Go Skateboarding Day 2014 - Pittsburg

Go Skateboarding Day is the most important day for skateboarding. Yes, you can skate any day you want but thats not the only thing its about. Its about uniting together with other skaters, meeting new people, and just having fun skateboarding.

I originally planned to go to New York City with a childhood friend, who now lives up in Grand Rapids. However, because of a new internship that he just accepted the week before we had to change plans. We did decide where we were going until the night before we left after he arrived at my house. We decided the best option would be to go to Pittsburg, PA.

Our first stop was Bayne Skatepark in Bellevue. The weather wasn't looking to great. Upon arrival it was still raining. We decided that it was going to probably be like this all day, so we skated anyway.

David Tanner - bs 180 by Dale Nolan Jr. - iPhone 5

Everything was extremely slick, the worst fall I had all day was because I slipped out on the quarter pipe in the back of the photo.

After checking out Plank Eye Skateshop, we headed into the city. Today, there was a famous country singer in town, which explained all the people dress in cowboy/cowgirl outfits later on.

David Tanner warming up for some skateboarding

Myself - Kickflip by David Tanner

I normally make a skate spot map before going into a city but because of the short notice I didn't have time to do much research. We just started exploring. Not before long though, we ran into another group of skateboarders which guided us to some good spots.

 This is a DIY spot that hasn't been fixed up in a long time. This was an ok spot but could have been really awesome if some locals fixed it up.

We skated a lot more then shown in the photos. Sometimes its more fun to just put the camera down and enjoy skateboarding with your friends for what it is. Along this river is a giant fountain with a stair set that leads right into the river. It reminded me a little bit of the Sea Wall in Chicago, which I lost my board to and a friend of mine did too. However, the stairs were to perfect to not be skated, with some luck and skill I managed to kickflip them in a few tries without my board going into the river. (Photo: Brent Moore - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_State_Park)

We skated up to Haines Stadium, where the concert was being held, with lots of ledges along the way. By this time, the group of skaters wanted to keep moving on while David and I wanted to just enjoy our time at different spots, so we split up. We ran into a few other groups of skaters after this but never hooked up with them to skate spot to spot.

David taking a break

myself - wallride by David Tanner

Doing a little bit of sight seeing.

Its been a while since I skated around a city like this. I love just skating around the city and exploring a new place.

Go Skateboarding Day 2013: Chicago

Four of us from Findlay, Ohio left for Chicago at 8am to head for Chicago. We ended up an hour behind schedule from driving misdirection. Causing us to be an hour late meeting up with my friend, David, in Merrillville. (an hour outside of Chicago)

About 15 min after we got out of our car, the rain started pouring down. The segway tours ended in a halt under the trees. (picture) I've never seen so many segways in my life, but in Chicago it is a very popular thing, especially for tours.

We got some food while we waited for the rain to hault. After it slowed down we headed out to a bike tunnel I remembered so skate under. When we arrived there was already about 30+ skaters there. Without any warm up skating for us, they started a high ollie contest.

I made it to the final round with about 5 other guys. Everyone kept trying except for me and one other guy because they kept cutting us but no one was landing it.. We both patiently waited until the guy running the thing said, "Has anyone not tried it yet? Then the other guy went before me and ollied the six boards stacked on each other his first try. Then I went and made it over, landing on my board but didn't land centered on my board right falling off. 

David won $20 in the long ollie contest. It was between us and one other guy who ended up taking the final win.

Everything dried up soon after skating in the tunnel for a few hours.

Photo: Me

Photo: David Tanner

While skating the Sea Wall there is always a risk of losing your board in the water and Chaz did. His brother CJ climbed down into the polluted water where a dead goose, a hat, boomerang and other garbage collected in the exact spot of Chaz's board.

Chaz, "Thanks Bro".

Sick ledge spot we found by following a crowd of skaters.

Small skatepark. Photo: David, Manuel up and back down.

We ran into a couple kids at the skatepark, who asked me for a kingpin for their truck. We ended up giving them an extra complete board that Chaz brought.

Before our day was over we had to get some Chicago pizza. Everything was kinda expensive, but we were starting to get super hungry. So when walking buy this really nice looking pizza restaurant we decided to just check the menu to see what the prices where. The, who I think was the owner, told us that he would sell us a pizza for $5. We noticed that on the menu the prices for the pizzas where $15.

We were then offered free soda and a free 10 inch pizza if we let a guy take some pictures and video of us for some social media advertising. We ended up having a fun time talking to him, while he sat and chatted with us over our dinner. So if your in Chicago don't forget to stop by Bongiorino's Pizza and Italian Restaurant.

Go Skateboarding Day Chicago Events 2013

Go Skateboarding Day Taiwan (June 23)

In Taiwan for some reason they don't like to celebrate during the week. So instead of having Go Skateboarding Day on June 21st which is a Thursday, they celebrated two days later on Saturday.

This year there was a lot more objects to skate and a lot better. Sadly I was pretty tired and not skating to my potential. But I enjoyed meeting new people and hanging out with everyone.

Go Skateboarding Day 2012 Taiwan

I posted on facebook and called my Taiwanese friends, but none of them wanted to skate today.