Philadelphia skateboarding: Independent Trucks Rip Ride Rally 2022

Indy's own edit of the Independent Trucks Rip Ride Rally jams in Philly this year.  

As a blogger who has been mostly telling my own weird stories, of moments I rode and witnessed in BMX and skateboarding back in the day, for 14 years, this blog has led me into a lot of new ground.  With The Spot Finder blog, I wanted to dive into the stories of epic bike and skate spots, and that leads to the scenes behind those spots.  Post by post, I started with places I had either been to ride many years ago, or spots I've heard of.  Nearly all the posts have turned me on to videos and footage that's completely new to me.  And I love that.  

I knew of Love Park from skate videos, and hearing skaters talk about it, years ago, the place  was legendary.  After that post, I realized the TED Talk in the last post was also from Philly, which led to a skatepark there.  I was working towards a post about FDR, the DIY skatepark that's now as famous as Burnside, in Oregon, the original under-the-bridge, DIY skatepark.  As I dug into the Philly skate scene, I learned it's a much bigger, and a much more hardcore scene that I thought.  

Then my laptop decided to konk out for a couple of weeks, which gave me time away from blogging, whether I wanted it or not.  Since I was so focused on content creating, it really bummed me out at first.  But it turned into a cool reset, a hiatus away from the things I've been doing daily for so long, while stuck offline for two weeks, except for Twitter.  

My laptop came back to life today, basically on its own, much to my surprise.  The list of blog posts in my head two weeks ago faded away.  I decided to dig through YouTube, see other videos there were about the Philadelphia skate scene, and FDR.  I wanted to find a solid video of real skateboarding there.  I found one.  Rather than diving back into the FDR post right away, I decided to embed this video, which is a ton of epic skateboarding in Philly this year, sponsored by Independent Trucks.  Indy's Rip Ride Rally is a bunch of serious, hardcore skating, at several spots in Philly, including FDR.  So pop open a cold whatever and check this video out, it's 20-some minutes of serious skating, without any filler.  The FDR post will be coming soon.  

Evan Smith- Best of 2022 skating

There are plenty of great skaters, BMXers, and other riders out there that I've never heard of.  Evan Smith is a skateboarder I wasn't familiar with.  YouTube tossed this compilation video at me, and it's freakin' amazing, one of the best I've seen in years.  Big, tech, all kinds of obstacles and urban terrain.  If you like street skating, just watch it.  

Classic Skateboard Spots- The Chain Bank in San Diego

While I knew a few 90's skaters, being a Huntington Beach BMX local, I'd never heard of the Chain Bank until I ran across this video a few months ago.  In this clip, Rob Dyrdek narrates as we see the day where the cat-like Tom Penny unloads trick after trick, and shuts the place down... in one session. 

Disclaimer 

What Rob Dyrdek calls the Chain Bank in the video above, is also known as the Shelter Island Manny Pad, and is listed in this list of top San Diego skate spots, on The Swellbow website.  Shelter Island is in the Point Loma area of San Diego, basically across the harbor from the Navy Base, or 3-4 miles straight south of Sea World San Diego, for us non-locals.  Shelter Island comes up on Google Maps, and it looks like the bank is near the boat ramp, from the satellite view. One site says there is now a guard rail where the chain used to be, which would make it much harder, maybe nea rimpossible, to skate now.   

From what I can gather, this was a mid1990's skate spot, and despite Tom Penny's epic session back in the day, this compilation video has several other really solid tricks on the bank, by skaters like Pat Duffy, Rob Dyrdek, Marc Johnson, Bastien Salabanzi, and more.  

Nothing... at all, comes up for BMXers riding there, which surprises me, since there are plenty of BMXers, particularly older ones, who love banks.  San Diego was a major force in early BMX street in the 1980's.  But I've seen no sign of BMX riders sessioning this spot back in the day.  If I run across any, I'll update this post.   

Classic skate spot: The China Banks- San Francisco

For over 35 years, the China Banks have been skated up in San Francisco.  It's a legendary spot, skaters around the world and across generations have seen photos and video from there.  Here's the story of the China Banks, courtesy of Thrasher magazine.  This 28 minute mini-doc speaks for himself.  

Disclaimer

Looking for a new project, as we were coming out of the Covid era in the last couple of months, I ran across this video.  What struck me is that it's a short documentary about a skate spot, a location.  There have been documentaries in skateboarding, with Stacy Peralta's 2001 Dogtown and Z-Boys leading the way, back in 2001.  Mark Eaton's Joe Kid on a Stingray told the story of BMX racing and freestyle.  Steve Rocco's World Industries story was told in The Man Who Souled the World.  Later Stacy Peralta did  Bones Brigade: An Autobiography.  But this China Banks video above, was the first solid documentary I've seen about a skate spot.  Not only is this just a great video. but as a blogger, and video guy back in the day, I thought, "these sports are old enough now that spots, locations, have their own stories to tell now."   That thought kind of stuck with me.  

Anyone who skated or rode bikes, or any action sport, hears about, and sessions, different spots, some local, and some that are well known in that sport, that world.  And some spots just take on a life of their own.  Kenter School Banks.  H.B. Pier Bank.  Baldy Pipe. Camp 4 at Yosemite.  Joshua Tree. Pipeline Skatepark.  Kona Skatepark.  Venice Beach.  Embarcadero.  Calabassas Jumps.  Brooklyn Banks.  The Spot in Redondo Beach.  Posh.  Hueco Tanks.  Sheep Hills.  Ocean Beach.  Whistler.  Mount Baker/Batchelor. Hollywood High Rail.  El Toro.  BMXer's skaters, snowboarders, climbers, and the rest, all have stories of their favorite spots.  Many also have stories of a trek to some well known spot, like Baldy Pipe, or wherever.  

This documentary about the China Banks made me think of all the other spots out there, and all the stories people have of all the spots.  At the same time, I had just taken a break from 5 1/2 years of scraping by with my Sharpie Scribble Style, mostly while homeless, I've been looking for another way to make a living, using my weird collection of creative skills.  I really suck at a lot of aspects of creative work, but I've become a good, if not profitable, blogger, and a few other things.  I've been looking for a new direction.  

As I said in the third post, a few days ago, I was sitting under a bridge, as a homeless guy, getting out of the heat, looking at this bank no one skates or rides, across the road.  The pieces fell together in my head.  Maybe it's time to cover the spots themselves.  This video of the China Banks, above, was part of that equation, I've watched it 4 or 5 times now.  It showed me that a spot, a location, can have a great story itself.  So I'm getting this blog going with several of the documentaries that already exist, compiling them with some of my own thoughts here and there.  I'll throw in a few streets spots I've stumbled across, as well as checking out skateparks and other riding spots. 

There are websites that tell people where some of the street spots are in places, and there are guides to where the skateparks are located.  I'm going to collect stories from spots in multiple sports, and throw some art spots and other stuff in here and there, and we'll see where this all goes.  One thing us Old School Has Been/Never Was BMXers, skaters, snowboarders, and others know from experience, starting down a direction that you're stoked on can, and often does, lead to things you could never imagine at the start.  So... Thanks for checking out this blog.  Where is this leading?  I don't know either, that's half the fun.