Park Features Opinions

[TheAKDude]

Not directly about unicycling, I know... but I felt that it fit better under "sports/recreation" anyway. So my plan is to design and petition for an indoor skate park in my town, but I'm not sure what features to include in the designs, having limited experience with skate parks. That is why I come to you. The plan is to design it mostly for street, but with a few vert features, such as a spine, half pipe, quarter pipe. What would appeal to skateboarders while still being functional to a unicyclist?

[tesseracter]

Plenty of things - benches, stairs, rails, beams - the stuff that doesn't require a freewheel to reckon with. obviously a skate park should have some of that stuff, but I think that a focus on making things flow together is the best idea.

[Wired]

Think you should have a nice flat bit so we can cycle about a bit, but would be nice to have flat ramps (as opposed to curved) as they are nice to do tricks off and are easy to learn on!

[uniShark]

I suggest you talk to your local government parks and grants people. Find out what possible sources of funding might be, and what they're looking for in requests for funding. At least giving lip service to what potential funders are looking for will be critical if you actually want to get something built. And knowing the level of funding that is (and is not) potentially available will help you make a design on a realistic scale.

[uniShark]

Another thought: maybe put in some other features as well to attract a wider interest in the project, like a climbing wall, weight room, etc. If there are other parks or community center projects in the works, adding onto those projects might be easier than doing a totally separate facility.

[ezas]

Id visit some indoor skate parks and talk to the locals. See what they like and don't like. You are not going to float a skatepark on Uni riders. To make it economically feasible I would reverse your priorities. Make it attractive to skaters/bmx while quietly keeping it unicycle friendly with some good flow lines.

I hope you got your eyes open a skate park is not any easy go. Many have come and gone and most of the ones left are run by cities or parks departments, etc.

Here is my town's journey from skate park heaven to skate park hell and back.

http://www.skatepark.org/the-rise-an...kate-park.html

Mall America has an indoor skate park which I've seen but not skated, and a google search shows that the West Edmonton Mall has one as well as Woodward skatepark in Grapevine Mills. If you can't visit them troll some forums looking for opinions.

Start with this and find more articles like it: http://www.sublimited.net/skateboard...skatepark.html

To get a little cred, here is the first skate park I skated back in '77 and '78. The 2nd skatepark opened in the world and the first one with vert.

http://www.northwestskater.com/oldreseda.html

[Catboy]

Down rails and down boxes please all boarders and cyclists alike, you shoud have as many of each depending on the park size. Don't forget to have at east one funky unique feature that no other parks have withtin 1000 miles. Ie: Spinning volcano, egg box, snake rails.

Designing a park is a science, be it for snow, skate or unicycle. I doubt that you'l be able to design a good park at all unless you've had years of experience and training. Most skate parks nowadays are designed by one or more professionas who do it for a living.