Bikes in Skateparks

A blog about bikes in skateparksFirstly I would like to say that I have a skate park near me that allows bmx's and believe me I am very grateful that i have it. I'm not that good when it comes to riding street so I tend to think of the park as my home. Also I live in the city with out any real good dirt jumps around, so I can't ride dirt that often and when i do its really just a chill little sesh at some small jumps. Lately I've been travelling around with friends hitting up local parks in the area and having tons of fun doing it, riding with friends is awesome, and riding new places with friends is even better.But it has come to my attention that there are parks out there that don't allow bikes, and this angers me. I don't see the reason bikes shouldn't be allowed in parks but I have done my research and come up with a few reasons that skaters and council members come up with when they chose whether or not bikers should be allowed in parks, so please continue reading, and if you know a park that doesn't allow bikes, get a petition started, believe me, I'll sign it.

Firstly when a city decides its time for a skatepark to enter the picture they weigh the pro's and con's, get the skateboarders feedback and then start getting donations or find the money in the budget for a park, and not just a little bit of money, we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, from materials to workers and the like. And during this process they decide whether or not bikers should be allowed. So in the end they are either supporting both sports, or more often then not (especially in the states) they support one sport, skateboarding. Now I am sure during the meetings the skaters say something along the lines of "oh they have dirt jumps let them go ride those and keep them out of our park" Well first off, not all of us have dirt jumps, secondly, not all of us ride dirt, and thirdly if we do have our own little dirt jumps the towns and cities usually make sure they are destroyed more often then not. Sometimes bikers go to these meetings and voice they're concerns but are usually always out numbered by the skaters, sometimes to the tune of 10 to 1. Skateboarding is a more popular sport I understand that, but we still ride, and from what I've noticed at my local park, we most often ride the hardest.

Now one of the most common reasons we aren't allowed in parks is because of the damage we do to the park. Now this is a good reason, if we were living in the nineties, before park friendly pegs and pedals, and high density cement used in todays parks. So really the whole damage factor isn't really a factor anymore, it's just the low blow in the skaters aresenal to get us banned from the park.

Another reason we aren't allowed in is the safety concern, our 20+ lb bikes obviously destroy any 2lb piece of wood, but this isn't the fault of the riders, but the riders experience. I've noticed more skater to skater crashes the biker to skater crashes, and not cause we're more experienced but because we have the ability to get out of the way faster, and for the young people that do get in the way, well simply teaching them simple skatepark etiquette would go a long way towards fixing collisions. Collisions mainly happening because one person blindly jumps into the middle of someones line, sometimes because skaters have a knack for carrying out really long runs, or sessioning the bowl for way to damn long. If we all learned to just call our runs out and pay attention then collisions would be non existent pretty much.

Another reason I hear is the whole turf war thing, between bikers and skaters, and skaters having this sense that because they went above and beyond to get the park that it belongs to them and them only, though in most instances bikers help get parks and even go so far as to keeping it clean (see the picture posted with this blog, thats me, my friend adam, and a couple pros cleaning the park on earth day 09 with no skater help) so the turf war is mainly just skaters being self centered tools that don't give a crap once they get what they want.

Now yes I am a little biased being a biker, but I've also been on the council to get skateparks in cities and made it well known at meetings that if bikers weren't allowed at the park there would be a severe backlash from the community. By not allowing us into the park you are segregating us from enjoying something we love, and a place to do it. By forcing us out of parks and into the streets you are putting as, as well as the public at risk, we will do more damage to public buildings and infrastructure then we will to any skatepark, so please, stop the hate and let us in, it's better for everyone involved.