Four Wheel Fools : U.K. Independent Vert Series - The Steve Bayless Session at St. Neots

To commemorate the life of local legend Steve Bayless who devastatingly, left us earlier this year the U.K. Independent Vert Series organised a session at the recently resurfaced ramp at St. Neots in Cambridgeshire.
I've never skated or shot vert before and so the vert scene in the U.K. is a bit of a mystery to me. This I think is due in part to the huge difference between the usual skateboarding undertaken in the U.K. and vert skating. It takes a particular kind of person to ride a fourteen foot ramp with confidence and so, the majority of skaters just don't do it. We all know the vert that winds its way back through skateboarding history, but how many of us have actually dropped in and skated it? The last time I watched vert skating was probably the Bones Brigade tour at Leigh On Sea back in the early nineties!
There just aren't the ramps either. Parks we now have hundreds of, but vert ramps...
English weather doesn't help. And the expense of housing a ramp the size of a house is massive and so, there are few indoor parks with ramps in the U.K. Parks just can't afford to sacrifice the space.
St. Neots however, is an outdoor ramp, and it's a beast! The park sight has been the home of a vert ramp for many years. I remember Dom Tinkler telling me about the ramp that flooded frequently next to the river when I first moved to Suffolk. The latest incarnation, a big steel construction recently resurfaced with Skatelite is part of a much larger park built about 8 years ago. It is now known as Big Orange.
I arrived and asked the organisers if it was ok to get up on the platform. I was told in no uncertain terms that I should, so I climbed the ladder and set up on the platform.
I had a great time and the skating blew my mind!

Please feel free to leave a comment if you can name any of the skaters I cannot!