So I posted a topic the other day titled Help Get Bikes In Skateparks, and as I became increasingly intrigued I started to do a little research. That's when I came across this article from the Portland Tribune that, quite frankly, pissed me off.
I never really had a problem with skaters aside from the fact that they are slow and clumsy, don't watch where they are going, and whine about bikers... Ok, so maybe I'm not all to fond of skaters, but the artictle in the Tribune isn't helping their cause at all. Kent Dahlgren, leader of one of the major skate advocacy groups in portland, makes a completely absurd claim that it's the skaters who "are continually chased from one place to the next". Does this guy even skate!? Has he ever been to a skatepark!? If he had, he would know that the parks are all majoratively overrun by skaters who constantly bitch and moan about the BMXers. Maybe the skaters should try getting the hell out of our way sometimes. It takes two to tango, but from what I've seen at skateparks is that the BMXers are generally more considerate than the skaters. The bikers uasually wont sit there and complain when a skater takes three runs in a row, but when that same skater, who just took three runs tries to take his fourth, get's plowed down by a biker who was in the clear, they'll usually run home crying to mommy or get pissed off and try to start a fight. It's not our fault that these dumb, selfish, and apparently blind skaters can't fucking share.
Another thing that grinds my gears is the section in the article that talks about seperate parks for BMXers. This is a great idea, except the fact the they only want to give us 10% of the cities skatepark funds to go towards a BMX park, and at the time this article was wrote they had a $500,000 budget to go towards two skateparks, which leaves $50,000 for a designated BMX park... Which would get us what?... A four foot mini ramp? And if they had the budget for two skateparks already why not just make one of them the BMX park?
This "turf war" is absolutely ridiculous, I think it's about time that BMXers get their own park where only bikes are allowed, I feel selfish saying that but that is what the skaters do (or want to do) to us.
If you want to take an active stance on this subject then please direct your questions and comments to the people listed below, and please do so in a polite and professional manner. If you're going to be a dick then don't even bother, it will only make the rest of the BMX community look bad and get us nowhere in the end. Thanks.
Skaters For Public Skateparks
Founders - Tom Miller and Kent Dahlgren
skateparkinfo@gmail.com
~A-Bomb
