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Terrible. Happy. Talks.
(Audio only) #237 - Simon Bogalo: Convic and The Evolution of Skate Park Innovation (ft. Leon Paxton)
WATCH the episode HERE.
Ever wondered what it takes to transform an old rubbish dump into a vibrant community skate park? Join us as we sit down with Simon Bogalo, the innovative lead designer at Convic Skate Parks, who shares the intricate process of designing spaces that skaters love. Simon reveals his daily responsibilities, blending creativity and technical skills, and the collaborative efforts with landscape architects, engineers, and local skaters to bring these parks to life. Leon Paxton co-hosts, adding depth to our exploration of how less-than-ideal sites are turned into thriving community hubs.
Discover the fascinating world of skate park design as we highlight the importance of community involvement and the diverse preferences within the skateboarding community. We focus on iconic parks like Glebe Skate Park, showcasing its community-driven design and heritage elements, and clarify the role of the Olympics in the recent surge of skate park constructions. From Sydney Park to Pizzey Park, you'll hear about the advocacy efforts, the passion behind these projects, and the homage paid to historic street spots.
Listen in as we explore the challenges and evolution of skate park design, emphasising the balance between community desires and innovative features. Simon shares the struggles of working with unsuitable materials, rising costs, and the deep emotional connection skaters have with urban landscapes.
Enjoy,
Shan
*Watch the full video production of this episode HERE.
**Leon Paxton's VLOG of our day at Glebe Skatepark HERE. Subscribe to his channel for the best skatepark reviews on the internet!
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Yes, hey, it's Shan here. This week I catch up with Convict Skate Park's lead designer, simon Bogolo. Simon joins myself and past guest and this week's guest co-host, leon Paxton, in the studio for a full video production episode. We get loads of visuals up, we check out pictures of all the skate parks that Convict have been a part of and built and designed, and Simon just breaks it all down. He talks about everything that goes into getting these amazing projects out of the ground, from the design process to community consultation, community action initiative, working with builders and concreters. There is so much that goes into it. It was mind-blowing. Simon also shares about his personal life and how he transitioned into becoming a skate park designer and finding that balance between career and passion. So that's inspiring and enjoyable to listen to.
Speaker 1:Now, the three of us met at glebe skate Skate Park on the day of recording and it was just such a fun day. We skated, but Leon also filmed a vlog of our day and if you're not sure about what Leon does, he has an epic YouTube channel. It's called Leon Paxton and he independently and unbiasedly reviews skate parks around Sydney mainly around Sydney, but other parts of the country. Parks around Sydney mainly around Sydney, but other parts of the country. Sydney's his focus because that's where he's from, but he's so thorough and detailed in his explanations and research. No one does it better in my opinion. So if you scroll down into this episode's show notes, you'll find a link to the vlog that he filmed of our day and also his other videos, so go and check him out.
Speaker 1:This episode is a video production episode, so if you want to watch it, you can watch it on YouTube via the Terrible Happy Talks YouTube channel. The audio versions are still available, obviously, on Apple and Spotify, so wherever you like to get your podcasts, it always helps if you can subscribe and follow. I'm trying to build that, obviously, like everyone else, but, um, I like the video production episodes because we get the images up and we talk about it. We get some old skate clips from the 90s, and I love that. We get an artist of the week now, which steve tini has curated, and this week's featured artist is Brooklyn Whelan, and, oh man, wow, his art is spectacular. It's these epic images of explosions and clouds that are all hand-painted, so check it out. Anyway, you want to get a skate park built in your area. Sit back, relax and take notes and enjoy getting to know Mr Simon Boggler. Simon Boggler, how are you brother?
Speaker 2:I'm good man. I'm a tiny bit nervous, but I'm good to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's normal. You've only got three cameras on you and lighting.
Speaker 2:It's not my normal environment, yeah so just act natural.
Speaker 1:Tell us about your day, man. So what has today entailed for you?
Speaker 2:It's been pretty sick actually. I flew up from Melbourne this morning and met you, lovely gentlemen, at the Glebe Skate Park, First time meeting Leon and yourself, shan, and basically we had a little skate and talked about Glebe, talked about some of the obstacles, the story behind them, a little bit about how we design skate parks. It's been sick, it's been a nice day.
Speaker 1:So share with everyone your actual job description. What do you do? Tell us about you.
Speaker 2:So I'm a landscape architect. I've got a degree in landscape architecture but I'm the lead designer at Convict Skate Parks so I head the team kind of creatively. Um, we've got a bunch of architects, designers um landscape architects, engineers, all sorts on the team and I'm kind of in charge of like trying to push creativity and make sure we're doing aspirational projects see, I never even considered that you would have those kind of people on your team, like landscape designers and architects.
Speaker 1:I'm like, no, it's all skateboarders.
Speaker 2:Right, it has to be all skateboarders yeah, I mean you definitely need a skate to understand how to design these things. But just because you can skate, it doesn't mean that you're like gonna automatically know how to design a skate park. Um, even for me, like I skated and I'm a landscape architect, I've been doing it for years, but, to you know, when I started at convict, like 11 years ago, it was a real rude awakening to like, okay, you need this much run up for an obstacle like this is the sort of dimensions and you know the radius, the radius, the height, the angles, all of those things that make a good skate park. It was like a lot of learning.
Speaker 1:I can imagine. So we're joined by Leon Paxton today and it's so rad having you here, Leon.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And is it a good moment for you hanging out with someone like Simon today.
Speaker 3:It's good to hear what, like we see a new skate park, like it's either good or it's bad. But we know we don't think of why it's good or why it's bad. So a lot of people complain about that or that, but we don't know the work that goes on behind the scenes and how long it takes. How much work. Oh man, it's such a big process.
Speaker 2:I'm learning now yeah, yeah, I mean every project is a battle. Yeah, like it it takes, yeah, I mean the whole team's involved and all of us are so passionate about it. But, like, come opening day, we're pretty, we're pretty stoked to get to like that moment that we can hand it over to the community. And yeah, like there's a lot that people don't know about, even like under the ground. You know, like most of the time we're getting the trashiest sites because you're getting the leftover land in Sydney, right, melbourne, wherever you are, and a lot of the time they're old rubbish dumps. A lot of the cost is going into like fixing the geotech in the ground underneath before you can even start designing or building something.
Speaker 1:Can we just circle back to what you said. A lot of the time they're old rubbish dumps, so they're landfill sites. So are they often identified as the place to build a skate park? Because it's land that's less desirable, I guess.
Speaker 2:so it's like you know all the premium sites are taken and you know a lot of the sites in Sydney, like Sydney Park, for example, is an old tip and there was a huge amount of work that had to go into compacting that ground so it was suitable for a skate park, because if you don't get the ground conditions right, the whole thing is going to crack and become not functional for skating.
Speaker 1:And that's a big process and can be a slow process, from my understanding, waiting for everything to settle and yeah, so you guys will be familiar with ride skate park.
Speaker 2:I know that you've done the meta metabank right, yeah, um. So that one, for example, had um issues with the ground and we had to do what's called um. What's it called it? It's like basically preloading to get compaction and you basically push all the moisture out in the soil before you start building so that you know it's not cracking later on. And that was six months before we could start building.
Speaker 1:Dude yeah, people don't know.
Speaker 2:There's a lot to it. It's a science man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we've had a rad day. So the three of us went skating for most of the day at glebe trying, trying to skate yeah, I know, you were always. I was trying, oh I'll try. I was falling I haven't battled a heel for years, but anyway, I don't want to talk about that we had fun we did and, uh, it was just a nice, a nice day.
Speaker 1:But you know, every now and then I just watch you skate and go like that guy designed that and now he's skating it. So you know, put that into reality for us. Like, how does that feel?
Speaker 2:I mean, I kind of like what I was saying to you today. It's every time you're skating a park that you've worked on you're sort of, um oh, we're right in the mouth there, we're going man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm OCD about the sound. I'll bring it up slightly Is that all good, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good, you're good, you're good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so every time I'm skating it like, say, the curb, I'm like man, we should have got the angle a little bit mellower on this so it's easier to slappy or that little wall ride. If the bank up to it was a slightly higher bank and a bit of a more of an angle, the wall ride would be easier um, but then you learned that today, yeah, yeah, so you didn't know that prior well, like not all parks I get to skate.
Speaker 2:Obviously I'm not from sydney, um, so like that. Today that's the first time I've skated glebe. I've taken clients there and done stuff like that, but most of the time I'm like damn, I want to skate this You're in like business corporate mode. Yeah, kind of yeah, like my super business.
Speaker 1:Because, like it leads into, one of my initial questions is, like, how important is feedback from skateboarders in the design process? So, like, just to cut back to, you know the wall ride you were doing today and you're like, oh, wow, that's actually quite a harsh transition, like, oh, and you even said, oh, that flat bank should have been a little bit more angled yeah, I could see your brain ticking over like for your next design. So how integral is feedback from skateboarders?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's every park we're doing. We're talking to local skaters, you know, all around the country, and for us it's every park we're doing. We're talking to local skaters, you know, all around the country, and for us it's like the most important step in the process because at the end of the day, it's going to be your local park it's not my local park, right? So glebe, for example, that has all these obstacles that are old, iconic sydney spots. But there's also people that are like man, we've been crying out for like an obstacle like this for ages and this is what we want. So you know, they're an integral part of that process and it's probably like for us it's the, it's one of the best things about the job, but it's also where the pressure comes. Like you know, skating is so subjective and what people like to skate, whether it's transition or street or you know people are really good in advance and they want, you know, challenging obstacles.
Speaker 2:Or some people just want like a mani pad or a little quarter pipe, slappy curbs or a flat bar.
Speaker 3:More slappy bar yeah, a long round flat bar.
Speaker 1:You're advocating for flat bars. I want more slappy curbs. Yeah, that's rad. Hey, let's get the Glebe Skate Park photos up now we're talking about it and look at that park. There she is, isn't she beautiful? Looks so good. It's my favorite skate park and that's no secret. I've talked about it a lot here on the podcast and from my perspective it's my favorite skate park because I actually like the aesthetic. So can you tell us about that? Yeah, why was that important in this design?
Speaker 2:so probably like two really important parts of this design. One was the community involvement. Like I said, like the cannonball feature, the sydney fire hydrant, the old glelebe mini ramp, the brick banks from Darling Harbour, so all of those were direct from the community and what they were looking for. But then a big part of the space was the brick and integrating that different material into the space. So the bridge that runs across that train line, that's heritage listed bridge, and a big part of like getting approval for the skate park was, you know, we couldn't build too close to the pillars, but also we had to sort of incorporate that brick within the design so that it basically ticked off the sort of strategic planning guidelines that council had.
Speaker 2:So you know, one, the reason that skate park's there, because we had to work with the heritage elements. But two, it just adds this whole different kind of character to it. It makes it feel like a spot. You get that sick clickety-clack under wheel when you're rolling, which just feels like the best. But you get some good photos out of it too. It looks a little bit more authentic.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah this is a good looking park it is good looking park.
Speaker 1:you know, when we first started communicating, you kind of hit me up and you're like shan, like I think it's been me and ty coaling a lot on here, have been like we've got all these new skate parks because of the olympics and like, based on no evidence, we don't know what we're talking about. We were just, like, you know, making out like we were experts on this but really had no clue. But you were like, yeah, maybe the Olympics have been some sort of contributor, but, for example, you feel that the influx was happening and the planning stages were happening well before the Olympics. So, in regards to Glebe, what was the backstory? Like, how long was this in the works, from conception to completion?
Speaker 2:So this one took a long time. I think I did the first consultation with some of my colleagues back in like 2013 or 14 and the actual construction happened like 2020. But yeah, I guess a bit on that backstory and how these parks kind of come about. Um, I, I reckon you'll probably remember there was a big drought in skate parks in sydney back before, sort of 2013-14. I remember, yeah, like there wasn't any new parks for a long time and the nitty-gritty on this it actually comes from, and I'm sure, like a lot of people remember this. But so Cameron Sparks and Trent Evans and oh man, nigel, who runs Totem.
Speaker 1:Totem Skateboards.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So these guys kind of lobbied and got in touch with council and basically did a lot of petitions and lobbying and there was a big kind of you know, the real push from the community that got this kind of in front of local government and they got a champion through councillor linda scott and basically a voice in council that started like pushing for these things and it was a it was sort of the um, you know, the beginning of this big change in sydney and I remember it big time because it was like before that we were doing a lot of parks in wa and there was nothing up here and then all of a sudden we're working on mona vale, sydney green, sydney park, tech park and so many sydney parks and it's all because these guys like actually I was talking to cameron sparks and he's like I'm not blowing my own trumpet.
Speaker 2:I was like, dude, blow your trumpet. You guys like push so hard and you know like a lot of these parks come about because people are pushing and lobbying and like doing stuff behind the scenes that you know. We just don't know about, um, and we're like at convict we're we're getting to come in at the fun park when the funding's actually there. But those guys are doing all the work you know in the background. Um, and yeah, like it's, all of these parks don't really have much to do with the olympics.
Speaker 2:I think like these days I was thinking, yeah, like everyone thinks, it's because the olympics ever since, like 2021, these parks are popping up all over the place yeah, but like if you look at some of the parks around the country like um, you will know if it's got something to do with the olympics, because it looks like an olympic training facility well, it's got a big ball.
Speaker 2:So you might like um sydney park with the big bowl there. Yeah, that was actually um a bit of a catalyst, for that was the vans park series and at that time they were like, oh, we, you know, we need a park series bowl in sydney. There's nothing like this. So, yeah, that that was sort of what triggered that. But say, um, do you know, like the new pussy park skate park?
Speaker 2:that's what I just thought of training facility for example, that looks exactly like an sls or olympic training course like bigger rails, big rails, a lot of back and forth.
Speaker 2:Everything's mirrored as well so you can skate, so you get the front side back side, you can sort of complete your line, and there is a bit more of that going on these days, like we are seeing very recently, councils will be like, oh, we want to provide an Olympic training facility so that, you know, internationals can come and train or we can have comps, and obviously, with the brisbane olympics coming up, it is becoming a thing. But the backstory for all your parks has got nothing to do with the olympics. It's a totally different story, which, yeah, and that's why they're. They're more like you know there'll be more DIY style or transition or streety, because they're sort of like it's the locals telling us what to do not the Olympics, true, yeah?
Speaker 1:So shout out to Cameron Sparks and Trent Evans. Trent Evans from Passport correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah so rad.
Speaker 2:And those guys, like you know, say like Sydenham Green, tech Park, mona Vale, glebe, they were all at those community consultations helping us with like oh, we'd love a feature like this, and they were promoting the consultations through the Sydney Skate Association. But yeah, it's crazy, it feels like yesterday. But yeah, it's crazy, it feels like yesterday. I remember like Sydenham Green doing a consultation for that and there was like 50 people there and it was so heated and so much pressure, like you guys have got to get this right, and we're like oh shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you did it right, that's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess, while we're on the topic, you know, give us some key points on how someone can advocate for a skate park in their local area, like what would be the first thing they could do write an email to council and where's my skate park?
Speaker 2:I think like, yeah, like as many emails to council as you can start a petition, you know, I think one of the key points is, um, trying to find a champion at council that can do the hard work for you. So, uh, councillor linda scott was who was sort of doing that for the sydney skate association, but I don't know, like these days it's a bit different because of the, you know, once there's a few good parks, it's almost snowball snowball effect where every community wants one. Now it's almost like the you know youth version of a playground, right, like every little regional area needs a skate park.
Speaker 1:When you're at those meetings with council, are you supporting the construction of a kid's playground right next door as well? Is that getting skate parks over the line? It's like a little carrot saying like oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it's a funny one because you will notice like a lot of these big parks say, like Ride Meadowbank, it's a mega kids' playground, glebe, parkour and stuff too.
Speaker 2:Even, yeah, sydney Park. It's got this sort of learn to ride track. So a lot of the funding that is coming for the skate park is because it's becoming this big family precinct Gotcha and as much as we don't want, you know, little kids running through the park and kind of ruining our experience, it is also where a lot of the funding is coming from, because it's a family-friendly facility that is open to the public. You know it's taxpayers' dollars that are paying for these parks.
Speaker 1:Ooh, yeah, Okay, Okay. So I'll see those kids on scooters as you know they made it happen. I've actually just found a reason to appreciate them slightly, like, okay, if it wasn't for that kid, this wouldn't be here, I'll just go around them.
Speaker 2:Deal with it. Yeah, I mean, we all know like I don't know, I don't want to sound like a hater it all comes down to like what time of the day you go to the park. Yeah, exactly. Like, if you go middle of the day, you're probably, like, more likely to encounter little scooter kids and then after work at night you'll probably get it to yourself.
Speaker 1:This week's featured artist, Brooklyn Whelan. Those pictures are epic. Like as you were talking there, it's like awesome clouds and fire Sick I didn't even notice that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's sick.
Speaker 1:So, going back to some of the key features at Glebe, they have a historic homage to Sydney street spots. So the main ones at Glebe are the legendary Darling Harbour Brickbanks which we skated today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we tried to Tried to yeah like they're hard.
Speaker 1:It's good Like a street spot.
Speaker 2:It should be a challenge. It challenges you, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then also the famous Cannonball, or Macquarie Place manual pad slash ledge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the manual pad. So who? Was pushing for those, just like Trent Evans and this was like nine years ago, but there was another dude that came to the consultation and he bought like 3Ds and I wish I could remember his name Aaron.
Speaker 1:Jenkins.
Speaker 2:I can't remember. Honestly, you're going to be here a while, but like he fully bought us dimensions and 3Ds and he's like, oh, we've got it. Like the cannonball was one of the most important features to get in there, yeah, it's sick.
Speaker 1:Can we get a clip up of the old, legendary um and before we play this clip, uh, so past guest and past co-host and friend, darren caney. He used to destroy those, those brick banks, and there was a legendary australian skate video made by gordon orkaniki called plebs featured the syd Sydney scene predominantly and it was epic and Darren skated those back in 1993. And have a look at what he was doing on them. What we're talking here like 30 years ago.
Speaker 2:It's just the switch tray that you. He does this.
Speaker 1:Look at these like frontside kick loop over the hip and they were rough man and slippery. Look at this Does a kick loop on flat. Does a kickflip on flat? Backside kickflip over the hip. Nice bit of curl park footage.
Speaker 3:I can hear that I'm watching it.
Speaker 1:I can hear the grip. Why does that feel so good under foot? Hey, I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I reckon it comes back to that feeling.
Speaker 1:Fakie kickflip over the hip Okay, and look, fakey kick flip over the hip. Okay, and look at this switch through, legendary how does that make you feel when you watch that do you feel like you nailed it?
Speaker 2:I mean honestly, I feel like at convict we're our own worst critics, like we're always looking at things very um, I don't know. You never really feel like you've nailed it. You always want to do better at the next part. But I feel like it's been a while since we finished glebe and I'm definitely proud going there and also like it's a huge team effort, like it's not just one person in the office or out on site, like you know everyone's kind of looking through the drawings. We've got a massive amount of critical review and there would have been probably 12 different designs for Glebe that went back to the client, the community and always changing. So there's so many chances that we could have stuffed it up.
Speaker 1:Okay, how much did it cost? How much did Glebe cost? Come on.
Speaker 2:For the actual skate park? It was about 1.2 million. Is that all but this is pre-lockdown and pre-covid in one of leon's vlogs yeah, he's got it wrong said it was 14 grand, it's 40 million.
Speaker 3:It was like five or six million. I probably said, yeah, so look at what the council says. But that was the entire project, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I think it can be misleading, because quite often the skate park will be part of a much larger precinct. Right there'll be a big landscape master plan that'll have like um playgrounds, footpaths, car parking and all that's there yeah, um, so the skate park was one small component of that. But yeah, I reckon it would cost a bit more these days because, since COVID, the price of steel, the price of pretty much everything has gone up a lot Inflation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's expensive times, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1:I mean, has there been a reluctance because of that by councillors to spend money?
Speaker 2:Surprisingly. I think everyone is pretty aware that this is what's going on in the world, because it's not just skate parks. It's like the whole construction industry has gone up a lot, so the budgets that we're working on, compared to other massive community projects, are probably peanuts for them.
Speaker 1:Interesting man, interesting. All right, jock, let's get another skate park up. I think we had maybe Tech Park. Now I'm pretty sure we've got Tech Park next. Now look at that man like aesthetically another one Another.
Speaker 3:Good looking what do you think Leon? And good sounding when you're on the tiles, just that sound of your wheels rolling across it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you're on the tiles, just that sound of your wheels rolling across it. Yeah, Now, Leon, you reviewed that right, yes. In one of your vlogs, like what were some of the things you were discussing about it, like what were the standouts for you from that point?
Speaker 3:Pretty much the way it's designed Like. We can see the features. They used the granite or the marble. The manual pads the ledge at the flat.
Speaker 1:Even my favorite thing, there is that ledge, but the other side outside of the, yeah, so you have to grind the whole thing to clear the garden there, like stuff like that.
Speaker 3:I really like, yeah, like it's just not this dog here. It's a normal. It's just a normal ledge. But if you take away the like, the center of it you have to clear, so it's like a gap. That kind of stuff is is cool to see it like. At sydney too there's one yeah, inside out.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, that's definitely like something we're always like looking for those sneaky little moments of something that you might not think of, and the more you skate it, you're like, oh, that could be cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what you like? Just the fact that you're grinding over a grass gap, you have to clear it.
Speaker 3:like you can't just see the end of the ledge, you can see it off to the far left. Yeah, on the left.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I tried to nose slide that. I almost got it.
Speaker 3:But I did, I like it, I was sliding it.
Speaker 1:I got into a couple of crookeds but I had one day, but I just find that it was yeah, as you're sliding, you're like oh wow, I'm.
Speaker 3:It makes you like you have to lock in and hold that trick instead of just get in and get out. So I like that kind of stuff. You got those tricks locked.
Speaker 2:I saw you holding some nose grinds today.
Speaker 1:I was like damn you had backside nose, grind that whole flat ledge that long ledge at Glebe today. I just rode the wrong board today. Why did you ride a?
Speaker 3:10-inch board. Today. I skated yesterday so I wanted to try something different today. I didn't know I was gonna do so much skating today.
Speaker 1:You just get a lot, so I can feel it so what I find interesting about tech park Simon is that it doesn't have a mega kids playground attached to it nah.
Speaker 2:So this one was a little bit different, um, because it was part of this commercial business district. It was sort of, um, I guess there was like offset money to put towards public realm, so there's courts as well and the skate park and obviously right next to it is, um, a little exercise area. But yeah, this one for us, like if these a few of these projects we're talking about are kind of milestone projects that we were trying something different. And this one, I remember, like people were like you know why the hell are you putting trees in a skate park? What are you doing with all these different materials? And you know, for us, oh man, like you know, it's a complaint against the trees.
Speaker 2:I think people are just like like it's wasting space yeah, or they're getting in the way of our run, but we were pretty careful with where we put them. We had skatable tree pits and you know now that you go there, like you were saying today, that it feels shady and nice in summertime.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the best summer skate park is in between the trees and the big building there.
Speaker 1:It does drop a lot of leaves and stuff, but so what?
Speaker 2:You just bring a blower, yeah, and plus they're pretty good at maintaining that park. But, um, yeah, yeah, that one, you know the brick banks, the, the granite paving, the granite ledges, um, and just the way the whole thing set out to be a little bit more like a kind of weird little plaza that feels like a street spot rather than just a traditional skate park. Um, it was super fun to work on, super challenging why, yeah, you don't want to talk about it I'll tell you like basically.
Speaker 2:So, as part of the um project brief, we had to introduce bricks within the design and the construction obviously and this was a big learning curve for us and all of the bricks in this sort of precinct had already been specified. So we're like oh yeah, sweet, we'll use those bricks. And I don't know if you remember this. But basically we opened and then, like a few days later, we had to close because the bricks that we had installed were just not fit for use or purpose and they were like rubbing away when people were skating them, like soft and it was just off.
Speaker 2:No, like, yeah, they were disintegrating, crumbling, so like we basically were like oh my God, it's not working, and we pulled all of them out and reinstalled them with like proper bricks. That were a lot, you know.
Speaker 1:They were more dense and you know just I don't know, so what that must have been a hard day at the office it was a big learning curve did you get like an email going. What have you done?
Speaker 2:rip it up I mean, it's like we were the ones that noticed that, like we're just like what is going on? Um, but yeah, we we like to convict's we fully ripped them out and replaced them all out of our own pocket because we wanted it to be right and last for a long time.
Speaker 1:So I mean but isn't this normal for any construction job? There's always going to be something every now and then Like nothing's perfect right. There's never a perfect build right.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and we're always trying to learn and evolve and change what we're doing. So when you're doing that, you're taking steps and you know you might not always get it right, but we try our best to and like obviously, in this situation, we went back and fixed it. But you know, these things are always evolving. It's always changing what people want and you see what kids are doing these days the progression is nuts, so we need to try and keep.
Speaker 1:Keep up with that, I guess do you think there's more of a call for like obscure obstacles, like uh?
Speaker 2:yes and no. Like like what you're saying, like more unique, like yeah, unique kind of like like.
Speaker 2:I think we're in a situation in sydney where you know you've got a huge network of skate parks, now You've got the flat bars, the ledges, the perfect ledge, the perfect flat bar that you know, that you were talking about before. Like now we're in the situation where there's so many different parks, we can be a bit more experimental, say like the Lane Cove Park that I was telling you about. You know, it's all transition. It's got that weird wall right up the rock wall. It's an opportunity for us to be like. We can be way more crazy than like maybe six or seven years ago, when there wasn't anything here.
Speaker 2:If we started doing really weird stuff all the time, people would be like, we just want the, we want the fundamentals. Where's the like perfect ledge, where's a mini pad? Um, you still get that. Anyway, people still say that oh man, like. Like I said to you today, like skate parks, skateboarding is the most subjective thing. Like. I'm pleased, everyone will do our best and we try and take the majority of what the community is telling us that they want and run with that, but there's always going to be someone that's like oh man, you, you missed this or it's hard it's the old guys who want slappy curbs, I swear.
Speaker 2:I'm one of those old guys now.
Speaker 1:No, you're not. You're ripping today. I see now Leon got a couple of clips of you as well, yeah. What's the perfect flat bar height?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's confidential, bro. I can't tell you that.
Speaker 1:But in terms of the attention to detail that you guys go into, no, we have, we have a formula haven't you?
Speaker 2:we have a set height now, like you know, at glebe. It's probably a bit too high and that one's a square rail, which someone asked for I wish we kind of didn't do it now. But um yeah, we have, like there's some things in our little kind of notebook that you know, we know like this is a good height for the perfect height for a ledge or rail.
Speaker 1:And this has just evolved through trial and error.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and like I feel like I have the craziest knowledge of, like, what the perfect distance is to a ledge, like you know if you're doing a push, start instead of dropping in. Like you need this many meters. Yeah, do you think?
Speaker 1:you've built more. Now that you've got a pretty stacked resume, has community trust really built and people are just like the process is getting easier because they're just trusting you, kind of know what's best? Like you're getting input, but when it comes to those details you're like just trust us, the flat bar has got to be this height. And just trust us, yeah you know like we we're going to make the ledge this height or whatever yeah.
Speaker 2:So like if most, most situations, what we're doing with community consultation is we want people to push the direction of what they're looking for in terms of style, whether it's transition street, a mix of both. You know materiality, you know we really want to vert ramp, a big bolt, whatever. But in terms of, like the actual technical side of what the dimensions are, the proportions, the radius, we kind of know from years of experience like we have guys in our office that that is their sole job, just the technical side of things and making sure that it's the perfect height. Probably like one of the hardest things about designing a skate park and building it is getting the grading right.
Speaker 2:So you would probably not think like the grading of so the surfaces, like how they grade the level change so that you're not getting drainage water drainage, so you're not getting pulling of water, but also that it skates fast so do you think of that stuff, leon?
Speaker 3:like it doesn't even cross my mind but I skated mccorry field skate park yesterday and I noticed where the flat bar is. It goes slightly downhill, so it makes sense to where the drain's position too.
Speaker 2:So the water's going to lead that way yeah, so that would be like the first thing that we're thinking about. So we'll be looking at like, where's the nearest drainage pit? What can we drain into, especially if you're doing like a mega deep bowl. You know, yeah, you can't just have it, have it filling up with water all the time actual pool yeah, exactly so there's so much more that goes into it there's all this kind of technical stuff that is probably less interesting. But yeah that's how it works, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:so where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2:so I am from west auckland, from a place called oratea um in new, and I moved to Melbourne in, I think, 2011. So it's been a while now 14 years. It's pretty much a little Melbourne local.
Speaker 1:What brought you over?
Speaker 2:It's a pretty long story, but I was living in Canada and I broke my tibia and fibula in about 10 places and I have like titanium from my knee to ankle now and it kind of I was going to go to Europe and go and do sort of more traditional landscape architecture over there, but, um, that forced me to go home and I was like, you know, no weight, no weight bearing for six months a year without like walking properly. And by that point it was the global financial crisis and there was no jobs in Europe. So I was like I had a buddy, um, carl, who was living in Melbourne and he's like come over and I'd done like a uni trip here. I was like man like Melbourne's sick and there's just, you know, the economyralia didn't seem to be as affected. So I was like sick and I got a job, um, for a landscape firm and I was honestly getting to the point where I was like working on these projects that were sort of you know, big residential developments, urban sprawl, things, that I just was like I didn't believe in it and I was like man I don't know if this is for me anymore and I saw like this job advertised for, you know skate park design.
Speaker 2:I was like no way, like that would be unreal, and I actually like I didn't get the job. I interviewed so many times and I missed out, and one of my homies ended up getting the job and he was like you should have. You should have got Simon. He's like, loves skating and so, yeah, that was like 11 years ago, so that's kind of pretty much sorry.
Speaker 3:Was that with Convy? Yeah, they knocked you back first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a tough interview process but the broken leg and all of that kind of led me down this path. Look at that to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a funny thing.
Speaker 2:At the time I was like, oh, this is the worst thing ever. But here we are, this is like the dream job. So you love your job, man, it's. Yeah, I'm very lucky. I like I work with the raddest dudes, like our team is just. You know, all my good mates, you know we'll go for a beer on fridays, we skate together. Um, they all like so passionate about what we do. Like last year I got to go to hong kong working on a park there with one of my best buddies and we're just skating around the streets in Hong Kong pinching ourselves, like what is going on? I can't even believe that this is my job. I suppose it's like what you guys do as well. If you do something you're passionate about, it's the best I feel very lucky. After now doing it for a long time and you've said you're passionate about that's the best, I feel very lucky.
Speaker 1:Like after now doing it for a long time and you've said you've kind of evolved into the lead designer. You know, is it more stressful in that position or is it more responsibility.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, there's, for I mean, everyone that I work with really cares about what we're doing and what we're putting out the door, and I'm not like controlling every single project. Everyone's responsible for each of their projects that I'm working with. We've got a team of like eight designers and I guess I'm there to be like firing up the boys and, like you know, come on, man, I reckon you could do better. Or, like you know, quite often we'll look at parks in the States or you know, plazas that are in Europe or something, and be like trying to inspire each other. And yeah, I think there's definitely pressure and like at the moment I'm working on a few parks back in New Zealand and you know, for me that's like, oh, you should. You know, like all the homies are like looking at what I'm doing and you know you've got to get it right. But I'm pretty I've done it for a long time and I'm pretty like confident in my ability now of like knowing whether we've got it right or wrong.
Speaker 1:Or, you know, like you know You're more of an overseer, really aren't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like there's a bunch of us that are like there's a few old heads at Convict that have been doing it for a while.
Speaker 1:Are you mentoring any younger ones coming through?
Speaker 2:For sure, for sure. So there's a few young guys and, yeah, like I said, like just because you skate, it doesn't mean that like you're going to know exactly how to design a park. So trying to help those guys.
Speaker 1:So the company is actually like cognizant of the fact that it is important to nurture the next generation of designers.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Are they thinking that far ahead?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely. And like you know, man, it's really hard to find people that skate, that understand design. So if you're listening and you want a job ready, I'm looking at one like I'm so I don't know how to build.
Speaker 2:Oh man, like design side, yeah, like, I mean, yeah, the, the that's the that's a great part about it is that we are building the parks and, like you know, I I learned so much starting to work for a company that's actually building the park as well as designing it, because the boys on site will be like, oh mate, you got this wrong. Or you know, I, I learned so much starting to work for a company that's actually building the park as well as designing it, because the boys on site will be like, oh mate, you got this wrong. Or you know, we're constantly working back and forth with each other and the, the quality.
Speaker 2:Like you know, they want to get it perfect and it's not easy to build a skate park like you are traveling all day. The concrete to get it smooth, to get it grading right, those guys kill themselves. It's hard work.
Speaker 1:How has it evolved for you, leon? Like with you know I was saying to Simon today like, yeah, I've skated some of the parks around Sydney, but it's almost safe to say like you've skated like every single park in Sydney. I swear to God Maybe, but have you started like through that process of like skating every park and talking about it? You know you're starting to notice these patterns in like design features, spacing, dimensions, and you just start to go that doesn't work, that works.
Speaker 3:Well, when you're saying you have to have the right amount of run up and landing and stuff, I've never considered that before. I was trying to think of skate parks that I remember that were too short of a run up. So I think that's kind of nailed. That thing's good because I've never had a problem with that. But, just like you said, it's so subjective. You can't please everyone like I. I haven't skated the lane cove yet because it's all transition based and I suck at transition but I thought that was a great idea.
Speaker 2:I've seen that.
Speaker 3:I thought that having that was a good idea, because there's already all of those street-based parks Like what about the transition guys? Lane Cove looks so fun for someone that can skate transition. So finding something like you said, if you come out with Lane Cove and there wasn't like Sydenham and Meadowbank and all that, people would be like what is this?
Speaker 2:Where's all the street parts like, but you've got a good basis of different parks now I mean, that's the the funnest thing about sydney now is like, say, like olds park for example I love that place.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So um gus, who's a designer, who's an architect in our team, was working on that and he was this is sort of, I guess, how I work with the team he was sort of doing a few concept designs of things that people were looking for in the community and we were like, oh, sydney's got everything, now how can we do something different? And we were like, what about if we just introduce heaps of strange steel elements and it's all custom, kind of DIY little obstacles and just play with it and have some fun? It's sick. And the other thing like the old Odds Park skate park had this old steel quarter pipe, how about we pay homage to that by doing heaps of weird steel new stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually haven't skated it yet. I mean, I've seen heaps of footage, so, like there's these two quarter pipes that are, it's got like the there's a gap and I've seen heaps of footage.
Speaker 2:So like there's these two quarter pipes that are, it's got. Like the, there's a gap, not the one with the.
Speaker 3:It's like a hip almost.
Speaker 1:It's a hip, it's a weird hip.
Speaker 3:They're offset quarter pipes, literally staggered quarter pipes yeah.
Speaker 1:Was that the you know tribute to those?
Speaker 2:I mean a little bit Like you have to talk to Gus a bit more, but he was just trying to. This dog loves me. Yeah, he can smell my little pup Hugging me so good. Yeah, like every feature in there would have had a lot of thought and everyone's sort of like reviewing it to try and get it right. But yeah, what was the question?
Speaker 1:again, sorry, oh, I was just trying to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, paying homage to the old one, like yeah, I guess that's sort of big idea, but then trying to do some weird stuff, that's a bit of a challenge, like each obstacle's got some unique thing that um, it brings a different presence and hopefully it's challenging. I love it. It's one of my like.
Speaker 3:It quickly became one of my favorites, because I've never seen anything like that, and I was even one of the times I went. Uh, kieran woolley was there and he was like yeah, this place is sick it looks, it feels like it's a diy skate park, like the way everything's built like nothing is normal besides the bowl and maybe the two little down rails. That's all I can think of. That's like what you would see at a standard skate, so we got like the little mini ramp, but like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we designed that one and that was built by Revolution Skate Parks Ramp Revolutions, I think they're called Right and they did a good job. They killed it. So I feel like, yeah, I haven't actually been to it since it's been built. I haven't been to all of the parks we've worked on, but, like most of them, I get a chance to go to. I was actually here two weeks ago.
Speaker 3:I was going to go to it but it was super wet. That's one of the ones when I just said people still complain that there's no basic obstacles. I made a video there and people were like what? You can't even skate this park. Where's the flat bar? Where's the ledge? Nothing's normal there. You can go to another skate park. Miranda's close. Miranda has everything as well. Like you, don't have to have everything at each single skate park.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's subjective. It's going to be tricky. Yeah, I don't know, your favorite skate park might be completely different to like what mine is, because I can't ollie anymore.
Speaker 1:You can't ollie. I've seen you ollieing. What are you talking about? I?
Speaker 3:don't know. I've seen you, ollie, today.
Speaker 1:Tiny little ones uh, what do we got next? Jock, give me a clip. We're going to the. The next image we have, I think it was the brackenridge. Is that brackenridge? Yeah, so let's talk about that. So because, like I sort of asked you, like, what are some skate parks in particular that you would like to talk about? And you mentioned brackenridge, how come?
Speaker 2:so, yeah, I guess this one was a bit of a milestone project for us. Um, it looks amazing that was 2016, 17, yeah, and you know, I think this was one of our first kind of more plazary street street style parks, first park that we're done at granite ledge, and this was a great combination of like me and rowdy, who's one of the more tech technical designers in the team really butting heads of like what we thought should be in the park, but like through that process, something really special comes out and like the build quality. The boys killed it. It's, it's epic. Um, but yeah, I think for us like doing more of a really flat skate park that you can kind of like do flat ground tricks in between fetches, you can link a line together. You'll see like quite a lot of space and like that's that run up and roll away that we were talking about. Yeah, I wish the little dog was on the camera.
Speaker 2:But I personally look at it.
Speaker 1:I love the landscaping, like I love the trees in the middle. It looks sick.
Speaker 2:So that was like something we clashed on because I was like mate, like if it's just concrete, it's going to feel so like you know, big concrete wasteland, let's get some green in there. So that was something we sort of had to figure out and you'll see if you look closely there something we sort of had to figure out, and you'll see if you look closely.
Speaker 1:There's like a kicker to kicker through the trees and that's like built of granite as well, so I can't believe granite is a feature in skate parks?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't in my lifetime I never thought I'd see that, yeah, we actually import them straight from china. But yeah, like so there's heaps of obstacles on this. That, um, at the time it was, like, you know, groundbreaking and you know when it like gets built and you're just like so stoked with the outcome. And I remember, like, working on the Sydenham Green consultation, mona Vale consultation, they were all looking at that like, oh, we want like what that park's got so sick. Yeah, it looks sick, that looks amazing.
Speaker 3:I need to get there yeah.
Speaker 2:Worth the trip. It's probably a little bit rougher now.
Speaker 1:I just had a memory like back in the day when I used to skate a lot in the 90s. The original Paddington Skate Park in Brisbane was just a pretty standard skate park had a fun box, quarter pipes, had a steel half pipe but they built it around a big old fig tree that shaded the whole park and, like everyone, used to love it because of that tree.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the feeling it created while you were there, and I mean I'm looking at this park like I don't know, are they trees that are going to get big and shade the park? Because that's the big thing I'm finding with skate parks is, in summer, especially out west in Sydney. Oh man man, it's like a desert out there and it's white and bright, or if it's black. You just like cannot see. It's like literally like an urban heat island.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys are thinking of this stuff, like the parks in WA, like some of those parks are the most arid landscapes, like super hot Arid, like we did, uh, the freemantle skate park, and that was a long time ago now, but there was this big avenue of trees that went down the park and now they're all like big enough that they're actually shading the park and it feels like it's integrated into the landscape, like I guess that's where the sort of landscape architecture and the that kind of design side of things and that thinking comes into what we're doing.
Speaker 2:That you know it's more than just a skate park. It's a community space. It's somewhere like kids go and hang out after school, catch up with the homies, like you know they need to be somewhere that they actually want to hang out and meet up, like a lot of the you know when, when, when I was skating when I was young, like I'd go and skate evandale skate park in west auckland and like big part of it was just catching up with buddies and like sitting around having a beer yeah, how old were you when you first started skating?
Speaker 2:man, like I skated. I remember like rolling down my driveway with my dad when I was like I don't know four or five, but probably not proper skating, until like Musker came on the scene, like probably 11 or 12 or something like that.
Speaker 1:Have you heard of Chad Musker Leon? Of course.
Speaker 3:But actually I was introduced to him by Tony Hawk's Underground maybe.
Speaker 1:Like the computer game.
Speaker 3:He pulls up yeah, in the game he pulls up to your local park and gives you his board or something. So I was like, yeah, this is sick. And then the storyline has him and Bear Marjorie in it. That's how I was introduced to these legends.
Speaker 1:Fair enough though Like it's generational.
Speaker 3:Like.
Speaker 1:I don't want to make you feel bad for not knowing that, but it's kind of like a realization for me that the generations coming through don't know who some people are like these kids that don't know who danny way are. Like that trips me out, like you know who he is they probably were in dc's too, I don't know who danny way is. Or colin mckay, yeah, rick howard. Or mike carroll. Oh my god, how do you not know?
Speaker 2:that like even like weirdly for me and like where I grew up in west auckland like you know, we weren't getting all the videos at that time, or like I wasn't and I remember going to video easy and getting like the bones brigade video of like lance mountain, just like jumping off his roof and pushing down the street and like that's a lot of my mates that skated at the time were a bit older and doing like bonelesses and no complies and stuff like that and I feel like like I don't know it was that. And then there was this local Kiwi video tweakage with oh man, what's his name? Shayataria, and like all the kind of old Kiwi legends. Mappy was in that. I think, yeah, right, but yeah, yeah, it was a while before like I started seeing, like you know, fulfill the dream and all the like kind of more common 90s videos, just because, man, it was a different time, like when I you're what?
Speaker 2:47? I just turned 40 like yeah, it was definitely less floating about and it was a lot harder to come by footage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like, and, like you said, you maybe started rolling around on a board when you were four or five, but did you ever think in your wildest dreams that you'd still be skating at 40? Nah. No, I didn't, and in fact, I love it more now than I ever have.
Speaker 2:I was just about to say like nowadays, when I get out for a roll, I just have this, you know this deep appreciation for, like the feeling of your wheels just rolling along on concrete and like you know, just a few little tricks makes me super happy. Um, definitely not skating as much as I used to. A lot of the friends have, like, had families and stuff so it's hard to link up. But um, I definitely like in summer I'm skating once a week at least and then, like winter, it's a little bit harder.
Speaker 2:Melbourne's a bit wet, but um do you miss nz uh I miss like my family and friends and stuff like that, and when I'm it's weird. Like when I'm there, I miss it. You know, like when you're home, you're like like, oh, this is so good, like I'm going to miss this when I'm back in Melbourne. But yeah, like I definitely miss it and it's so nice like going back and working in Wellington and like linking up with friends and like for a long time I've been doing skate parks in Australia for years and different parts of the world, but it's so nice to like finally be working and like taking what I've learned and bringing that back to New Zealand because, like you know, I just feel like there could be some better parks there.
Speaker 2:Um, and I'm super keen to bring what we've been doing here to, like you know, hometowns. I did, um, well, we worked on a park in auckland called velonia skate park and that was like 2015 and that was like one of my proudest moments ever, like designing a park in auckland that I knew all my buddies were going to skate it and, um, it was like it like turned out really good, like I was super proud. I mean, there's always little things you're like, oh damn, we should have done that, but for me that was one of the proudest moments being able to like have my mum and dad there at the opening. My nana and granddad drove and, you know, had a look and, yeah, I contribute a little bit back home, it's cool man.
Speaker 1:I wonder if they'll ever name a skate park after you. Okay, here's a question.
Speaker 2:I hope not, that would be weird.
Speaker 1:If you were ever going to get a skate park named after you, hypothetically, which one would it be?
Speaker 2:I honestly don't think I would never want a park named after me because it's like Okay, good answer. I feel like it's like that community's park. It's not about us. It's sort of like whoever's like that community's park. It's not about us.
Speaker 2:It's sort of like whoever's testing you out, you're coming out it's, um, yeah, that's too much pressure and, like I said, like it's weird. Even you know I'm here, but I'm talking on behalf of like a whole team of like, yeah, builders, concreters um so many people that are like invested in what we're doing, so I'm just one little part of the puzzle.
Speaker 1:Yeah man, so rad dude. Were you a good student at school.
Speaker 2:I had my ups and downs Sort of nerd vibes.
Speaker 1:Nah, no nerd vibes. I kind of like Leon was a nerd.
Speaker 2:I didn't like high school that much. How would you know? I liked uni. I want to talk about that. Once I actually got to university and I was like studying creativity and design and stuff I was passionate about yeah, like I didn't like I felt like high school. I was being forced to learn stuff that I really did not give a shit about that's the most common theme that I hear, but every time yeah, once I got to uni I had these amazing lectures that were, like you know, just think big yeah and what was the action.
Speaker 1:Like you know, actually, I want to get this out there for kids that may be inspired by you and want to follow a similar trajectory, like what was the degree called?
Speaker 2:exactly so I studied landscape architecture landscape architecture but a lot of the guys in the office, like some are architects um some did building design and drafting um engineers like okay, like civil engineers uh, yeah civil engineers?
Speaker 1:do you guys or do you contract them?
Speaker 2:and stuff we've got um some employed. Sometimes we'll like um contract as well dude, but like so much goes into it honestly, honestly if there's like someone who is passionate about skateboarding and any type of design.
Speaker 2:I feel like it can translate and come in. I don't feel like there's one set career that you have to get into to get to this level. I feel like it's like work hard. You've got to be willing to put in a lot of personal time because it's um. You know, like we're working for the community but at the end of the day, we're also working for clients and, like quite often we're over budget. It needs to be redesigned, it's cut back, like you know, all sorts of things that are constantly changing um you know, it just sounds heavy because you're juggling big budgets here, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean not always.
Speaker 1:Well, it's big money. I mean, there's still big money involved. You know, whether it's tight or not, it's still big money, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so yeah, and like, yeah it's, it's definitely. It's like I said, it's always evolving and there's always some some new, like surprise thing that you're like oh shit, we didn't think about that. Like you know, like, um, whether it's ground conditions or like flooding, like we're working on a project in lismore at the moment and, as you know, like lismore floods crazy amounts, so like that's a big aspect of how we consider that design and making sure that, um, it can handle being completely submerged by like five meters of water.
Speaker 1:You know, wow, what's the most expensive skate park in sydney come?
Speaker 2:on. I mean, we didn't build it, we designed it, but it would be sydney park it is sydney um, that was concrete skate parks, but it was expensive because of-. The landfill, the landfill. They had to do a lot of like treatment to get the geotech right. There was, do you know, like-.
Speaker 1:That can't be healthy for people, man or just pack it in.
Speaker 2:Well, they do like special membranes that capture it all in there.
Speaker 1:There's like or just push it down into the core of the earth.
Speaker 2:that capture it all in there. Oh, okay, just push it down into the core of the earth. Then there's also like with a park like that, because the way that they were treating it they were pretty much like pounding the land to get it compacted, and they have to do like dilapidation reports on all the apartments nearby and like before and after photos to check that they haven't cracked the bloody building, damn. So there's a lot of hectic stuff going on with. You know that was a big, expensive park and full credit to them for getting it finished. I know like they probably have to talk to them, but I know like they were like almost put out of business by that park for how much money it cost. Stressful, stressful.
Speaker 3:You need to appreciate it.
Speaker 1:When a new skate park opens, the amount of work that goes through it yeah, I mean, how do you feel when you know like let's, let's use the brick banks at tech park as an example? There was a bit of a drama. You had to rip him out, put him back in. How does it then feel? You go to a skate park and then you see like it's been tagged and graffitied all over. Uh, can you share?
Speaker 2:about that heartbreaking, so it is heartbreaking yeah, like for us, you know there's so many people involved like those guys concreting are spending hours and hours, waking up at like 5 am, blood, sweat and tears, putting everything into that park, you know. And the other thing that people don't know is like like I don't want to be like the fun police, but like if you're graffitiing a skate park and then council comes and like goonies that off, they blast the ground like ruining the surface.
Speaker 2:So the more you clean it off, the more you paint it clean. Paint clean, the rougher it gets and it's um not good for the lifespan of that facility. So and then?
Speaker 1:because, like, but it can be resurfaced, but that's just another big mission, isn't it? Yeah, it's never the same.
Speaker 2:Like you know how hard that process was to get the money for the park in the first place. True, Like you have to go through that whole process again to get the funding to go and fix up what was already fine in the first place. But yeah, I mean it happens and at the end of the day it's a community space and it's owned by the community. So if that's what they want to do, they can do whatever they want.
Speaker 2:But like from our perspective and from a skate perspective, I would always encourage people to be like just try and keep the surface nice. What if?
Speaker 1:someone does like a nice mural or a nice piece on it, like that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say like, try and keep it to like the walls or vertical surface that you know, less kind of skate surfaces.
Speaker 1:Okay, so tell the graffiti people like, do it on the vertical walls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I'm not the boss of skate parks, so whatever.
Speaker 3:Sometimes the council like permits, like artworks to be done on the floor.
Speaker 2:I've seen some skate parks that have been painted like pussy's got that big shane cross, yeah, yeah, like that, yeah and that old section, but that's not gonna be blasted off and make the ground ruined, so that's a different case.
Speaker 2:I guess they leave it there yeah, I mean yeah, it's always like every skate park. It's a case by case scenario and I don't know, don't have all the answers, but I think it's more like for us it's when, like, the new park gets graft immediately, yeah, immediately. Come on, guys, give it a couple of years yeah, yeah again.
Speaker 1:Like most people aren't considering the blood, sweat and tears and years yeah of work that have gone into that being there. So it's it's actually good to hear, even for myself, because I don't take it for granted. I think we all take it for granted sometimes yeah, I think like a lot of the stuff.
Speaker 2:It's probably like a bit of an eye-opener for heaps of skaters that they don't know the backstory about, like people like you know, trent and Cameron, like pushing and getting and advocating these parks in the first place. Or, like you know, council, like the good people at council that are actually like pushing for like decent facilities and putting the funding aside for them. There's so much going on in the background, hello, dog.
Speaker 3:It's good that they're using their power, I guess, or their position in the skate industry, to do that for sure, and there's.
Speaker 2:you know, over the years I've had so many legends, I've worked with um at different councils that are like so on board with what we're doing, they trust us just to let us do what we do and what we're good at um, which that's the dream because, like it's been earned though. Yeah, like sometimes someone will be like trying to tell you how to build a skate park from counseling and like just let us do it.
Speaker 3:You do your job, we'll do our job. Shut up Cam yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, jock, can we get the next park up? And I think it's the last one we've got up, and you know it's the one in Melbourne've got up and, uh, you know it's the one in melbourne at paris escape that's it.
Speaker 2:That's it so this is so why? Why?
Speaker 1:is this special to you?
Speaker 2:that looks so good. So this one, it's got your rails is the probably our most recent build um and again like a really long time in the in the process and a long time coming.
Speaker 1:It's the vert ramp.
Speaker 2:So that one. I think the first park was built in 1977. And there's been about six different editions.
Speaker 1:One of the OGs man. The vert ramp was so symbolic yeah.
Speaker 2:So Christian Hussoy, Tony Hawk, Renton Miller, the Pappas brothers were all skating that vert ramp.
Speaker 1:Jason Ellis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's a really sick picture I saw of him there.
Speaker 1:Gary Valentine Dom Kekic. All the big dogs all the big dogs Legendary stuff, man.
Speaker 2:But so, yeah, I guess why it's important is all that history. There was a lot of people that commented on, like, what they wanted the space to be. And you know, like we, I guess we wanted it to be cutting edge to show because I feel like, personally, I feel like Melbourne's a little bit behind what Sydney's at like in terms of, you know, new cutting edge facilities. So for us, like at Convict, we don't always get many Victoria parks. So it was like our chance to be like this is right in our you know backyard, we want to get it right and, yeah, like heaps of the obstacles in that park, like not just the vert ramp, were bought from the old park, like the flat bar the flat down rail was bought from the old park into the new.
Speaker 3:The square one.
Speaker 2:Sick. I noticed that in some of the clips I saw the bank to ledge is the same proportions as the old bank to ledge, um like yeah, a lot of the obstacles have come through and that's directly from the community.
Speaker 1:um, what's that one feature on the pyramid, is it a little like quarter pipe, like so you on the back?
Speaker 2:So there's like a sort of cantilevered quarter pipe that's the back end of the pipe.
Speaker 3:He's on it.
Speaker 1:He's on it, he's a skater. Now we're going to make Jock a skater, whether he likes it or not. Yeah, what is that thing? So you've got the flat rail.
Speaker 2:So you've got a little cantilevered quarter pipe on the back, so granite that I see it from this angle you legend job he's lost it. Yeah, yeah, there's like this tiny little granite edge that, um, it's just like a little bit of a variation on the coping. I was wondering what that was. Looks like a little slappy light under the rail, yeah so that's another thing.
Speaker 2:Like we you know, I should shout out andrea from our office, um or bosh he. He spent so much time designing this park and like hours and hours and hours at night. But he was also like down there on site, like helping them with install, making sure we got it right. Um and you opted for tile ground so that's um bluestone paving which is iconic in mel, like all the city streets of bluestone.
Speaker 2:So, that was a big thing that we wanted to get in there. That big chunk of granite, that block, that's pretty sick. The mini ramp was come. Another one, like the old park had a mini ramp, so we wanted to bring that through and also allow for that kind of skill progression like start on the mini ramp, work your way up to the vert ramp, Become an Olympian Dude. I saw a guy the other day doing switch 540s on the vert ramp Switch 540s.
Speaker 2:I can't remember his name, but it was like who the hell is it?
Speaker 1:We must know him.
Speaker 2:Man, I'd have to look on my phone Switch 540s really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't even like comprehend that I'm trying to think I'll send you the clip.
Speaker 2:Who it?
Speaker 1:could possibly be.
Speaker 2:It was a young dude. Oh my gosh, I knew something like this would come up that I wouldn't be able to remember. Oh man, If only I could phone a friend. Get it if you want. That's all good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what Switch 540 is on the VRAM?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll try and find it and put it on the. We'll get it on the Convict.
Speaker 1:Instagram. Yeah, like I do want to go back to the Olympics, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do it, let's just go.
Speaker 1:Like you know, I mean okay. So how much is it coming up in conversations, in design meetings, in terms of breeding Olympians? Because this is just a. This is the big thing for the culture, this is a big thing for skateboarding. Here we are, Where's it going? Let's go.
Speaker 2:I mean. So certain councils will definitely be like that's a big part of their brief is like these days, like a few of them in particular, like we want to be able to, you know, put our town on the map. You know, hopefully have economic benefits that will bring people to our town. You know, like, if you think about the Bondi Bola Rama, for example, how many people came for that, what it's doing for the economy and the little shops around the neighborhood. A lot of the towns are seeing the commercial benefit of something like that.
Speaker 2:So definitely say, like the Lismore project, they're really keen to like push the training aspect and, you know, working with people like donnie fraser to set up um, like competitions there. So we will be talking with professionals like pro skaters, people that hold competitions and getting that kind of perspective when we're designing it like how can we make this better for competitions? What you know, where would you set up for judging um? You know where, what sort of big banger obstacles do we need to put in so that it's going to bring people in um, or like just certain?
Speaker 1:things mimicking potentially an olympic skate park set up, yeah, like we don't mean, the bowls are one thing, but yeah the street courses.
Speaker 2:I mean it's a tricky thing like I don't know. Say, if pussy, for example, has like a lot of these olympic level or scale obstacles and you know I've talked with quite a few really good skaters that are just like that it doesn't have as much flow and the obstacles are really big and it's not really what we want to skate day to day. But then others will be like it's sick and you know Chloe Cavell was training there. I saw her do like a blunt kickflip out the other day, so young.
Speaker 1:She came to like Did you see her at SLS in Sydney?
Speaker 2:last year, yeah, she was killing it. She came to like the Adelaide city skate park opening and I've seen that, yeah, like she was ripping, yeah, and this is kind of before she was winning some comps and I was like, oh, that girl was really good and then next level, next minute, she's, like you know, winning these comps, like up there with fraser and young these, oh my god.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, what's so hectic is, you know, if you think about how many um olympic level you know, karen woolley uh, keegan palmer, chloe cavall arisa true, a lot of these olympic level skaters that may podium uh coming from Australian skate parks that aren't really Olympic level training facilities. They're more like kind of I don't know like I don't know non-traditional skate parks.
Speaker 3:They're really young too, all of them people.
Speaker 2:I know it's hectic, it's hectic.
Speaker 1:I mean, I also think it's a product of coming from a privileged society, like we are a privileged society compared to other parts of the world. You know where the basic needs are being met for these children. Generally, even though it's an expensive country we live in, their basic needs are met so they have the freedom and the space to go and learn how to skate as good as they can. You know there's a lot of countries where kids are having to get a job really early so they can put food on the table and things like that you know so.
Speaker 1:I think that could be a product of it as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like we're extremely lucky in Australia that, like there is so many different skate parks and you know like, even coming from New Zealand, I'm like man. I wish that we had this many parks at home and there's some rippers coming out of New Zealand Like a lot of the dudes moving to Melbourne and that it's kind of the standard next step you move from like Welly or Christchurch and you move to Melbourne, nixon.
Speaker 1:Osborne, for example.
Speaker 2:He rips oh man, he's killing it right now. Yeah, yeah, he's a super humble, nice guy as well. Yeah, I think he's related to Lee Ralph, right, is he? I think it's his uncle, or maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1:That explains it. Lee Ralph is the biggest legend. Yeah, wild man. Okay, do you know who Lee Ralph is?
Speaker 2:fair enough he's old verse skater from the 80s, not gonna pretend. Old verse skater from 80s. He's our best export, I reckon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean iconic, Iconic. And an artist, profound artist as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Man, why does New Zealand produce the goods Like? I actually think New Zealand produces the best comedians in the world as well, man, yeah, it's so weird Dude like what's going on there, like Flight of the Conchords dude. I feel like those guys, those guys are chords, dude, like, I feel like those guys who else has come out of there? That's funny as shit. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Heaps of stuff yeah, they crack me up best sense of humor I saw um, is it what says brett mckenzie? Like when I was in and I was like, oh my god, like real starstruck, like just walking past, like oh my gosh, yeah, they're, yeah, they're so funny yeah and there's that kid.
Speaker 1:Isn't that movie, the Hunt for the Wilder People?
Speaker 2:Yeah with Sam Neill.
Speaker 1:With Sam Neill and the kid in that he's really like coming, he's the same kid, that was like in that ad.
Speaker 2:Have you seen that ad? And it's like, oh, my dad's like you know, like, and the dad's a full stoners and it's like a don't do drugs and drive ad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so funny and like I think the comedy comes because it's just so natural, like it's not super forced, I don't know yeah.
Speaker 1:That's right, it's classic dude. Well, I want to ask as we start to wrap it up, you know, I want to sort of put Leon on the spot, Like you know what would you personally like to see more of in skate park design, and don't just say flat rails?
Speaker 3:That's what's hard. When I'm doing my videos I try and highlight what's good about the park, what's bad about it. I would be easily happy with a long flat bar and a ledge, but not everyone would be. A lot of people say that, yeah, a ledge, but not everyone would be. A lot of people say that, yeah, but just a park that has variety enough for a like majority of people like a bit of transition some manuals, some like rails and stuff run up, which I never considered was a good thing that you had to plan for. But even like progression things too. So like it's something smaller and then something bigger. Like you said about the mini ramp leading to the vert ramp. Like if there was no mini ramp, people would be like why is there just a giant vert ramp here and nothing else? Like I can't even learn how to drop in here? Like little progression kind of steps.
Speaker 2:I think like, yeah, like that Prawn skate park. I say that in the most Kiwi way. It's meant to be like Prawn, I thought it was Prawn. I say Pra way, it's meant to be like paran, but I thought it was pran. I say probably because I've been saying but yeah, like it's legendary that park's got like the little flat bar and then there's the big, big flat bar and it's sort of like these kind of um skill development. Yeah, within the features um but yeah, it is interesting from our perspective.
Speaker 2:Like you know, what park don't you like for, for whatever? Like we, we like to hear the feedback as well. Like, yeah, what don't you like and why or what could you have done better? Um, because, like you know, I feel like there's a few different companies designing and building parks in australia and, like everyone, they're all super passionate.
Speaker 2:But you know, we all, we've all got to like, learn and keep evolving as we go, or else you become, like you know, you're no longer relevant, right so I think progression we definitely try and get feedback from our users, especially if it's in a place that you're not like um going all the time, like, say, wa will hit, like ben bowring up or someone like that. That's like skating the local parks that we've designed and built and be like what could we do better?
Speaker 2:like you know, and he'll tell you straight up like, oh, you got the slappy curb wrong, or like you know. So, like I was saying today, like our more recent parks will have a bigger angle on the slappy curb and we might have dropped it 25 mil from like five years ago. And you know you've, you've got to go skate the park and figure it out and see what's working is there any granite slappy curbs around?
Speaker 2:just asking for a friend uh, there's one in melbourne called highlands north and that's granite and it feels sick would that chip away faster though, because flappy is like you're bashing into it Depends how you build it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, true.
Speaker 1:Well, you think a slight angle on the face of the curd helps.
Speaker 2:So a bit of an angle and it depends like, yeah, like how many kind of segments it's going to be in and how the joints work. Okay, yeah there's so much to it. Oh, dude, yeah.
Speaker 1:Such an eye-opener and me and my friends talk about this all the time I never thought I would see this level of skate park design in my lifetime, to the point where it's like beyond my imagination, beyond my wildest dreams, things are being created that I never even thought of. So my first ever skate movie was the Search for Animal Chin.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then?
Speaker 1:I seen they had a vert ramp with a spine a roll in.
Speaker 2:They put a little mini ramp on the platform, the mini ramp on the top, yeah.
Speaker 1:And at the time I was like I just couldn't conceive that someone had that idea you know, and I thought well, that's it, like that's the pinnacle of design.
Speaker 1:Now, look at that, wow. And in some ways I'm a little bit resentful because I'm like I wish they happened when I was young and fresh and could enjoy them a bit more. But I do enjoy them because it feels like there is something for everyone, like even you know, you ask Leon what he likes, you know flat rails and other stuff. But you know, for me I'm really happy with, like a fun manual pad, a nice mini ramp, you know.
Speaker 2:Did?
Speaker 1:we should Maybe a slappy curb and I'm pretty satisfied. But I want a Euro gap, a fun Euro gap, yeah, and it's just. All my needs are being met. You know, it's amazing. And then, when I want to step it up, yeah, there's a higher ledge and yeah, there's a little hubbub.
Speaker 2:So well, that's what I was saying. Like, next time, if you come down to melbourne, come to our office I'll show you how it all like, yeah, the different steps in the process and, like you know, behind the scenes, like even if we're doing another park in sydney, we can like stop in and show your designs and sort of how we consider things. Um, cause it's an interesting process and they'll definitely be, like you know, quite often, like the one simple thing is less is more is generally better, because if you try and cram too many obstacles in you
Speaker 2:can't get the right line. Um, but yeah, like that's one of my favorite questions at a consultation is, like, you know, if you could have one feature in this park, what would it be? Yeah, because like that helps people go from like, I want a mini ramp, I want a rail, I want this, I want that. But then, like you know, it's really hones in on like, for all this time I just wanted a kicker over a hydrant, yeah, or something like that, or a perfect kicker to kicker, and. And then it's like for us, you know, we remember those conversations when we're back in the office and like, oh man, got to get that right. Like you know, that guy was so passionate about this and this is going to be his local, or he runs a skate shop and he's like, got all these kids that want this, and so, yeah, that's sort of one of our dominant questions. I would say, like just trying to figure out what people actually want.
Speaker 3:You might find the gap that's missing from other parks too, like the kicker over the hydrant. Oh, for sure, no one's got that. It makes sense to put it in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, like you know, if we're doing consults, we'll get people to. You know, have you seen anything in parks in America? Or you know like, oh man, I went to copenhagen a while back and did you go to copenhagen open I didn't, but I went to heaps of skate parks and just skate around the city and stuff and that city is like the city of the future.
Speaker 2:Um, I've heard that they're thinking big and they think like they're making like spots throughout the city that are good for skating, rather than just like you know oh, dude, like I can't believe you're saying that.
Speaker 1:I mean, uh, past guest and friend, dr indigo willing works at sydney university. She has a fellowship and they're they're basically working on skatable cities and design and how making like art features skatable and they're going through this full process at the at the moment. So look out for that. Well, yeah, like at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:You want people hanging out in cities. You want young people, you know, having somewhere to go, not just skate parks, like stuff that they can hang out in the city right and just session a ledge. There's. Um, I heard roon glithberg talking because he kind of is involved in the skate park design and he was talking about this project. I can't remember. It's somewhere over like europe, I don't know if it's copenhagen, but it's like a full drainage system that's all concrete and it's like a drain that they've pretty much made skatable so it can handle the city's. Um, you know, water runoff when it's inundated and then it dries out and it's's like that multifunctionality that's. You know that forward thinking is. You know it's so important because, like, we're running out of space and we've got to think about what's the best way we can do things that's going to suit all sorts of different people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's exciting, man. You know, like I was just thinking about the old Martin Place, the old Martin Place pit was an amphitheater. I was just thinking about the old Martin Place, the old Martin Place pit was an amphitheatre. But the ledges on the bottom step became so skatable and it was just built in a circular design. But then at the other end of the Martin Place there was an artistic sculpture. There was like a bunch of pyramids on top of each other and then one side of it was like just a flat bank, and I mean that was the most skated flat bank in Sydney. Man, it was a metal flat bank and it was never designed for that. So it was like skatable art and this is what Indigo is working on. Is like this happening more in cities? Let's have this beautiful piece of art sculpture that's skatable. Why not? Because the reality is it's going to just get skated anyway.
Speaker 1:Legends are going to get skated. They're going to get the caps taken off them.
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah.
Speaker 1:And let's embrace it and, like you said, forward-thinking countries like Norway.
Speaker 2:I don't know. They're just so much more progressive than us. When I was young we would skate Airtier Square in Auckland and you've probably seen it. It's been on like manual magazine covers and stuff. There's this water fountain, that's like these perfect kind of sort of zigzag flat banks and it was so fun and it had like a three stair and like this little ramp in with a ledge on the side. That was like ground to like nothing.
Speaker 2:But you know, at that time, I don't know, like early mid 90s, there wasn't many like fit for purpose progressive skate parks and these spots were like really good. And now like they've left that there. They made it, you know, kept it skatable with the different versions of, as they've like um, rebuilt that square, but they left the like fountain skatable and I don't know, man, I love that like sentimental meaning of those little things, that like skaters think about something in such a different way and it's so important to them. And like you know, talking to you guys through the cannonball and the Darling Harbour Brickbanks, like it's, you know, I remember like the guy sort of at that consultation for Glebe telling us about what he wanted to put in the park and like the passion and you know to go to all that effort to bring like pictures and 3Ds and like, oh, if you need more information, I've got it. And you know like what other humans have this attachment to the landscape and like the urban realm, like that. That's what's different. Skaters are weirdos, yeah.
Speaker 1:They're weirdos because they're artists. It's like art Skateboarding is art. It's like there's such a big component to it and so, because of the art aspect and the creativity, it's emotional. So that guy you're talking about he had an emotional attachment to that piece of urban structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there's an emotional attachment to it, you know, and especially if you land a good trick on it, you know, and then it gets torn down. It's like, it's emotional, it's like, oh, remember when I did that kickflip of that gap and it's not there anymore. And then it becomes, becomes like you know, uh, what's the word? Like, just legendary, like, um, urban, you know urban myth that so-and-so did a kickflip over that and I don't know. That's what I'm rambling a bit, but you know what I mean but that's.
Speaker 2:That's why, like, I don't know, like I love seeing any skate park designer or architect or whatever that's trying to like, push it and think big and create something that you haven't seen before, like, yes, we've got to get the fundamentals right that suits, like progression and um, you know, an old school leg skater, but also trying to do something that's a little bit different, like that feature at pran that's got like the, the sort of weird hip with the um cantilevered quarter and the little granite ledge and yeah, yeah that looks so fun that's an essential feature like trying to make something that just looks different than what you've seen in a skate park before.
Speaker 1:Um do the guys at convict kind of feel like this is the. I know it's one of your latest projects, but it's kind of like the pinnacle of all the years of hard work uh, like I think we're, yeah, at the moment we're super proud of this.
Speaker 2:It's just opened, um, and you know like it was a struggle, it was a long project, there was a real struggle. And like, yeah, like definitely, you know like it was a struggle, it was a long project, it was a real struggle. And like, yeah, like definitely, you know we designed that whole space, so the skate park, the pedestrian areas, the vert ramp, the mini ramp, the court, the balustrade and fence that goes around the whole thing. Like I think there's a lot of thinking that's going into that, like keeping people separated from the busy road. You know there used to be a lot of antisocial behavior and drug use because the vert ramp was at the front side of the park, blocking views in and like it kind of became a hub for like dodgy characters.
Speaker 2:So the vert ramp's been moved, so it's actually a whole new vert ramp.
Speaker 1:Oh, I actually thought it was the OG one.
Speaker 2:Oh, because the OG1 is against the wall the og1 was on melvin road, like the road on okay I don't know how to explain. I'm trying to point behind me, the other side, but basically, um, so we've added a foot of flat and reduced the height just a little bit.
Speaker 1:But copied the curve, transition curve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's pretty much like dude. There was some very passionate vert skaters.
Speaker 1:Did Renton Miller weigh in on that one? Surely.
Speaker 2:It's a big time. Of course he does, I mean he's the king of that fight. Yeah, he's very passionate. I don't think anyone would have skated that vert more than him.
Speaker 2:Oh man, he kills it, still kills it, but yeah, like. So by putting that at the back of the site, you're opening up views, you're making it safe for, like young kids that you know like there's a whole lot of sort of different thinking about like these social aspects of like what we're doing and like giving young people you know, young female skaters somewhere that they feel safe and like not dodgy dudes lurching and all that you know. So, yes, it's definitely one of our proud moments and like it's 25 years of convict next year. So for us, like I think we've worked on this park like three different times and for us to kind of be re-engaged and to be like you know this is where we're at from, like where we started, at some definitely a real proud moment and like the first roll, like all the guys were so happy, just like rolling around, like oh oh dude.
Speaker 3:Looks amazing yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations to you, come skate it. Yeah, we will. Let's do a mission down to Melbourne, leon.
Speaker 3:I'm keen, it looks so nice.
Speaker 2:Take the podcast on the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got a portable setup. I'd love to actually.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Talk to some skaters down there. But well, congratulations to you and the convict team, obviously.
Speaker 2:Cheers boys Big project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, keep doing. If you're out there and you're listening and you want to get something moving in your local area, whether you're in a remote place or otherwise, just start taking action, because only action brings about change. You can talk about it and think about it, but harass your councils. Put it on them, they work for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, it's public space, space it's taxpayers money. You know, if you get enough people weighing in, stuff will happen. And like I've seen it, I swear like every skate park that we're working on and talking to that community they're like oh, we've been waiting for this for 10 or 15 years. You got no idea. And I'm like I have some idea, just like everyone's talking like that they've been waiting for so long, like that byron bay one they were.
Speaker 2:You know they've been waiting for so long and I remember the passion and the pressure to get it right after so long. Yeah, it was a good moment that we're all, like you know, very proud, like once we get a park built and we feel like we've done a good job, like it's a good moment, dude, how are you feeling Rick Ready to leave it there?
Speaker 1:Is that okay? I don't know. Yeah, anything else you want to say you got to go now.
Speaker 3:I've definitely got a new respect for like skate park building after learning how much goes into it.
Speaker 2:I'll just say thanks for having us on and I feel like it's good to have like a voice in Australia that sort of you know as a skater listening to like Chima's podcast and like these really influential skaters. It's epic to see what you guys are doing and I know like that's a lot of effort to set up a podcast and time and all that. So appreciate it and full power to you, man.
Speaker 1:I hope for I hope it uh keeps going well hold on, brother, mr simon bogolo, everybody and thanks, leon, and shout out jock you legend, love you buddy, love you buddy, we're good Beautiful.
