ENTERNET PAGE OF SKATE SPOTS IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

For those times when you're travelin' with your skateboard and you need to plan ahead, Enternet presents an uncomprehesive list of skate spots in northern california. We hope you find them helpful as you fjord the wily expanses we call California.

Napa Skatepark

Near central Napa, the Napa skatepark was built recently and sports a really nice concrete quarter pipe, pyramid, and spine ramp. It also sports a strange donut and snakerun. Definitely worth a check out, though. The locals are friendly, and the terrain is kinda cool.

Palo Alto Skatepark

This skatepark, right off 101 in Palo Alto, is a part of Greer Park. It features a pretty seventies-esque design, with deep hipped bowls. Definitely worth a check out. You may want to be aware that 'Pali' enforces a strict pads & helmet rule -- so bring your skullcap, knee pads and elbow pads (I kid you not).

Derby Park

Derby Park, In Santa Cruz California, has been in continuous use since the mid seventies. Designed by the same person as Pali, only years before, Derby has a strange roundedness to her which affords no corners. Nonetheless, she has her charms -- she exists, is open, free and enforces no rules. Check her out. Near Natural Bridges Beach, the closest enterance to the snakerun is at the corner of Woodland and Auburn, off West Cliff Drive.

EMB (aka Embarcadero)

This concrete 'park' on the edge of a San Franciso business area is a common gathering place for San Francisco skaters. Featured in many videos, EMB is the site of the many famous tricks including the Gonzollie, a huge ollie Mark Gonzalez first performed some years ago. No skate tour of Northern California is complete without at least a few hours at EMB.
Recent word is, however, that this classic spot has become a bust. That means cops harass you there. Oh well, chalk it up to another great spot lost.

Sacramento

This was posted on the alt.skate-board newsgroup by Don Huovinen, (don.huovinen@octel.com) on 1/5/95

Anyways I went to session the new Sacramento park over the weekend and it's kinda cool. No crowd when I was skating but then the park wasn't open yet either.
The street course is pretty good. In the center is a hip (actually more like a spine) that's nice and a pump bump looking ramp about 3' as well as bank to platform with a slider down it. On either side of the course and bank ramps and 1/4's about 6' high. There is also a bank to wall that you can use to get speed off.
There is also a little 1/2 about 4' high and the result of many hours of work, a 7' bowl. The bowl is B shaped and symmetical which makes it really fun because any line you do frontside you can do backside as well. I don't know when they're going to get the vert 1/2 built.
-Don

Visalia

I don't know anything about this park, except that it is in Visalia. If you have a good description of this or any other California Skate Spot, email it on over!

Benicia

Benicia is about an hour north of SF. It is relatively small, but has some cool terrain. There are two Pyramid banks right next to each other. These have great transitio ns and flat tops. Leading up to these is an opposing bank that wraps around the park making a roll -in type of entry possible. There are also a couple of other little banks scattered around. Beware, Benicia closes at 5:00 pm, just like all the public parks in that town, and the cops regularly harass skaters.
Posted Wed, 17 May 95 by "FRISCO NATIVE."

And we also have this...
Nice park, on the corner of an actual "grass and swings park" in Benicia. Locals are usually cool. Really close to a Taco Bell. Includes a stage and steepened driveway, an elbow ramp, and two "speed bump type ramps" (for lack of a better description). Bad point: 99% of the skaters that go there seem to do one thing: that is, get massive speed down the steepened drive way, and ollie-air as high as they can off the stage. This is fun for some, but gets quite old fast for others and the constant traffic between the two causes problems for people trying to ride on the elbow ramp or even on some neighboring flat concrete. Posted Sat, 20 May 95 by rasputin@community.net