Over the Easter Period I embarked on two separate trips, with two separate groups of guys, to skateparks in Britain that a lot of us don't often get to visit. Trip 1 went up North to Perth and Dundee. Trip 2 down South to Stockport for the day. Enjoy my ramblings...

Trip 1 - NLESS on Tour

The first trip was organised by an organisation called NLESS (North Lanarkshire Extreme Sports Society). NLESS has been around for a few years now and was formed to help get a skatepark built in Airdrie. It was started by a few skaters and has grown quite a fair bit since then and now has many members throughout the Airdrie and Coatbridge area.

After a lot of hard work we have been successful and the park should be finished by the end of May. Every so often the big kahuna at NLESS, Joan Doris, organises to take the members on a bus to parks we don't often hit. This time around it was The Factory in Dundee followed by Perth Skatepark.

click to enlarge

On Thursday 8th of March I awoke at some scandalous time in order to make the bus in time. The night before I had gone to bed at around 3am so getting up at 6.30am was, as I'm sure you can imagine, a bit of a struggle. I hauled my ass out of bed, got dressed, had breakfast, went to fetch my skating associate from next door and hit the road.

We had to be at Airdrie Sheriff Court for around 7am, or was it 8? I dunno - it was too early either way you look at it. Most of the Airdrie folks were already there and when the Coatbridge guys showed up in the bus we were ready to roll.

Bikes in the boot, boards and blades onto the bus, everyone in their seats, Joan did a final head count and we were offski - Gee it some spice!

The bus trip consisted of sleep, then some pish banter, then some more sleep.

We had the Factory booked out for a private session from 10am till 12 noon, which was why we had to leave Airdrie so early. We arrived a little early and had to burn about 20 minutes, but soon the park was opened and we were jammin! Fellow dsab members and myself opted to stay at the mini ramp/halfpipe for most of the time, whereas the skaters and bladers sessioned the box and 'street' areas.