AoS-Fest III : Ohio or Bust!
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Day 2: Saturday October 22nd
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Swag Time and Ollie's Skatepark
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| After stuffing ourselves, we headed the short drive over to Ollies Skatepark. Right as we all began to unload, I thought it best to do the swag
giveaway then rather than try to get everyone back outside later. I laid out all the goodies, and we went from there. Rob and Miranda got to pick first for hosting
last nights cookout and session. Next up was Tim Birt for helping organize this year’s event as best he could. From there, we just sort of went around letting everyone
come up much like last year. In the end, everyone came away with something…a deck, t-shirt, patches, etc. Miranda ended up with two decks! One was a hanger and one was
an Element deck that was just the right size for here but much too small for anyone else. She was stoked!
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| After that, it was time to skate! We headed inside where several of us had never been before. The park is awesome! Huge! Something for everyone
(which is a big reason we chose it for the rain plan). The manager, Bob, hooked us up on the admission for AoS-fest 3 attendees…$10 for all day…noon till midnight if
we could make it that long. Although the park has tons to offer, we were all dead set on hitting the recently completed wooden bowl. That was everyone’s first stop and
the central meeting spot pretty much all day.
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| We immediately found Chris Higgins, a pro for Tim’s company, Five Points Skateboards. After meeting Chris, I could easily understand why. He is
one of the most genuinely nice guys you will ever meet. I mean to the point where he remembered all of our names (out-of-town folks) and made the point to tell each and
every one of us “good bye and he had fun skating with us” when he left. You just do not see that much. To top it off, Chris absolutely rips! As Jay said "he looks natural
on a skateboard". He was killing everything in the place…I would name off tricks and such but too many to name….in the bowl, the vert ramp, the mini-ramp, etc. All the while,
he was cutting up, smiling, having a good time with everyone…laid back with no ego! When we first got there, Chris said "man, too bad you guy’s didn’t get here sooner. I am
about to leave soon…got friends coming from out-of-town". Two hours later, Chris finally said good-bye. Haha
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| Let’s see here….among our ranks, a few highlights that I can remember…Tim Birt practically lived in the new bowl. He was finding lines all over and
hitting crail slides on the high-end, super-locked-in frontside smithgrinds around the high end, frontside 5-0’s at mach speed around the low corners, and on and on. He
looked at home there. On the 6 ft mini, the "Birt Show" continued. Frontside ollie’s to tail, to smith, to 5-0 from the low to the extension. He even threw in a frontside
no-comply on the goofy bank portion.
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| Jay was representing the South well. He followed many of Tim’s lines and caught on quick. Nice, flowing frontside 5-0’s, backside disasters and
ollie-to-tails in the bowl. On the mini-ramp, Jay was a kid in a candy store. At the park he runs at home, there is a good height mini-ramp, but no where close to 40 ft wide!
He was working the whole ramp. I think even Tim and Chris were impressed with the Alabama boy. Haha
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| Chicago native, Mike, is always at home on a mini-ramp. That’s second nature to him. However, since the last AoS-fest, his bowlriding/round-wall skills
have greatly improved (could it have been all the hell the Ohio guys gave him last year? Haha). He too got his lines going in the bowl. By day’s end, he threw out a couple of
rodeos in the deep part even. On the 6 ft, Mike went to work in his natural element. Miller Flips, high backside floating ollies, frontside ollies to stalefish, kickflips
to fakie, kickflip grabs to fakie, and the like were all part of his time there. For a while, it seemed that Mike was holding school on the smaller 4 ft micro-mini. All the
kids stopped and watched him skate and waited to see what this "new guy" would do next. Kids are perceptive like that. They spotted the non-local ripper quickly.
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| Miranda and her dad, Rob seemed to stay at the bowl pretty much all day. I did not get to skate with them as much as I would have liked, but I thoroughly
enjoyed the time I had skating with them. Rob was right at home in the bowl. I think Ohio guys are raised that way. Rob’s no small guy, so you could definitely hear him make
the coping bark! Haha He was the only one I saw all day to grind the pool coping extension. Miranda was spending the day finding lines and exploring just what she could do there.
All day, she kept sticking her board out to drop in on the deep side. She wanted it so badly, and everyone cheered her on. She was shaking at some points…we all have been through
that feeling. “It’s so close you can taste it but fear separates you” sort of thing. She has done much higher according to her dad, Tim and the others, but this was a new place
to her. Given that and the fact she was surrounded by all us strangers putting the pressure on her, it was no wonder that it took her all day and several attempts on the lip. In
the end, she saved that goal for another day and time.
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| I did not see or skate with Dan, Issac and Brian much during the whole time except for times we would meet in the bowl. I think Dan and Issac were on the
street course a good bit and on the 6 ft while I was at the bowl. We all just passed each other in all the fun. From what I did see, I have a few observations to share. Dan
loved that bowl! Haha He was working lines all around. He kept hitting frontside 50-50’s around the shallow corner. He was hell bent on them! Issac also seemed to love the
bowl. As Tim told me, "he [Issac] used to only skate ramps; now he will only skate bowls". Funny how that goes eh? Issac seemed to like backside 50-50s in the deep end most
during his lines. Even Bob joined us in the bowl for a little while. He was doing frontside 5050’s inside the bowl on the high side. Lastly, Brian was skating all around the
bowl too, until he went to the 6 ft and hurt himself. A kid ran out in his way, he bailed, and the one time he is not wearing his wrist guards, he slams on his palm. He had
told us all his wrist "felt funny" and he said he could not move it much. It did not look abnormal or very swollen, so we all thought maybe it was a sprain at most. Well, after
getting home much later, he did have it checked out and found out he had a small fracture. What really pissed him off he told me was that last year, he skated very little and
this year, when he was trying to skate all day, he gets hurt and can’t. Brian’s was one of many injuries for the day…nothing near as severe, but every single one of us, including
little Miranda, all took at least one good slam. That’s real skating though, eh?!?!? haha
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| Personally, I tried to hit it all, though I did not venture on the street area after Jay warned that the floor was pretty slick. I was kept busy enough going
from the bowl to the vert ramp to the 40 ft wide, 6 ft high bowled mini-ramp and back through the cycle again, over and over. I don’t get to skate enough vert nor have access
enough to it to skate regularly anymore (that’s all I use to do every single day during pretty much 1986-1992), but I do love skating it. I was just working backside and
frontside carves and kickturns under coping just to feel it once more. That alone wore me out! I loved the mini-ramp and spent a lot of time there just seeing what I could do
on it from the usual bag-o-tricks. That’s a lot more room than I am ever use to on a typical mini! My only big gripe was that on both the mini and the vert ramp, there were kids
that would run across at any time, launch boards across or off the decks, use the flat like a street course, etc. In fact, I was coming out of a carve under coping on the vert
ramp right as a kid tried to ollie up on the vert ramp’s flat. He shot his board out, and of course, it was right as I came out of the carve. I ran into his board, bailed,
grabbed his board and tossed it across the warehouse. Just amazing how ignorant of park etiquette some kids are today! There is this huge, street course area probably twice the
size of the rest of the park, and those moronic kids find a need to skate across the vert flat bottom!!!! Like I said before, even Brian slammed on the mini when a kid ran
across. He ended up slightly breaking his wrist because of it. Anyways, other than that kind of stuff, incredible day of skating by all!
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(*sorry there are not more pictures, but we honestly skated almost the entire time there.)
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Ollie's Skatepark (CS)
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Miranda helps get the swag giveaway started (CS)
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Father and daughter clean
up in free swag (CS)
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Tim scores a AZPX deck (CS)
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Issac chose the large AZPX pool deck (CS)
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Inside Ollie's Skatepark (CS)
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The micro-mini and street course (CS)
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Brand new birch bowl (CS)
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The huge vert ramp with over-vert extension (CS)
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The awesome 40ft wide mini-ramp (CS)
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Chris in the bowl (JS)
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Bowl from above (JS)
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Miranda gives Tim
some skating advice (CS)
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Tim with his signature trick (CS)
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Park manager, Bob, joins
the session for a bit (CS)
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Issac works the bowl (CS)
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Chris during down time (JS)
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Tim gets Smithy in the bowl (CS)
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Tim trades lines with Jay (CS)
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Dan had some screamin backside
50-50s going in the bowl (JS)
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Tim Birt frontside again (CS)
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Miranda tries to muster the courage (CS)
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Chris takes one more run in the bowl (JS)
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Mike takes home a souvenir! (JS)
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