On October 11th I skated SMP Skatepark in Shanghai. I say I was “Shanghai’d” because I only got to do it for about an hour. But in that hour I not only scared away six American skateboarders (obviously there for an event or something), met three other cool local skateboard kids, showed the skateshop ONE magazine, and bladed with Taotao…
According to Taotao he is one of only 10 rollerbladers in Shanghai. His skates, new Remz with Kizer frames, are from Beijing—hundreds of miles away—the only place he could find freestyle rollerboots. Not only was Taotao the only rollerblader I met in China, he was one of the few locals I met who spoke English. Now we’re email buddies, and he wants me to come back to skate. Believe me, I want to skate there again, too.
And now for the park…
Transitions on transitions on transitions. Everywhere.
And ledges too. Most are marble.
More quarters with roll-ins and nipples.
Death is a giant tunnel with tons of vert, and a drainage pipe.
Where the drainage lets out the walls get tall. With even more vert.
Plenty of flowing minibowls to choose from.
And yet it is like that. Old dudes on older bikes, doing whatever they want to do, wherever they want to do it. Duh, this is China.
Shanghai, Taotao, we will be back.
All photos by EEKatpants
Dude, where’s my credits?
Lol. Yeah. Stockwell would straight up murder anyone who challenges him in this park.
my boner is huge man, im just sayin its big, thats all
and i would pay to see a stockwell demo at this concrete buffet
s0 yeah, who’s the white guy in the pic?
oh my god
that looks sooo fun.
is there any age limits??
hey im in shangers
and im a bored rolller
is it possible i could get taotaos email?