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Thursday, June 6, 2002 Illinois News Naperville skatepark will now allow bikes!
6/6/02: 3/11/02: From Matt : I had the meeting today with the man from the Parks and Rec and I thought it went OK. The 3 final points he wanted me to find were these: 1) What is the definition of a BMX bike 2)How will we get the word out that bikes are allowed and 3) The use of the plastic pegs (a.k.a.-What if your pegs screw up the park?) I gave him my definition of what a BMX bike was. And here it is, any bike that can be used for freestyle tricks and on surfaces such as street and dirt. And I even told him the 3 main styles of freestyle, street/park; dirt; and flatland, and he STILL wanted me to get other people's input because he didn't want what he called a "PR problem" because of people taking their mountain bikes or 10 speeds to it. I also showed him pictures of the bikes and still no success. This was brought up early in the meeting and I told him that places in England have been allowing bikes in the park for a long time and they have had no unscheduled maintenance. So therefore bikes don't cause any more damage than skateboards. He also told me that they will give bikes the "probationary status" I was shooting for if he sees that a lot of people will be using it besides me and some other friends AND people that don't live in Naperville. 2/22/02: From Matt : After sending a e-mail to one of the people at the Naperville Park District , I got a reply. He wants to talk to me about what protective equipment should be required, the types of bikes allowed, etc. If we are successful in this, then they will consider giving us limited hours in the park. This is a major win for us and we need to try hard to not screw it up. So be on your best behavior. From Paul : 10/22/01: It has been brought to my attention that they are building a skatepark in Plainfield, IL. I am not sure what phase of construction that they are in but this is a definite park going in. My sister lives down the block from where they are suppose to be building. She is friends with a Plainfield officer who is Park Patrol and his statement at this point was that bikes were going to be allowed, possibly at all times. Any one in the area please get in touch with the park district and get some hard data on this if you what to be able to ride from the start. This is your chance to gain access before the park is finished. My sister is looking into this for me, an I will post more should I get any info. Anyone in Plainfield and the surrounding areas Get in touch with the park district, then email me. From Matt Widhalm : A very BMX friendly public skatepark has opened up in McHenry, Illinois. The local community is very supportive of BMX, so it came about very easlily. The "BMX" park, which consists of a large box jump, big street spine, tons of 1/4's, and a slue of other stuff, is built of wood and is said to be inter/expert riding ability. There is also a cement section which is mostly used by the 4 and 8 wheelers. This is your wildest dream, a public skatepark built by BMX riders for BMX riders. If you need anymore info email me at matt_widhalm@hotmail.com 10/10/01: The Charleston Skatepark Jam to official open the park was held Sunday Oct. 7th, 2001 from 1-4pm. A great time was had by all participants with a large quantity of prizes given away, including 3 new Protec helmets to a few lucky winners. It was a pretty simple format with open skating to start with, followed by 1 minute runs for all riders who signed up. They finished the day with open riding. There was an abundance of fresh fruit and beverages to be had and everyone was in great spirits. It turned into a beautiful day to be out riding with a lot of sun and very little wind which is great because Thursday and Firday it rained all day with the temperatures hoovering around 50 with the wind blowing 40 mph. I was able to gather a little over 30 signatures for the petition to allow bikes into Champaign's "public" skatepark. Although we may have also discovered a covert operation forming to try to stop us from gaining access to this park. I will send more information on this as I receive it. With the 30 sig. added to the other 25 sig. acquired at the bike shop in Champaign, I should have close to 50 good sig. to take to the park district to try to get this ball bouncing. I also sent a set of petition papers with Wil from Martinsville, IL so anybody in that area send me an email at stner@soltec.net and I will help you get in touch with him so that you can sign up to help with the cause. I also left a copy with Ed, the owner of Bike N' Hike in Charleston, so anybody in the area who didn't get to sign the petition at the jam should stop by at the shop Tuesday- Saturday and sign up. While you are there make sure you pick something up to up support the shop. Ed put a lot of work into the Jam to make sure everything went off without a hitch. Support him as much as possible. From Paul Steiner: 7/19/01: I spoke with Jim Spencer, the park operations manager for CU, last Monday for about a hour. Jim said as of right now no bikes are "supposed" to be in the park due to the insurance company saying no bikes and boards at the same time. He was going to talk to the insurance company about separate hours for bikes, etc. I have not heard from him yet, I also have not contacted him again yet. He was going to speak to a couple other guys also. The basic statement was that if I wanted separate hours then he needs to see a large turn out of bikers to get it pushed through. He also said that IF we could show enough interest then there could possibly be a couple of other sites that we might gain access to. If we can get a grant proposal together and secure the funding he would be willing to build another park altogether. One site offered would lend itself more toward dirt jumps and such. The other is a new park just getting started and the master plan is not completed yet but if we showed enough interest we could gain a spot there. On to the Charleston Park, it is about the size of a tennis court with a 24' x 4' quarter, a 24'(?) x 4' wedge with a 3' wide quarter sticking up out of the wedge, a fun box with grind box down the center between the sides of the box, and a smaller grind box. It is a small course but MUCH FUN. I myself have made 2 90 mile one way trips down to ride in the last week. Have met many cool people and there is a large biking group, in fact I have seen more bikers than boarders there. I hope to make a trip down Sunday night weather permitting. It has definitely been worth the trip in my opinion. Word just in.... There is a park open in Pekin, IL now. Haven't been there YET (being the key word). Hours 7-11, 7 days a week. I don't have directions yet, as soon as I get some I'll send them to you. That is about all so far, will keep you posted as more comes in. From Jason Cline: 7/4/01: Work has begun on the park here in Charleston and will be done by the weekend. It is an above ground park made of wood and Skatelite. The quarterpipe is a little mellower than I thought, but still looks like a lot of fun at 24' wide. The rest of the park included a quarter/bank combo, a double sided funbox, a grind rail, and a manual box. All in all the park is small but looking like a really good time. Again, the park is 100% bike friendly, but a new rule will be that helmets will be required at all times. I'm not sure how close this will be enforced, but if you're driving down I'd bring one. DIRECTIONS FROM CHAMPAIGN: Take 57 South, getting off at the Tuscola exit Take a left (East) at the stop sign Stay on this road until you get to Rt 130, then make a right (south)- you'll see a sign for Charleston Take this road until you hit Charleston (20 miles) Once you hit Charleston begin looking on your right for the skatepark, it's in North Park so look for the swingsets, etc - you can't miss it CHAMPAIGN PUBLIC SKATEPARK:   From Paul Steiner: 5/31/01: Paul Steiner, here, with the next installment of can I ride at my local skatepark? Anyways, all kidding aside, I have finally ridden the park in CU much to my enjoyment. Here is a run down on how things went. The street area is ok; let me explain... The fun box, as we will refer to it was the dealer of my first elbow gashes in quite some time (my fox axis elbow pads are still on backorder), as I tried to get rid of the bike in a nice air gone bad. The problem with the funbox, as I predicted, is that the take off is steep (from any of the 3 sides) and the landings are just as steep. Don't get me wrong I did like the way that it threw me but there is not any way to land with any kind of ease. I would say that if I was a little more ballsy I could have easily got enough air to land backside the only problem is that there is no backside to speak of. There is a corner on the street area that has a nice 5' transition to it, but I did not session it too many times( I will in the future). The rest of the street area has some mounds that are steep and fun to occasionally hop over or on what ever your pleasure , I saw one skateer seriously using them but he was by far the best skater there at the time. The rest was regularly being sessioned by the skaters and inliners and things seemed to move in a little flow were everybody would go from street to bowls to street. The bowls are good dare I say great since it is the first cement bowl I've been privileged to ride. I spent most of my time in the 6' oval bowl, the 6' kidney shaped bowl is fun to rail the end transition but at the same time is also pretty tight. The 10'(I'm guessing at these depths) bowl is not to bad but again it is tight. By the time I left I was having a blast in the long bowl (as I will refer to it from now on) taking my turn and being cool. Over all, I witnessed some good skating, I hope I threw out some decent stuff on the bike for all the skaters, and they were ALL and I repeat ALL (the skaters) COOL to me and I tried to be the same back. I had a couple close calls as far as collisions but nothing serious. I came away with 2 cuts from the bike on the first big spill over the funbox and 1 concrete burn both an the same arm(and could have been avoided if I had had a pair of elbow pads on). Now for the bad news... From what all the skaters told me this is a MAJOR BUST! The story I got was this... The cops come by on the hour ritually, I can attest to this since I saw a cop car at least 3 times between 6pm and 9pm. On one occasion the officer sat in the lot for about 5-10 minutes, I hid in the deep bowl since no one was really using it, and had the skaters keep look out for me. As soon as he left I wasright back out there in the long bowl. On the other occasions I stayed back by the bowls, which is as far away from the parking lot as you can get, and hung out on the fence and didn't really ride just tried to keep a low profile so as not to get kicked out. There is a park attendant that keeps watch on the park but he seems to do that sporadically since he was there at 6 when I arrived, but left shortly after that not to been or heard from there after that evening to my knowledge. The skaters said that a biker had been there earlier and wasn't inside 5 minutes when the cops showed up and kicked him out . I have know idea if this person received a ticket or citation or anything of that nature but he was definitely removed from the park interior. some one said something about being arrested and I joked that it would be my first time if that was the case but that it probably wouldn't be my last if I am going to get arrested for riding the "public" facility. Well I forgot to mention that the word going round was to be caution when you are at the park as the gang bangers like to cause trouble. I also heard that somebody got bashed in the face with a skateboard and had their's taken in the process. Then we need to talk about the little neighborhood kids who don't have a bike board or blades, wandering around in the middle of the park with no reason to be there. If they want to spectate do it from outside the fence so that they don't get injuried. Then the kids were standing (other kids) outside the fence throwing in rocks and dirt clods into the bowls. I stopped and helped pick the junk up once cause I have been on a skateboard when all the sudden a rock jumps up and grabs onto one of your wheels and that SUCKS! The stuff would not of really bothered me being on the bike and all but lets try to look out for one another. From Josh Powell: 3/21/01 The street section is pretty much done, and they are working on the mini and spine right now. The bowls are being laid out, and the coping has been constructed and is sitting out, waiting for them to start pouring the bowls. If the weather holds, they might get it done by the time school is out. One of the problems, though, is that it kind of seems like they designed the park in a vacuum. Don't get me wrong--this compares to the previous situation like an STA-R to a Street Beat. It's that much better, but without the lifetime warranty. But the street quarter has vert at a little over six feet (and probably a foot of it), and it's looking like the minis will have vert as well. The "fun box" that they put in (a three-sided thing with a ledge on the backside and a grind rail down one side) is also a pretty tight tranny that goes a little too much to vert. The park even looks like it would be tight for skaters...maybe someone on rollerblades would appreciate it. Coincidentally, the #1 skatepark go-to guy, Tim Clark, is a blader...how strange. It's sad in a way that they got together, did this, and much of the park looks too intimidating for the younger kids or beginning skaters, not just me. But it's still miles beyond where we were, and it's great. Some friends who will remain nameless have been sessioning for a couple months, and it doesn't even seem like the guys working on the rest of the park even care, as long as the park district guy doesnt see anybody there. The guys building that place have a great attitude in my book. From Paul Steiner: 3/2/01 This email is regarding the Champaign, IL Concrete skatepark that is currently under construction. My Name is Paul Steiner and I am looking for any riders in the area or state that would be willing to sign a letter or petition, whatever it takes to gain access to this park. The information I have is: This is a public skatepark set in a public park being paid for with a grant from the state of Illinois to the tune of $150,000 to $300,000 for construction of the park. I have tried to contact Joe DeLuce at the Champaign Park District about this error but am only having an unsuccessful game of phone tag. The one voice message that was passed on to me several days after the fact was, The park was designed for skateboards and inliners only. Any response would be greatly appreciated as I have limited time to apply toward gaining access to this park an would like to find a few like minded individuals to ban together with. Will post more as I find out more. BMX RIDERS ORGANIZATION, ILLINOIS CHAPTER Contacts: Paul Steiner Josh Powell keywords: Champaign IL Illinois Public Skatepark |
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