Sunday saw the official opening of my new local skatepark in Bury St. Edmunds. The event was organised by Simon Pickering, Council Youth Officer and Hardcore Hobbies, BSE's rider owned BMX, Skate & Scooter shop.
The day started for me at 10am after a very late night at a party at local rider Stoney's Flat and the evening turned into a impromptu celebration of my birthday by some.
As I dragged my body to upright, I was unsurprised by the wet weather that greeted me at the window and as I drove to Olding Road the rain started again.
The park was awash and amenities were still being installed at the entrance, so a group of us prepared for the day by having breakfast in Asda's Cafe, where we met Aaron Clapham.
At the party the night before he's asked me if I was going to join him for an early skate at 7am on Sunday morning. I laughed and dismissed the suggestion as we had both indulged and it was already quite late, but he had in fact got to the park at 7am. It was raining.
ON return to the park, the toilets and the P.A. were in there respective places and vans of banners, tents and prizes were being unloaded. Along with the usual advertising boards and sponsor's banners fixed to the fences Simon had been busy and had ordered a long banner printed with a huge range of photos documenting the life of the park since its beginnings in the mid nineties through to the build of the current park. Some I hadn't seen before and some I remember taking, but don't remember circulating them!
In the chaos of the day, I forgot to take any photos of the banner so if anyone reading this did, please let me see them!
Proceedings began with the usual small town pomp with Councillor Terry Buckle, The Worshipful Mayor of Bury St. Edmunds making a speech and cutting the red ribbon to mark the official opening. Flowers were presented to major contributors to the project but the Mayor's speech was not heard by many as the mic was turned off. So Jason Mills took the helm with help from long distance local Dom Tinkler making a quick detour on his journey from Andorra to Austrailia. The park quickly became full of riders, skaters and scooterists with the threat of rain on everyones mind. Things started going off straight away.
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| MC Millsibub |
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| MC Tinklecore |
The Jam was, as always a relaxed affair and at the end of the day Jay and Dom gave prizes to the best ten skaters, BMXers and scooter enthusiasts throughout the jam.
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| Luke Jarvis |
After a heavy shower at the beginning of the jam things quickly dried up. at this point things stepped up. An announcement that a rider was going to attempt a never been done transfer from the high Jersey barrier into the shallow end of the bowl. One became two and both riders landed an attempt but unfortunately, when repeating the trick to better the landing, one rider, wearing a helmet ended up head-butting his handlebars as his bike slipped from under him. The paramedics on standby were called in and eventually an ambulance was called and the rider was lifted out of the bowl on a back board.
We were given the good news at the end of the day that he had come away with only serious bruising and expected to be back on the pedals very soon.
