Old Ramps I skated and/or built


My first ramp was a piece of plywood leaning on a saw horse (sure sometimes we'd put a couple of nails in to stablize things). I used to love to really grind my little ACS 500 trucks. Seen here with my old fiberflex board with 60mm blue Kryptonics.

Carving this small of ramp took some loose trucks and some effort. Only problem was the ramp would colapse on a good carve grind.

The first vert ramp I rode in '77 was 4 feet wide. It was such a rush. I was hooked after the first ride. The owner of the ramp was doing wheelers on the top. I was impressed.

My first air was on this ramp in '77.

My first vert ramp was a joke '77. It looked good on paper. I wanted 3 feet of vert, 8 feet wide. But what I didn't understand was transition. It had 3.5 feet of tranny. That's the only way I could make it with two pieces of plywood. Ha! This was the highest I could ever get on it. But, I had my own vert YEAH!

So, I rebuilt and this was my second vert ramp. This one just went to vert had about 6 foot tranny. Frontside grinds have always been my favorite, ever since the flat saw horse ramp days.

1978 I'm trying to figure out how to do inverts, based solely on reading Skateboarder Magazine.

I decided that my quarter pipe needed more vert. So, I added it. And covered it with paneling. Which lasted longer than Masonite. Interesting, this trick is now called a lean air, I called it an underhand air. At the time, I sent Skateboarder Mag. a whole sequencial shot of me doing a frontside lean air. I had hopes that they might publish maybe one of the photos. But, to no avail. However, I did start to see pictures in the mag of pros doing lean airs well after I had sent my photos in.


More of Dan's ancient ramp photos.

Harvey's old ramp.