Copenhagen Royals new bowl buster

We finally got this one finished. And wow is all I can say as far as the quality of finish we put into it.

This was the last ramp of this year and was the one with the most expectation attached to it. And lets face it, as soon as skatelite is the final layer choice the stakes are raised for the ramp builder. It is much harder to work with and very expensive when mistakes are made.

We decided to get all fancy with this centre pice as it was just too nice not to make it a bit more rad. We ran another tone of skatelite through it to give it a very unique look and finish to it. These lines though are very useful from a practical point of view as it gives some definition lines to the overall shape as you roll through it at high speeds.

It was a serious ball buster to get that volcano surfaced and required a step back from it every so often to assess the situation. It felt so good to get it finished as it was a painful pain in the ass!

Welcome to the suck!! haha . I think this was very very late at night when everybody went home but when there is an event deadline coming up in a matter of days we don`t all have the luxury of going home.

I`m particularly proud of how this rolled hip worked out. The coping is perfect and the skatelite finish is beautiful.

Went with a different style of surfacing technique on this one. Went with a bit of a twist which was a good choice. Its nice to see a few different styles running through the one ramp.

The Event day finally came which meant the ramp was finally finished.. wooohoo. The comp was to kick off at 6 pm but we were still finishing the ramp at 6.15 pm. But according to all the skaters they thought it was amazing to see the ramp still being finished minutes before they got to get their shred on.

The skate comp was amazing and it is always fantastic to see stuff you have made being sessioned. Quick edit on the comp coming soon. Theres Kasper in the shades.

Here`s Peter and Aspen from Royal taking it easy with a beer after the party ended. Cheers guys for putting on a fun session.

Here is another reminder of the suck!!!

Thanks to everybody who was on this job and helped out in their own way. Kasper, Travis, Ryan C, Mark, Keld, Thomas Hvass Jesper, Allan and Jonas. Cheers dudes. F

Myself, Keld and Aspen heading for a bar on Kelds cargo bike after the event. Nice but we were dead men walking at this point.

Royals beast is nearly finished.

We have been pluggin away at this thing for a few weeks now. And now the skatelite will be finally arriving on monday. woohoo.

This is a beautifully designed ramp and built with a lot of love.

The coping details are really nice and has taken a lot of work but we finally finished with that a few days ago.

Really looking forward to riding this one. This is the new winter session ramp. Royal copenhagen skatepark is the only indoor heated park in this town and come the winter it gets really really cold here.

And it is parked right beside the baddest vert ramp you will ever get to ride also so it is looking like it should be a wild winter. Royal is actually just a 5 minute roll from the carlsberg bowl we just finished. Location wise, it is very hard to top this area of copenhagen when stuff like these things live so close by to each other.

Carlsberg Bowl

We Just finished building this Bowl right here in Copenhagen. It is located in one of the warehouses in the old Carlsberg brewery in the west part of the city. This one was built with BMX  specifically in mind but everybody who has come in and seen this skater/ inliner whoever, all want to session it.

We only had half the crew building this one but it still only took 12 days.

The challenge on this build was to design something that had 2 separate zones within a bowl environment, including a  stepped up jumpbox and to keep with an open plan bowl concept.

This solution worked out really well. After riding this for a few days it is clear that there are endless lines within it and that the physics was worked out perfectly. There is a good flow and good energy. Some stuff is easy to cruise through and some is difficult, which is the way it should be.

The jump box is really fun. The lip is cut out of the bowl wall and slightly dropped in the centre bringing some hip action into the box and ultimately giving it a whole lot more feeling and life. We continued the wall up along side the deck to create some wallride stuff. There was just a very weak sound proof wall there at first.

Being the environmental conscience minded builders that we are we put this together using only recycled materials.

Carlsberg Bowl comp

We made this bowl in 12 days.

REDBULL event in Nyhavn Copenhagen

Redbull asked us to help them out with an event here in Copenhagen last month. It was a pretty cool event actually and in a pretty interesting location. It was in the heart of Copenhagen city down by the water. At very very short notice this is what we designed and built for it.

One of the main bridges down there was raised and the whole street was shut down while we held the event. It was pretty cool I must say.

The set up was 2 quarter pipes, 1 box jump and hip set up against the bridge using it as a wallride.

Daniel Dhers was even in town for it and put on one hell of a show for us. It was amazing to see him ride in person. Flair whips, flair bars, the whole lot.

Thomas the announcer had a great spot for doing his job on. The balcony on the corner overlooking the set up was ideal for it. And Thomas did a great job on it. He is quite the personality.

Above is Jesper(right) sporting the R-R  T doing his thing on the build and Niels Thanild from Simplebikes on the left.

Heres Niels and Travis on the judges tower doing a little bit of shivering. It was quite cold up there as you got hit with all the wind. I know this as I was a judge also.

We weren`t quite sure how the bridge situation was going to work out. Redbull weren`t able to give us any indication as to what would happen once it was raised. Would we have any grounding where it lifted, at what angle would it end at etc. So all we could do was bring a bunch of extra timber and hope the situation wasn`t going to be too ridiculous. It worked out great and Daniel dhers was going so big on it. This is by no means his biggest wallride of the day. This was just the pic I managed to get.

The bridge as the back drop for the podium was a nice touch and of course Dhers takes the win.

Roskilde Music festival skatepark upgrade

Roskilde Music festival has come and gone now but before it did we were asked to change out a section of the old park that would give the most amount of improvement and help this years shows.

Last years centre piece was entirely made of banks and driveways. It was really designed to only cater for one descipline out of the 3 (Skateboarding), which is a very poor way to go about designing any public park.

So we did the only right thing to do in a situation like that. Broke it up and cleared the way for something more universal.We are very environment friendly conscious and would always recycle materials where possible but in these circumstances the previous builder failed to allow air to pass underneath the construction which caused rot and fungi to plague the timber and deem it unfit to be used again.

We decided to design and build something that truly caters for everybody. We went with a 3m wide jumpbox with rolled over and transitioned landing ramp, next to that is a 3.6 m wide spine ramp, next to that is a 1.22 m wide roll-over with a 3 m wide euro gap with rail. and finally a china bank capping off the over all set up.

Skatelite is both an amazing product and a very expensive one so to save the Festival organiser extra expense we recycled it and built the new ramps to suit.

Heres Jesper doing a spot of painting. He played a great game on this build.

CORNERS in LONDON/ THE POOL

I just returned from probably the most interesting project  I have ever been a part of. The Nike Pool build in London. It was basically an old public swimming pool that was being knocked down, the building and all, to make room for a new one next door.

(the pool had to be drained very very slowly actually as it was possible that the whole building could come down if done too quickly)

So NIKE took the place over and  turned it into this.

It was quite a big crew for this one as the park design was pretty complicated and the site itself was very awkward to get materials in and out. But shockingly after only 6 days from the time the pool was drained the park was completed and painted. AMAZING!

The crew was made up of about 14 germans, 1 american(Ryan Corrigan) and myself. Pretty much the same crew as for the barcelona mission but unfortunately Axel and Perico were not on this one.

Heres Ryan doing a walk abouts after the build looking for another view for a pic. Myself and him were all over the corners and weird shapes again.

I really like the pool details that were left around the park. The place looked awesome.

Myself and Ryan had just finished this last section while the others were painting around us. Its still hard to believe we pulled this whole thing off in 6 days.

The Germans were great workers as usual and absolutely crazy fun. On the last day after the painting was finished they painted themselves blue and ran around the park skating and riding. They even lined themselves up side by side on the deck of one of the ramps while some of the other guys proceeded to wall ride them and do tire taps.

I did a power tourist trip on the last evening over there and got to see quite a bit of london in a few short hours. Nice place.

Ramp-Riders, Europes leading Skatepark builder

Photos by: JAMES ELMS.

Graphics by: ANDREAS HOUMANN.

Estonia skatepark build

Just been building a skatepark in Estonia for the SIMPEL SESSION. The design this year was great. Big ramps and lots of corners, our speciality.

The stadium was fantastic. Excellent venue.

The design had some pretty interesting elements to it. It was great to see the guys ride some of this stuff.

The jumpbox looked really good. I didn`t take my bike so I was unable to test ride it but it looked like the hardcore heads enjoyed it.

It was all business when the park was being built but as soon as that was over the Ramp builders got very loose and sat back and enjoyed the competition. The after party`s were wild.

Some of the other crew. Great guys.

The weather was really cold though and the streets of tallinn don`t seem to get scraped or salted what so ever over winter. Every sidewalk has a un passable sheet of ice on it.

This was the smallest plane I was ever on. It almost looked like it was a private jet. haha

Ola from Barcelona skatepark build

I just got back from a 10 day trip to Barcelona to help build the BMX course for a Nike 6.0 comp. The park design was amazing.Designed by Nate wessal.

I was flown over to work the bowl corners and all the weird shapes. The crew was a very mixed crew. The main crew were Germans, the next one down was the spanish then ryan corrigan from the states and me from Ireland/Denmark. Axel Jurgens and Puerrico were on the Spanish team.

The heat was obscene and brutal. It was very rough to work in these conditions when you are not used to it.

Park look so good and rode really well too.

Peter adam was in town also for it doing a series of edits for nike. Here he is mid filming a short edit on the build. Here Axel jurgens is on getting a bit of work done for the camera. He is such a great guy!

It all strated here under the bridge. The main floor where the park was going to sit was not finished yet so a start had to be made under the bridge around the corner. Then everything got fork lifted over.

(Unfinished floor)

Crew having lunch/dinner around 9.30/10.30 pm when the sun finally went down. It was so Hot!!

Final night finally came and we actually got finished ahead of schedule. Achim Kulwalski was the main man in charge of the mission. Here he is making a speech thanking everybody and all that. Another great guy. Never stressing about anything.

Next stop Portugal in a few weeks.