This ramp has seen many phases. My brother and I grew up in a rural part of New Jersey with nothing to skate in sight. It only took a year of skating flat ground on sheets of plywood lying in the grass, before we realized that we needed to create something to satisfy our need to skate. We managed to get our dad to back us and help us create a mini “vert” ramp. Needless to say the first ramp was a monster and extended upwards instead of out. It was an 8 ft wide by 6 ft high vert ramp with a tight flat bottom. We had it like that for a couple years and in that time not a single soul dropped in on it. We would just pump back and forth and make all kinds of janky setups off the side of the flat bottom. The next phase came in 2003 when we cut the ramp down from 6 ft to 4 ft. We could finally fully enjoy the ramp, and it got a lot of good use through our middle school years. The final phase came in 2005 when we got hit with a major stroke of luck. One of our relatives neighbors had a professionally built mini ramp, 16ft wide by 4ft high with a 10 ft flat bottom, all freshly coated with skate lite. To our amazement these people were moving and could not sell their home with such a large ramp crowding the back yard, so they were giving it away! Sadly, we did not have the equipment or funds to haul the whole ramp over to our house, however we were able to take all of that precious skate lite. This got us jumpstarted on reconstructing our ramp from 8ft wide to 16ft wide. We also added a 1ft high extension on one corner and a 7.5 ft vert wall on another corner. This has been the way the mini has been set up till today. We have done yearly repairs, and often stripped the ramp down to a skeleton and put it back together again, which has only made it stronger. Through owning and maintain a ramp I have developed firm ramp building skills, and have helped build 5 other mini ramps. One of which is a fully functional 2ft high by 6ft wide mini in our garage attic. We have had countless mini ramp jams and late night micro ramp sessions. Both ramps have been a blessing in so many ways and I encourage anyone else who has the opportunity to build one to do so.