Aggressive Skate Blog

Skate Park– Lakewood Ohio

Submitted by: Matt Goik aka Destroy Rebuild

Lakewood is a small city in Ohio over run with skateboarders. I could honestly say there are over 200 skateboarders easy and then compared to rollerbladers there’s a mere 3. The 3 rollers are my friend, a younger kid we are teaching, and myself. The younger kid just started maybe 4 days ago and he has a makio and a mizzou down so far which isn’t to bad considering he doesn’t even have a good feel for skates yet. We are working with him with his style and technique.

Other than that we are the only skaters around this area heck even the surrounding cities. Cleveland only has 2 that I know of and one of them just recently quit. The upside is that Lakewood skate park is fairly new and has a pretty decent set up so we get a few skaters to stop in maybe once every couple of months. In my 6 months of skating and almost daily skating there if not street skating I’ve really only seen about 4 other groups of skaters. Three of the groups I only saw once and that was it then one group my favorite for this reason continues to come up from the Brecksville area which is a pretty good drive just to skate Lakewood these guys are just about the perfect skaters. First off they have skill like no other and their attitudes are perfect. They always try to push you to go further and try new tricks and give you tips and have a fun and easygoing way about them. Sadly though I didn’t have a chance to get any of their numbers so this entire summer I’ve been without any inspiration.

I think the whole state of Ohio is really lacking skaters we have some pretty decent parks around here and yet no one feels that rollerblading is cool enough. It’s hard to rollerblade in a city of a couple hundred skateboarders where they actually have a local shop to get new stuff and just chat with other skaters. In all of Ohio I have yet to fine a rollerblading shop, in a bmx park their pro shop carried 4 movies 2 sets of wheels 1 pack of bearings, 3 pairs of skates and about 5 shirts. This is a big reason I think why there is pretty much a non-existent rollerblading scene hear, first off all the skateboarders have the image that rollerblading is easier then skateboarding and if you rollerblade you don’t have any guts and they make these accusations without even watching video of guys tearing it up. Along with this there really aren’t those amazing skaters around here that when they come to the skate park they shut everyone up because they are that good and no one can call what their doing easy or stupid.

Hot spots don’t exist unless you like to gap 3 feet of grass or gravel, all the handrails are to short there aren’t any handicap rails around here. This is a skateboarder’s town everything is to small to make rollerblading look cool. Theres never anything that you can tell a skateboarder to come watch and just show him this huge stair set or huge handicap we have no way of proving ourselves in street so the skate park is where everything happens and even that has its limits.

I guess overall the Lakewood, Ohio skate scene doesn’t really have much of an existence a total of 3 rollerbladers I mean its really just depressing in the end. It’s sad when even people that don’t skateboard just pedestrians laugh at us because all the skateboarders have even engrained their so-called “facts” into their minds that rollerblading is dumb. I just really would like to see some activity in Lakewood, or anywhere in Ohio really. This ball needs to get rolling if we can get all the bladders together and we buy enough stuff maybe someone might open up a shop because no one likes to wait a week or so for some new wheels or just simple things like bearings. Having a shop here would really make rollerblading more accessible to the public or anyone who wants to rollerblade but doesn’t know where to get some aggressive skates, I mean everyone I’ve talked to I just drop down www.rollerwarehouse.com, but I really doubt these people were that serious or they don’t want to commit that much and actually go ahead and go online set up an account and then order their stuff then wait and if their stuff breaks which it will eventually their going to have to go through the same process. All I can really say is if there’s other bladders in Ohio we need to get united and get this going help the industry out and get the scene alive and kicking again. I know if we just work together we can definitely get this ball rolling and from their more people will join and you just won’t be able to stop it.

I guess I’ll just let on in to read about a little bit of my skating bio. I’ve only been skating for half a year but I’ve been into rollerblading and stuff probably for 6 years not so much grinds and stuff but you know some grabs and spins but this was all when I was in 2nd grade and up so I would just 360 or something over a couple trash cans off some homemade ramps. Those were the old days so that where I learned maneuverability and such, but the past 6 months have no doubt been just about the best 6 months of my life. The people I’ve met through rolling are my best friends now and just good people to hang with. Rolling gives me a big sense of accomplishment when I land a new trick or start getting combos better or anything like that its helps my confidence as a person knowing I have something that I’m actually good at and is always there. I like rolling because its easy to put on a pair of skates and go hit a rail or something go learn a new trick and continue to progress I never get bored with skating.

Which brings me to my most memorable skating experiences, which I’m going to have to name two. First off when my one friend first try at a launch ramp somehow double back flips and is halfway around for his third when he comes crashing on his head, good thing he had a helmet on. Second every time I put on skates, when I put on my skates I forget all my problems that I currently have in life and I just focus on skating those problems can wait but skating that I just can never get enough of. So that’s that hope you learned something while reading this.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 at 9:26 am and is filed under skating, scene, aggressive, rollerblade. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.