans Park.

"Really what it comes down to is putting a positive face on skateboarding," says Staples, who calls his effort "a 3/4 [time] job." He maintains, "There are regular people who are age 8-60 who ride skateboards and don't like the idea of having to travel an hour to do it."

Area skaters have three options, he says: build their own ramps; travel to a skate park; or scoot down the street – illegal in many downtowns, including Ann Arbor's. "If someone's willing to risk a $100 ticket, they're going to be out there doing whatever they want and that can come across as a certain kind of stereotype, and there we are: skateboarders are a bunch of mohawked cretins breaking bottles over each other's heads."

But the impression couldn't be further from the truth. Most parents approve of the parks, he says, because they provide a safe area for skaters. Area businesses are in favor because, "they are looking for someplace for the skateboarders to go … they don’t want their front step destroyed anymore. Businesses see it as a nuisance. I'm OK with that. We can work together and have some common goals."

While cities are generally not opposed to the idea of skate parks, funding is always an issue. Woelkers points out that most skateboarders are young and don't vote. "They don't really have a political voice, whereas there are hundreds of people asking for dog parks and splash pools at the city council meetings …."

Look out! Here comes daddy … or mommy!

But it's not just kids and teens who hop on the board and pass Go – many skaters are over thirty. Woelkers, 32, thinks, "Before, people who skateboard used to think there was some sort of time when they were too old to do it, but that perception is definitely gone now. Now the best pros [Eric Koston, Julian Stranger, Tony Hawk, Mike Vallely, et al] are my age."

And the sport is more than just kissing air; many have a street mission. "The most fun for me is just skating – like, the exploration; just to go and skate a new area and be like, 'What's around the corner?" wonders Woelkers, who's been chasing corners for over 20 years. While touring New York on his Krooked skateboard, " … I saw more of [the] city in two days than someone who just went there and either took a cab around or walked would see in a month."

Skateboarding is transportation. It's learning tricks – and humility. Seasoned skater Staples, 40, who cruises the bowls on his Santa Cruz board with his 35 to 50-year-old buddies, explains, "We don't like to brag. A big cut-down is to say, 'Hey, you talk a good skate.' It's basically, 'Show it. Don't talk about it. Do it. We'll know.' "

Gallien is a doer. She's perfecting her ollies, and aims to drop into bowls in all 50 states. "Michigan has some of the best skate parks across the country. I have skated Florida's, New Hampshire's. I've skated L.A.'s," she says. "… we've been all over – down in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan has top skate parks. Top, I mean the best."


Need a dictionary to decipher skater slang? Want to learn more about places to skateboard? Check out Metromode's handy-dandy (but far from comprehensive) skaterboard guide.