Author: Crossfire

Written By Nick Zorlac

So what started of as a mellow one, myself and a couple of Death skateboards teamriders ended up being the trip of a lifetime, with a crew of 8 skateheads making the pilgrimage.

Before I forget I’d like to thank the following sponsors for helping get riders out there: DUFFS, EASTPAK, FREERANGEUK.COM, HOWIES and SPORTS VISION.

The crew comprised of Ronny Calow, Ben Cundall, Lee Blackwell, Munson, Potter, Damian Walsh, Dave Chesson and Percy from Document mag.

The first I heard of sk8goa was when Toby Shuall and Badger from Cide came back from helping to build the place. They told stories of a brand new concrete bowl and bowled out mini under construction in India!. I was intrigued to say the least. But it drifted to the back of my mind with all the things going on in the run up to Xmas. Until I had a call from a guy called Martin ‘cos his mate Nick wanted to buy some decks from me to take back to, guess where.. his brand new skatepark in India. So they come over to my office (The Crown Cafe) and eat fry ups, buy some decks and Nick invites me and my crew to skate his brand new bowl. What better place to go to escape a dismal Febuary in the U.K I think, and a plan is formed.

After I work what seems like 20 hrs a day for a couple of weeks to get everything done the day finally arrives and we’re off. Check out some of our pale faces at Gatwick Airport. The flight was via Bahrain (where you can buy 200 cigs for a fiver) and went pretty good ‘cos everyone was hyped about the trip. I had visions of Ronny attacking a hostess or punching a pilot and us getting arrested on touchdown but he was quite mild mannered and we made it through ok!

We got picked up by mini van taxis which were cheap, and enjoyed the hour drive in the hot sunshine to the skatepark. Driving in Goa is fun! When you see a lorry coming the other way down the road toward you, instead of staying behind the car in front of you, you pull over on to the wrong side of the road right in to its path to overtake. Also there are no stop signs or anything like that. You just have to honk your horn and barge through. Anyway we took in the sights on the journey, grimaced and laughed at the driving and my arm got sunburned in the hour it took us getting from the airport to the park.

This is India Nick welcoming us to Sk8goa. As soon as we got there everyone got straight into skating the pool, leaving all their belongings like wallets, money and passports scattered around on the floor next to the taxis! Its ok though. Not only is everyone who hangs about at the park super cool, we had the Tibetan monks looking out for us. These guys help out at the park and are actually getting in to skating the pool. Gumbo in particular was well up for schralping, and also did a good job of construction, (new spine micro ramp next to the pool and now it has an over vert concrete pocket!) security and anything else you needed a hand with. Nice one fellas.

We didn’t know what to expect, but the park is sick. The mini ramp is super wide and fast with a bowled out corner and a hip. A bit like a version of the old Harlow ramp on steroids. (I miss that Harlow ramp!). And there are a some street bits and bobs like painted blocks and steps. (Here’s Cundall kickflipping down them onto the flat of the new micro spine ramp).

But the pool is what we were really there for. And we were definitely happy with what we found. It has a mellow shallow end, a hip, and a deep end of around 7 foot,with slidey pool coping, and a smooth, freshly painted surface. It was a quite difficult to skate because its not a mini ramp, you need to find lines in order to hit the lip with the right speed/angle for whatever trick you wanted to do. And there’s not really any flat bottom to get yourself together, its pretty much all transition. So quite a challenge to skate, which was great – all part of the fun, you had to get to know her curves.

Not that you could tell from the way Munson, Potter and Blackwell were ripping right off the bat, or indeed straight off the plane. Munson was doing all kinds of inverts and liptricks, like this smith grind on the flatwall. And Potter and Blackwell were flying round doing all kinds of ollies and airs.

The taxi’s were waiting round so India Nick and his mate Biff (don’t mess) helped me get everyone’s stuff together and take it to our hotel, the ‘Eldourado‘ (which is a great place). It was great to get rid of all the bags. It was here also that we picked up all the scooters(!) for the group too. ‘Oh s*it‘ I thought.. later on tonight, there is going to be 8 drunk, jetlagged, disorientated skateboarders riding scooters around dark, potholed and lawless Indian roads! Well any misgivings were unfounded because after a couple of minor mishaps (Cundall) everyone was fine and got the hang of dealing with the randomness of driving in Goa. It is actually really fun.

That night when we finally managed to tear ourselves away from the skatepark we all went out to eat with some of the sk8goa crew at an amazing restaurant in Mapsa (a 10 min ride away).

We ate and drank like kings but paid under £2 a head. Everyone was all ‘I can’t believe we made it here, this place rules.’ When we got back to the Hotel, Gwen who runs the place made the mistake of saying ‘Feel free to wake me up any time when you get in if you want beer or food‘. Although even after being woken up at 4am numerous times throughout the week for 20 beers and 40 slices of cheese on toast she never seemed put out or annoyed, and was always friendly and helpful.

I woke up at dawn the next day. I was so tired but my body thought it was time to get up so I did. Percy was milling about downstairs as he couldn’t sleep either, so we went out on the bikes exploring. We found loads of cool stuff. Beautiful beaches, temples, crazy looking houses, fishing ports etc. It felt great being in this the hot sun riding round this mad place on motorbikes. Especially in Febuary.

We soon realized that it is too hot to skate for too long in the day time. So everyone settled in to a comfortable routine over the next few days of mellowing out/recovering during the daytime. Doing stuff like going to the beach, or riding to different areas and checking stuff out. (There is shaded cafes on the beaches where you can drink beer or eat pancakes or whatever). Basically saving our energy for the evening and night time.

Every evening as the sun started to go down a sick skate session would start. There was a sound system to connect ipods or cd players to. So we would get the tunes cranking, drink a few brews and start schralping.

As people got more used to the pool the skating got better and better. Everone was pushing each other and some pretty insane skating got done. You could see the progress each night.Like a few days in, Blackwell got the hip dialed and then proceeded to do stuff like this flowing frontside ollie over it. Or something would click in Potter and he would suddenly figure out how to lock his styled backside smith grinds or crailslides in to the concrete coping. Every now and then someone would do a beer run. i.e. Go and wake up the guy at the local corner shop to buy all the beers he has got in his fridge. Or India Nick would bring us a big box of goodies to eat. Or something random would happen like the local chicks would start juggling fire or some bangers would be let off.

When you thought you were completely knackered and done skating for the night, the levels of energy and fun in the atmosphere would get you repeatedly back in the pool for ‘one more carve’, which ends up being ‘i’m gonna skate until I collapse‘.

Speaking of carving, skateboarding’s answer to Hurricane Higgins, Ronny Calow was happy because growing up on the streets of Darlington you don’t get many pools, but he finally got a chance to get his carve on. Massive flips and gaps are great, but 10 beers down and with a sunburnt and shredded body big Ron found solace in nice double axle grinds in the deep. Cundall was also finding his feet in an enviroment that was new to him. He was knocking out f/s smith reverts in the deep end whilst wearing a sarong, getting well in to it!

Percy was also happy I think as he got some good photos and was loving grinding the hell out of the place. Dave Chesson was injured pretty bad. His knee was fucked. So he couldn’t skate as much as he wanted. At least it was hot there though. Better than sitting round injured in the cold! I think he had a laugh anyway though, here he is coaxing his knees in to letting him do a sweet frontside ollie. Towards the end of the week Blackwell, straight after getting a new tattoo (FREE HEDDINGS) did the sickest transfer from mini to bowl and an egg plant on the makeshift vert extension on the mini; Potter did a frontside crail on the extension and Munson did a Backside D and a pivot fakie on it. All of this stuff was gnarly as fuck and footage is now on the most recent Death DVD, ‘Escape from Boredom‘.

Also Matty (aka Steak) from Crawley who was already staying at Sk8Goa when we got there was thriving on the energized sessions learned miller flips on the last night. He is now on Death flow…

Some nights we would literally skate the whole way through until 3am or whatever. Other nights, especially if we’d had a mega skate session the night before we would skate for a bit, and then go out looking for a little action/trouble/wind Cundall up and watch him go.

Getting to a club on the motorbikes is a laugh in itself in a convoy of 8 plus. Its lucky our mobiles worked because that allowed us to regroup would after getting split due to being stuck behind a bus or a slow moving (sacred) cow or something half way to where we were going.

Whether we were out eating strange food, getting cutthroat shaves or down the boozer watching the Essex version of Trisha..’Munson+Potter vs. Blackwell‘ the nightlife was always funny, cheap and good. I laughed so hard that week.

The highlight was the Cubana club. £7 to get in which is very expensive for Goa, BUT you can drink all you want all night. And then chuck people in to the swimming pool which is next to the bar! Here is Damian holding court with some Argentinian chicks. (There are tourists from all of the world in Goa). Damn I just remembered that I missed the weekly bikini competition night that they have there. Next time..Cundall enjoyed himself so much in Goa that he stayed there. (Click here to read his interview whilst on this trip).

As for the rest of us, everyone was gutted to be going home, and pretty much everyone is planning a return trip. In fact it was a bit of a lifechanging experience for some of the group. I can highly recommend Sk8goa to anybody. You would be hard pushed not to have a good time.

Thanks to Nick and everyone else there for the hospitality. And thanks to Gwen at the Eldourado.

Go to www.sk8goa.com if you fancy a trip there. They can hook you up with good cheap accommodation and the best deals on flights. (pretty reasonable if you time it right)

Some Misconceptions I held before the trip:

No street to skate at all?

Not true. There is some street terrain to skate. No where near much as in Europe and not the smoothest! but it does exist. Its kind of fun riding round on the motor bikes finding it too. (It’s way too rough to skate from spot to spot).

Riding motorbikes there is dangerous?

Well to an extent it is how dangerous you want to make it. We had no major problems, in fact it made the trip really fun having the bikes. Where the skatepark is located there is a very low volume of traffic anyway. But ask Zac how he got on in Thailand in a hospital for 3 solid weeks with his girl losing her kneecap. These bikes can be hell. Be careful.

You’ll catch Malaria?

I saw no evidence of it where we were staying and most people there don’t take malaria tablets. As long as you put on spray in the evenings you should be fine. I only got bitten by mosquitoes when I was too lazy to put the spray on. If you go to your doctors they can arrange jabs for typhoid etc. Although a lot of tourists that I spoke to don’t bother. Probably best to get jabs though to be on the safe side I think.

Bad Food?

Nope. We only had good and cheap food. From Samosas as a snack, to French restaurants, to fry ups! to local dishes. Damian felt a bit rough after getting a fruit salad from a street vendor, and a few people had mild stomach upsets, but nothing to worry about. ‘I can fart with confidence’ Chesson proclaimed towards the end of the trip.

That’s it, now book your trip with friends, get out there and shred and enjoy this footage of Zoresh and a few others who passed by there at the top of this page on the right hand side.

Do yourself and Crossfire a favour and right click and download it to save their bandwidth for radio shows.

Nick Zorlac.

Munson and Wilson Mess with the US!

Firstly if you ever go on a trip like this remember not to get so fucked up the night before you fly you leave someone like Carl in charge!

Carl has trouble working out how to wipe his arse and unbelievably even though we got to the airport 2 hours before the flight, we still managed to miss it!! At least I had the excuse of being super hung over and I didn’t really know where I was? Anyway we were fucked, the plane was sitting in front of us when we got to the desk but we were duly informed our luggage was not and we had no chance of getting another flight or any money back!! A good start to any trip? We looked at each other and I said “I don’t give a fuck how much it costs I am going to Oregon!“. Carl agreed and I got straight on the blower and got us on a flight to Vancouver! We didn’t miss that one and finally we were on our way even though we were 600 quid lighter each! But fuck it! It all adds to the story!

We flew into Seattle and chilled for a couple of days to get over the journey, until we were ready to skate! We checked out the sights of Seattle and managed to find a gay bar and got called beautiful! But our new friends were a bit keen so we got out of there pretty sharp!! The next day we took the short ferry ride to Orcas Island. The scenery was amazing and by the time we got to the park we knew that the 1200 quid on the extra flights was worth it! The park is amazing it has a fun snake run type thing running all around the place which goes from small flat banks to over vert berms! In the middle of the snake is a beast of a bowl complex. Hips galore a vert wall with a love seat, tombstones and the biggest death box in the world to grind over! It goes from 5ft to about 12 ft and is perfectly smooth with concrete coping all-round!

The place is endless fun, the island itself is a great setting its absolutely beautiful, super chilled. We hit the jackpot and managed to rent a condo at smugglers resort an amazing place right on the beach. The place is surrounded by wildlife we saw, sea otter’s, dolphins, seal’s and even vultures during our stay! Mike the guy who runs the Smugglers resort was super cool and couldn’t help out enough, we borrowed his boat to check out the other islands in the area and had a great time there! What a perfect start to the trip!

After 4 days on Orcas We came back to the mainland and hit a small park at Bonney lake (WA), this one was on a much smaller scale and had a street feel, plenty of fun things to do there but nothing in comparison to the masterpiece we had just skated! Still if that park was in the UK you would drive hours to skate it! We moved on later that night to another of Grindlines parks Milton. Another small park, but this one was super fast and really well laid out, from 5 ft to vert it has linked bowls, an over vert clamshell, a doorway to get over and a small street area with blocks, rails and banks. For a small park this one is a lot of fun. Milton has some sick lines and most of the bigger bowls go to vert so airs and inverts are possible everywhere and the concrete coping grinds super good!

Next our plan was to head out to the Oregon coast and travel south hitting as many parks in the process as possible. We headed over the bridge in to Oregon and went over to
Astoria in the North of Oregon, the place is a small seaside town, which is home to a huge seal population, which live at the main dock’s area, although you will probably hear them from wherever you are in the town! The park itself is pretty good, quite basic compared to many of the newer parks, its basically one bowl going from 5 ft to about 13ft with hips an over vert corner and some weird pump bump tombstones. It also has a square corner in the vert end of the bowl, which is fun. It’s pretty easy to get on with and fun for a few hours.

It’s really easy to overlook just how good these parks are as you are so spoilt being in Oregon as you know there is probably another amazing park within half an hours drive!

There are loads of parks all down the coast and some days we would hit 3 others we would get to and know we wanted to stay for a couple of days! Its perfect. After Astoria we headed further south to Lincoln City, there are two parks here, both are really good. The top park is the older of the 2 and is one of dreamlands 1st parks, there are loads of lines and has been described as “Marseille on steroids“. Most of the park is less than 5ft although the transitions are pretty tight. It also has a cinderblock wall in the deep end, which has a good few feet of vert. Once you get used to the lines it just gets better and better. Realistically you could spend days there and never get bored!

The new park there is below and undercover; it has a cradle and is mostly around 6ft, with a vert extension and a small street area to one side. It’s perfectly smooth and fast as hell, I preferred the top park for the lines but to have both there is a real bonus!

Newport was next and this one was super fun, really well laid out and small but a great one for cruising. Carl took a best of a slam on the vert wall and was all over the place for a while and that sort of stopped him doing anything but cruising for a few days! All of Newport Park is around 5 ft and pretty mellow, apart from the cinderblock wall which is a bit lumpy and about 8 or 9ft but pretty fun and the locals were really cool!

While we were there we heard about a brand new park at Toledo only 7 miles away and decided to check it out. The place was only a month old and super smooth with some fun lines and quirky obstacles, its well worth a visit! Then on to another tiny town called “Waldport” this is home to I think the worlds only Parrabalar over vert bowl, it’s a crazy contraption, a bit like a cradle, but where it should keep going over vert it turns into an upside down curved flat bank!If it sounds strange, it’s even weirder to ride it! It felt like a wall of death while you were carving the thing, you felt pinned to the wall! Mental! I got spat off the back the first time over; it felt like you were fully pinned to the wall!

Another Park that is new is Florence again less than 30 miles down the coast; this one is off the hook! Built by Airspeed the finish is not quite as good as the Dreamland and Grindline parks, but this one is worth a visit just to try and imagine what was going through their minds when the built this beast! It has everything from curved 8 stair rails down stairs, hubba’s over vert bowls, a 13 ft deep bowl with a full pipe type thing you can carve over! Hips and transfers all over the place, this place has to be seen to be believed!! We were still both a bit hurt when we got there and decided to cruise but I cant wait to go back there as its eating away at me still now. The place had some crazy lines!

Next stop was another of the Airspeed parks “Reedsport“. This place is home to a decreasing full pipe, that Mark “Red” Scott did the 1st skatepark loop in. Since Red dropped the bomb, plenty of other heads have looped the beast but it is still unbelievable it ever got done at all! The thing is gnarly. Along with the vert bowl including the full pipe there is a smaller bowl with a 4 way pyramid in the centre and a few hips, the transitions are a bit all over the place but it gets better the more you skate the thing, there are also a couple of wallie poles and weird and wonderful streety obstacles around the outside. One of the best things is a wallie pole right next to a 10ft deep pool section! When you wallie you can see into the bottom of the bowl!! It’s a pretty fun park overall!

We took a fleeting visit to one of the older parks in the area at “Port Orford” this is a really basic but functional design with a cradle in the deep end, which hips on to a square 6 ft or so shallow end! If you a fan of vert and want a good cruiser this one should be on you list!

Finally we reached the south of Oregon and paid a visit to “Brookings” where you can transfer over the whole bowl in the middle of the park! This thing is loads scarier than it looks, but think Danny way and anything is possible! Once you jump the gap once you know you can clear it, but the speed when you land is also pretty hairy! It got done though and we moved inland! We then headed down through the Redwood forest, which was awesome in a truly un American sense!

After making our way north through the redwoods we hit Grants Pass, another small town with an amazing park, this one has something for everyone, from banks to vert and back again its super fun and you could stay there days and not get bored, the town itself was cool and really chilled we managed to get pissed with the whole town it seemed as the next day nursing hangovers we bumped into everyone we met in the club the night before! Even a 71 yr old guy called Jim who was fresh back on the dating scene after his wife died!! Go on Son!!

Just down the road is another huge Park at Medford, this one is really good it has a vert combi bowl, a huge street course type set up with loads of lines even a Burnside pillar, loads of transfer lines and no pushing at all! Although we hit the place on a weekend so it was full of Kids, one thing to note is that if you visit the NW is to avoid the parks in the bigger towns at the weekends, as it gets hectic sometimes!Next stop was Ashland another really small but fun park although the main bowl here has been killed by the local Bmxer’s the park is still worth a visit if you are passing through., their was crazy jailbait there and I got chatted up by a nice Milf and had to do some hand plants for her kids!

Next to Klamath Falls home to one of the largest parks in Oregon, this place is major, it has everything and is perfectly smooth, a mixture of concrete and metal coping and from flat banks to 13ft deep vert bowls, you can cruise here or get as gnarly as you want and it all fun, while we were there it was super hot, so the sessions were later in the evening. Plus while you are in Klamath you can stay at the rivers inn motel, one of the only motels in the states that actually let you skate their pool!! Its pretty gnarly though, at about 9ft deep in the deep end and with about 4ft of vert the thing is no joke! But how many times do you get to skate a pool coming from the UK?!

After that we headed north again up to Portland, home of so many good skateparks and skaters it’s not funny. We hit Donald, which is rad as hell. Donald itself is a tiny town with only 750 inhabitants! How the hell they got a skatepark with a pool I don’t know? But they did and its really good although the coping needs a bit of work, it also has a mini ramp with a pump bump in the flat which is pretty good fun! I would love to have Donald in my garden! Just to carve over the stairs every morning!

The next day we visited Newberg, what a park! This place is huge it is so much fun its hard to describe. You can cruise here all day, it goes from 2ft to 13ft and has everything you could ever want in a park, the lines are endless and you can cruise or get as gnarly as you want! We met up with Local ripper Ben Krahn and Ultimate Phil at the park and they hooked us up! We stayed with Phil and skated Burnside the next day with them, I loved Burnside, and the place is loads smaller that it looks in the videos but super fun.

The whole attitude there is rad, it’s a real proving ground there are so many lines in the place and its cool that everything in there is all over the place. I think if I lived in Portalnd even with all the other parks I would still skate Burnside more than any other purely because a session goes off there all the time!! Burnside is everything its cracked up to be.

After Burnside we went down to West Linn only 20 min’s away this place is really good too! It has a street course round the outside of the main bowls and you can cruise all day. Then the main bowls go from 5ft to about 11ft and all of it has concrete coping, there is also an over vert clam shell a few good hips and some serious speed lines too. After West Linn we hit the city, Portland is home to more strip clubs than any other in the US so obviously we had to check some of them out for research purposes alone!

We got Carl a private dance, which was funny!He said he didn’t look but he was so close to the money he could have smelt it! The strip clubs in Portland are perfect Free to get in, they serve good cheap food and you drop $1 and girls take their clothes off and shake their arses in your face! Result!

In 2 days and we only saw a fraction of what Portland has to offer, Its probably a good idea to hit Portland on the way back as other wise you will never leave!! I can see why there are so many good skaters living there, its incredible!

Overall the trip was amazing, not only for the skating but the whole deal in the NW is really relaxed, everyone we met was super friendly and helpful, the scenery is out of this world and with the £ being so strong everything seems pretty cheap Really we didn’t have to much of an idea what to expect, but it worked out really well! For sure the best parks I have ever skated and our skating has got better because of going there! I just can’t wait to get back over there!!

Go visit Resurrection Skateboards by clicking here and watch the video on this page. In fact, do us and yourself a favour to help our bandwidth situation and download it….