In the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the waves in California were flat, local surfers still craved surfing.

As a result, they invented a vehicle that allowed "sidewalk surfing".

It was used to emulate the surfing style and manoeuvres still barefoot but on pavement.

The vehicle is what the world now knows as a skateboard.

But Sidewalk Surfing never really replicated being at the top of the peak of the wave, nor did it replicate dropping-in (aka drop down the face of a wave to the bottom).

Some 25 years later the Central Arizona Project, a federal public works project began to lay 24 ft pipes through the Arizona desert to transport water from the Colorado River to the city of Phoenix.

Teenagers from Encinitas California, and other northern San Diego County communities decided to make the trip East to see if these pipes could replicate surfing a wave when Sidewalk Surfing.

It did!

And it allowed them to keep riding the concrete wave from peak to bottom over-and-over again.

It was the closest thing to Sidewalk Surfing a wave.

Yet it was hard for most Sidewalk Surfers to get to.

In the winters of 1976 and 1977, swimming pools in Southern California were drained to conserve water through the California drought.

Although they didn’t have the same smooth radius as Central Arizona Project water pipes, swimming pool walls were curved and had vertical and horizontal planes that could be Sidewalk Surfed.

Swimming pools were not standard for houses in Southern California, so many Sidewalk Surfers fence-hopped illegally to access empty pools to surf.

Skaters started using backyard swimming pools to replicate the Arizona Project back in California.

If you have ever skated a pool, you’ll know quick the curved transition is!

They are hard to skate.

Now, Tom Stewart one of these young California sidewalk surfers looked for a more convenient location to have a similar skateboarding experience without breaking the law and running from the police!

Stewart consulted his brother Mike, an architect, on how to mimic and build a ramp that resembled the Arizona pipes.

With his brother's plans in hand, Tom built a wood framed half-pipe with a lip that replicated pools in the front yard of his house in Encinitas.

It was built of plywood, a much safer alternative to concrete and far easier and cheaper to build.

As the halfpipe wasn’t enclosed shape like a pool, there was no curved horizontal surfaces to carve.

But, halfpipes were a better substitute at the time because many of the new surf manoeuvres were vertically oriented.

*And spoiler alert - waves only have a horizontal plane and if you build a halfpipe wide enough it replicates a wave far more so than a concrete pool bowl.

This began the rise of the halfpipe, particularly the vertical halfpipe.

As the sport of vertical Sidewalk Surfing gained momentum, commercial versions were built out of steel for longevity in the elements.

Up until the late 1990s, Adelaide only had a handful of concrete bowls.

One was the Aquadrome (they made pools, so it made sense they would also have a Sidewalk Surf pool also!) and he rest were steel vert halfpipes.

Then something happened….

South Australia now has 55+ concrete bowls and 1 vert halfpipe (https://www.google.com.au/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1lDDOHkbaI-KBc7_3Iy-OuoPE8sv42vpg).

I have my assumptions, but the facts is: skateparks are now built out of concrete, yet very few skaters from the 1970s (people now in their 50s are skating bowls anymore).

I know, I haven’t seen them.

It’s full of kids, teenagers and young adults – those who didn’t live through the evolution of skating surfaces and are likely unaware of why vertical halfpipes are the best versions to date.

Instead, councils are holding on to an outdated style.

Literally skate bowls were used as there was no alternative and the skate world has moved on from that point.

No one skating them now, skated them then!

Skating bowls is not nostalgia, it’s romanticised.

They are unsafe and dangerous.

And the more you fall on concrete the more the romance fades.

Let’s move our skateparks on with the times!

And it’s easy to do so…

I am lobbying City of Charles Sturt and Department of Infrastructure and Transport to build a central, all-weather/all-year steel vert skate halfpipe in the open space under the soon-to-be-constructed Ovingham Level Crossing Bridge.

Amongst other things, I have set up a petition to collect support collect and demonstrate support for this proposal and it would mean the world to me if you could:

Share the petition with others who you think would support it.

We are at 430 names currently and it would send a very strong message to decision makers if we can hit 500!

Share it here: https://www.change.org/VertSnotDead

Yours faithfully,

Orren Prunckun

21 March 2021