# the local skatepark doesn't allow bikes, how can i change that?



## Lickqid (Aug 9, 2005)

I live in mason, MI, the local skatepark looks like it'd be great for my dobe, but they don't allow bikes. I can't see why, it definitely seems to be built to handle them. How should I go about trying to get bikes allowed? Check the park out at:

http://www.concretedisciples.com/skateparksdb/skateparks_display.php?id=1090


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## snaky69 (Mar 8, 2005)

Talk to city council, are there any guys paid to watch out for people getting hurt there? Might want to befriend one and he might let you ride.

Point out that due to the rubber tires and brakes, bikes do a lot less damage to skateparks and such.

Good luck.


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## Lickqid (Aug 9, 2005)

snaky69 said:


> Talk to city council, are there any guys paid to watch out for people getting hurt there? Might want to befriend one and he might let you ride.
> 
> Point out that due to the rubber tires and brakes, bikes do a lot less damage to skateparks and such.
> 
> Good luck.


nah, the park is usually really slow, just a few local skaters and younger kids. However, for some reason there are tons of cops in our small town, and I'm sure they'd ticket me. I'll talk to the council,

What are the reasons parks wouldn't allow bikes?


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## snaky69 (Mar 8, 2005)

Lickqid said:


> nah, the park is usually really slow, just a few local skaters and younger kids. However, for some reason there are tons of cops in our small town, and I'm sure they'd ticket me. I'll talk to the council,
> 
> What are the reasons parks wouldn't allow bikes?


Usually they are afraid we'll run into the skaters, or they can't get through their thick heads that bikes actually damage a skatepark a lot less than skateboards do.

Edit: sometimes it also has to do with insurance. They are responsible if you get hurt on their property.


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## XSL_WiLL (Nov 2, 2004)

Bikes have brakes, we can stop. Bikes have nice soft rubber tires full of air, not hard little wheels. Grinds should not damage the skatepark if it was properly designed with coping and what not.

I'm sure google will turn up a lot more reasons.


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## snaky69 (Mar 8, 2005)

XSL_WiLL said:


> Bikes have brakes, we can stop. Bikes have nice soft rubber tires full of air, not hard little wheels. Grinds should not damage the skatepark if it was properly designed with coping and what not.
> 
> I'm sure google will turn up a lot more reasons.


I used all of those with the supervisor of this small skatepark I made the bunny hopping sequence in. Now he lets me and all my friends in.


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## Vlad (Feb 7, 2004)

Do what any BMXer would do: barge it and ride it.


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## E30Evolution (Sep 18, 2004)

Vlad said:


> Do what any BMXer would do: barge it and ride it.


Yeah that's usually a pretty bad idea, especially if the park is gated in. Once the cops show up you're screwed. Get this, we have a brand new cement park that got built by my house and of COURSE it's blades and boards only. Ridiculous. So, a while back a group of BMX'ers got together and protested basically that there were no parks for bikes to ride in. The cops showed up and a few kids got arrested and had their bikes confiscated. There was like a 10 minute clip of it on Fuel TV on Project Detention.

Anyhow, that park at my house has a cop sitting there EVERY DAY from about 4pm until 10pm (when everyone is there) making sure that bikes don't get inside the park. It's so stupid, I'm sure cops have better things to do then kick bikers out of skate parks. I need to get a group of my friends together that ride and try do something about it. Like it's been said, if a park has the right coping, etc a bike should do less damage to it then a skateboard will.

/rant.


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## sittingduck (Apr 26, 2005)

E30Evolution said:


> Get this, we have a brand new cement park that got built by my house and of COURSE it's blades and boards only. Ridiculous. So, a while back a group of BMX'ers got together and protested basically that there were no parks for bikes to ride in. The cops showed up and a few kids got arrested and had their bikes confiscated. There was like a 10 minute clip of it on Fuel TV on Project Detention.


I saw that a while back, AMAZING.

What kills me, is that the SKATERS who like to think they are anarchists, that skate wherever they feel like skating, and love to ignore NO SKATING rules and signs, actually have the BALLS to hide behind signs that say: "NO BIKES".


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## Epschoenly (Jan 25, 2006)

It is important to realize a township's motivation for not letting bikers in. When a town builds a public park they work with one of the numerous builders out there, some of which are good, and do good **** and some whom are for the most part concrete jockey's who don't care what they are building. There is around skateparks a collective mythos that bikes do alot of damage to parks, then builders who really don't know their **** or concerned memebers of city councils who read about other parks which ban bikes, just go ahead and ban bikes in the parks. So you see it isn't so much that anyone gives a **** about what the **** a bunch of teenagers are doing on bikes as much as they care about enforcing a rule, justly or unjustly established. 

I believe the wisest plan of action would be to get all the BMX cats, and your parents(yes...ugh...parents) and go in front of the city council and ask that the issue be adressed. By involving one's parents whom support you, you appear less as angry-deliquent youths, and more like concerned citizens. Good Luck.


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## cummings (May 21, 2005)

http://www.bmxonline.com/bmx/features/article/0,15737,1578105,00.html

do this


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## f0ggy (Jul 5, 2006)

cummings said:


> http://www.bmxonline.com/bmx/features/article/0,15737,1578105,00.html
> 
> do this


wow.....stunning.....


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## Lickqid (Aug 9, 2005)

cummings said:


> http://www.bmxonline.com/bmx/features/article/0,15737,1578105,00.html
> 
> do this


wow, I don't think there is anywhere near that large of a scene here, but that was amazing.


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## snaky69 (Mar 8, 2005)

Lickqid said:


> wow, I don't think there is anywhere near that large of a scene here, but that was amazing.


Knowing myself I would've gotten in trouble there. probably would've kicked the cops' ass.

Arresting a 10yr old. What the fawk. There are drug dealers, rapists, and serial killers out there, and they mobilize the police to get a few kids out of a park where they're doing nothing but having fun.

They should be lined up on a wall and shot in the face for their stupidity.


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## Lickqid (Aug 9, 2005)

more info, the park is never supervised, ride at your own risk. Would that mean that the liability issue doesn't exist? I plan on calling the Mason Parks Department on monday and explaining my situation and asking what can be done.


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## boatshow (Oct 11, 2006)

Man, good luck. I just moved away from Lansing at the beginning of the month, or I'd be there with you on Monday morning. 

Have you ever tried riding at the skate park thing at Fitzgerald Park in Grand Ledge? It's sort of a hike from Mason, but I know they allow bikes. I don't really remember if it's good or not, or what, seeing as how I never rode it, just saw it when I was at the park playing disc. I think they have like a half pipe and some boxes and the like.Good luck though. Those Mason cops are a bunch of *****es.


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## Cozza (Oct 20, 2005)

There's a park going in here summer 2007 (Mason, OH) and I hope they let bikes in. I'll have to check it out


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## E30Evolution (Sep 18, 2004)

cummings said:


> http://www.bmxonline.com/bmx/features/article/0,15737,1578105,00.html
> 
> do this


That's the clip I mentioned earlier in my post. So stupid what the city and police do to kids trying to bike in a park.


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## mrpercussive (Apr 4, 2006)

cummings said:


> http://www.bmxonline.com/bmx/features/article/0,15737,1578105,00.html
> 
> do this


awesome video... i wish there were skateparks around here for me to play in too...


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## sittingduck (Apr 26, 2005)

We have a bunch of parks where I live. There are 2 cities right next to each other, and the one with most of the parks actually has a law that says bikes cannot go in skateparks. Fortunately, it is comletely ignored, and bikes ride in all of them. 
The one park in the other city is bike friendly thanks to the local bike shop. The owner advocated for bikes to be accepted. More of that type of thing needs to happen. If a park is being built, get involved, get your friends, their parents, the bike shops, whoever you can get, and make a case for bikes to be allowed.


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## biker kid (Jan 18, 2007)

yeh, what i would do is talk to the city council and not necessarily making the park open to both skaters and bikers but about having a special bike night every week that doesn't allow skaters.


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## todd_freeride (Aug 9, 2005)

we had a big problem with it for a while. like I said before, there is a skate park less than 1500 feet from my house. we talked to the city council. with a sh!t load of effort, we finally got bikes allowed untill noon. but really, the cops couldent care less. its only the city people, and ones who maintain the park. 

my last park adventure. I was riding my bike in the skatepark, it was 4 in the afternoon. the whole place wreaked of pot. dumb arse skaters smokeing it up. so cop drives by, easily gets the smell. sees the kids tossing their joints into the bowl. they all blamed me of course, the cop looked at me. checked my pockets, I came up clean. so he asked me to get off my bike and sit aside. this also happened with another skateboarder and a lone BMXer. the skater punk kids all got arrested. and taken downtown. as the cops were leaving, they never even mentioned "dont ride your bikes here" they were just like "okay, you guys can go about your buisness, have fun and be safe"

but be careful, park managers are total bs. 

heres my story. me and about 3 other friends were at the skatepark. it was maybe 7PM we see a city truck pull of, but we just dont care. because you know...its not the cops or anything, the guy doesnt have any authority there. but he just walks over to my friend, and punches him in the face and screams at us "I thought I told you G** D*** F****** bikers to get the F*** out of here G** D*****" so then my friend got up and kicked the city worker dude in the stomach, then the guy fell into the deep bowl and broke his arm. it was pathetic. we called the cops. again same thing. they took our story down, and sent us on our way, while the guy went to the hospital, then jail.

just dont do anything stupid. work with it legally, even if it means just being able to ride untill noon. because its kind of like ... when that rule gets on there...cops will lighten up...maybe.


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## bryang (Apr 24, 2004)

Check out www.accessbmx.com, lotsa good info there. On the flipside, there is a skater site called skatersforpublicskateparks.com (or something close to it) that is totally anti-bike. I CANNOT believe how some of these skaters address this issue. As stated above, they want free access to every street spot in town (even private property), but ***** like little girls if a bike shows up in "their" public-funded park. Never mind some of us have been riding longer than they've been alive (ok, I just turned 40 and still ride...) and I/we actually PAY TAXES that fund their park. Sorry about the rant, but I'm dealing with this issue locally at this time, and not having much luck.


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## Wayndar (Jan 13, 2004)

You gotta go through the legal channels otherwise the city just clamps down harder. The cops don't care, they're just enforcing whatever rule is posted on the sign. Most of the time the rec dept just copies the rules they found at another park. I worked through this whole thing for 5 years just to make sure that bikers could ride in our park. The city didn't really care if bikes were allowed or not, they asked the skatepark committee to write up some rules. I was there when the insurance adjuster came through and he didn't care if bikes were allowed- just that the rules required helmets for everyone. The skaters on the committtee were the most opposed to allowing bikes and fortunately I was there and had been on the committee for a long time. The skatepark builders gave me some grief about how much damage bikes do, but they kind of accepted it and luckily put in some big coping too.


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## carbuncle (Dec 9, 2005)

Every skatepark is bike friendly at 7am...


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## fiddy_ryder (Jun 15, 2005)

Ftp!!!


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## Cru Jones (Aug 10, 2006)

Are you sure they even enforce the no bikes rule? I remember riding a few small parks in college that said no bikes. But, it was so low key, nobody enforced it. Seems like the worst that might happen the first time is a warning. But, yeah, if it is enforced... city council route is the way to go.


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## carbuncle (Dec 9, 2005)

delete


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## Lickqid (Aug 9, 2005)

update, talked to the a council member. The bike park was built with skaters in mind, small, tight. But the bmx guys got their soon after it was opened and put gouges in the concrete with the pegs, so a many thousand dollar fence was build so that you can't really bring a bike in easily. I can't see the council budging, but he mentioned a piece of land in another park that they have, so he suggested that I propose a bike park there, I might just do it. Thanks for your advice


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## free rider (Nov 14, 2005)

its the skaters who are keeping us out....if the skateboarders wernt spreading the roumors about us damaging the parks more, or being reckless we would be allowed in the parks.

its the local skate population these protests need to target the only thing the city has done wrong is to listen to them. to stop the copy and paste of ill placed rules such as no bikes we need to target it at the source, sure making the city realize that we can get along will help, but for every park we are allowed into there are 2 more built where we are not. if skaters stop being whinning little *****es about co-exsistance than rules will change, if the skaters stop complaining then the city will stop banning us from riding. talking to the city will get one or two parks open to us, but talking to the skaters will be much more effective in getting more parks open in the future.

talk to the skaters first, because in truth if they stop riding at the parks because of us and start riding the streets the city would rather ban us, and let us loose on the streets than the skaters because they can and will do far more damage than us. 

target the skaters first, then worry about the council. if the skaters start relizing we are just like them (without anywhere to ride) and are being discriminated against by the city who is not only unwilling to provide us with somewhere to ride, but kicking us out of the places we provide ourselves then we may be allowed to ride at the parks.

so, anyone willing to create some mass skater awareness on some of thier online forums, and by even convincing one or two skaters (in turn thier friends, and thier friends, and thier friends) we may be able to create a difference. or am i just delusional?


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## Tracerboy (Oct 13, 2002)

*Do it right.*

The video is amazing, and it lets you see just how things can get but in the end follow the link below it will give you a better way to handle this situation.

We are going though something similar here with several local parks, and trying to make sure it doesn't happen at any of the new parks being planned.

http://bikesbelong.org/page.cfm?PageID=381


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## wolfman91 (Apr 9, 2007)

XSL_WiLL said:


> Grinds should not damage the skatepark if it was properly designed with coping and what not.


when they built our local park they forgot to fill the coping with concrete so bmx pegs have demaged it and dented it terribly, kinda good on our behalf cuz not as many skaters come.


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## jimage (Dec 22, 2006)

im alowed to ride in my local skatepark........... but it was made 20 years ago it has a 
very slipery small metal quater pipe some 1ft stairs 2 rails and its on a steep cemented 
hill with cracks in it from tree routes


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## jamesdc (Oct 31, 2005)

All of the parks by me are all no bikes, but the cops dont usually do anything, especially because there are more bikers than skateboarders.


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## dirtyharry (Jun 27, 2006)

cops are just another example of stuff that only sort of works in this country.


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