Our ramp is a piece of shit. 6′ transition, 4′ tall, 12′ wide. It is our man-child of home, the World Rage Center. Covered with graffiti tags, white and purple paint, two street signs patching holes, waterlogged masonite and an ode to Chris Dorner. It’s been through rainstorms, a Halloween party, an adult diaper sesh, countless sessions, slams, Darrel conventions and an all out war of real talkin’ punks vs. molly sweatin’ taggers that started over two girls bringing up internet bullshit in the “real world.”
The story of our mini ramp all started in Amsterdam. I studied abroad over there for a year and spent most of my winter skating the main park across the water in North Amsterdam. You would take this free ferry across the water, feeling like you’re in a 411VM episode and Tom Penny is gonna show up around the corner to teach you Flemmish and chug Sangria. Skatepark Amsterdam was built on this elevated platform in an old shipbuilding hangar. They also have a bar.
I remember skating with some local homies, some rad Dutch kids that were all about Creature, spliffs, and Sabbath. I noticed this dude with an afro doing no-complies on this small quarter. Being the token SF migrant, I could spot out Bay Area steez like finding Waldo during a Bauhaus show. I went up to the guy, did a boneless, and found he lived some blocks away from my future home in Oakland. When I got back to the States and chowed down on my burrito, I hit him up when we started to build, and he provided us with all the tools and a van to make Home Depot runs.
We didn’t have any plans to work from, just pre-measurements that he had memorized. And those measurements were the skill. We leveled out our land with free dirt on Craigslist. We literally looked up free dirt and within the hour we were shoveling mad dirt into our trunk from this construction site in East Oakland. We made our trip over to the tool lending library, set up trash cans as our cutting tables, blasted tapes, had some beers, and friends hang out along the way. Some people would be online watching videos of ramps being built then yelling what they learned over to the builders outside. The craziest and most difficult part was applying the first sheet of plywood onto the ramp. We would soak the pieces for hours and immediately get five to six people to make it flush with the template. Also, we separated our cuts into two separate parts, 8ft and 4ft. This led to some caulking jobs to fill in the cracks. Like I said, we’re talking about sketch factor here at the World Rage Center.
The best thing about the ramp is all the sessions. Everyone gets stoked, and all the tricks that go down are that much gnarlier because of how shitty the ramp is. That’s pretty much what we’re all about…carrying on with the lightness of skating. No stress, no bullshit, no hate. Just having shows, crazy sessions, good beers, crazy slams and fire pits. We’ve also been hyped on making edits with this old VHS-C camera, so get ready for some bangers and slappies coming up pretty soon. If anyone is trying to skate, book a show, or blow up some butane gas cartridges using coals, slingshots and crossbows, his us up! Contact: codyvoorhees@gmail.com
