Thursday, April 23, 2009

Rifle Action [Skate] Park


At about Mile Marker 94 on I-70 You'll see a town called "Rifle" [Note: must always be pronounced in a hick accent]. The story goes that way back in the day when these.. ehem "parts" were being mapped, the map dude lost his rifle. He scribbled on the new map the approximate location where he thought he would start looking for the lost gun. When he turned in the maps to the U.S.P.I.C.O.M. (United States people in charge of maps) he forgot to erase his note and well, the town of "rifle" was born.

Rifle Action Park must have happened in much the same fashion. Somebody lost their Concrete and they thought "We better find it quick or it is going to set up" "This requires our immediate ACTION". When they found the lost Crete it was getting hard so they just finished it and called it a skatepark. Really, its not that bad, better then many on the western slope. This park was done by that one guy[Tim Alltec] that did Montrose and a few others. Its an ok park but the crete still gets a bit wavy in places. Once you have skated a Team Pain park you are spoiled for life. The Rifle park flow seems to cause lots of cross traffic. Add a few bikers to the mix and you are starring in a game of frogger. We showed up at at 3pm. Lucky for us the locals must have had loads of homework that day, we had the whole place to our selves! I skated the kidney bowl for the majority of our stay. It is very close to the dimensions of MC's project, however this kidney has some fairly steep walls in the deep end, much like a real swimming pool. The stairs are far less menacing than most and comes complete with a few size 11 vans foot prints. Although the metal coping ruins the illusion, it is set EZ and bestowed me with several shallow 50/50's and a few sketchy lien to tail air's. We had fun and left with insignificant sun burns. Thanks to my wonderful wife for her endless grace and patience!

2 comments:

mc said...

So, how tight was the shallow and did the steps get in the way? I would love to include steps but don't want to kill the lines. I'm planning 14 foot across in the shallow end.

Kvon said...

Hi MC! I would guess the Rifle kidney shallow end to be around 4' deep with a 60" radius. Maybe 14' to 16' across. It was nice, mellow for a pool but tighter than an average mini ramp. The steps may be a bit line limiting.

I think your bowl is going to be rad!