Welcome to: Benny's Brisbane Skateboard Directory The site for skaters in Brisbane, Australia Compiled by Mark Brimson     Small Bowls List   All over Brisbane, Logan, surroundings...   Built: Mainly in the early to mid eighties   Suburbs where these bowls are located: (Some bowls have their own pages where they are fully described)   Boronia Heights Eugene St (Highland Park)   Bracken Ridge Playford St (Fred Francis Park)   Carindale Meadowlands Rd (Meadowlands Park)   Crestmead Coffey St (op Duranta Ct) Holland Park Logan Rd (Glindemann Park, op Pickthorne St)   Inala Swallow St (Swallow St Park)   Kangaroo Point / Wooloongabba Wellington Rd cnr Baines St (Raymond Park)   Marsden Pauline St and cnr Haven St   Rochedale Karoonda cr (right beside freeway)   Springwood Barbarella Dr cnr Shortland St   Sunnybank Woff St (Les Atkinson Park)   The Gap Waterworks Rd, cnr Glenaffric St (Walton Bridge Reserve)   Woodridge Oates Pde (Oates Park beside playing fields)   Back in the eighties, a lot of suburbs decided to put in a small bowl in a local park, rather than look to new and interesting ideas for skate ramps. It was a case of the tried and tested, small and safe, no worries to no one approach that made so many of these a "good idea at the time" skate ramp. Many of them are different, some with four sides and a drainage channel in one corner, many others only three sides with the open side facing on to nothing. Some have very nice pronounced transitions, others almost too tight to skate, yet others have virtually no curve at all and, or a roll over lip (no grinds either).   Pic of Holland Park when it first was built, 1980s   Me, tweak f/s grab over little hip of Holland Park, 1998 at least 10 years later! Check the look of the bowl and the clothes we were wearing then.   Even though these parks are not much fun anymore to the "new breed" of skateboarder who would prefer a set of stairs or a well waxed block, they are still used and looked back on as the starting point of many good ramp skaters, fueling their ambition and ability to ride transitions, myself included. As an example, 10 to 15 years ago I learned to drop in, grind, air and do various other tricks in a bowl no taller than my knee. Then a few years ago, when "switch" tricks (or riding the board the other way, for those who are not in the know) became popular, the first place I went was back to the little old local bowl, where I learnt how to do all the same tricks all over again, but this time doing them switch.   Once again, here I am, 1997, purple hair, b/s ollie bigger than the hight of the bowl itself, using the hip to pebble landing. These little bowls are great for launching if you can get the run up or the speed.   So next time someone says, "Lets go skate that old bowl", don't just write them off, but get down there and have a go. Try doing tricks you have tried on bigger ramps and not landed, or try something completely new. If you can drop in and stall the normal way, then try it switch. I learnt to do kick flips to fakie on ramps from skating at the Holland Park bowl, and if you have skated there before, you would know that the curves there are nice and easy for doing all sorts of tricks.   (Hopefully more pics coming soon, but I haven't taken pics of all these bowls, as they all do look the same in photos I take and put up here.)     email me at:   mbrimson@yahoo.com ***** (click here to send me mail) *****   Click the "BACK" button to return to the previous menu.