Skateboarding

Guide to Living

Skateboarding

Skateboarders build their own stunt ramp.

Derick "Disco" Robbins puts one foot on the front of his board and starts pushing with the other. As he nears the curved, wooden ramps he plants his other foot on the back of the board and lunges forward and upward with his body.

In another second he is at the top of the ramp. He carefully plants one hand on the ramp, grabs his board with the other, turns himself upside down, spins around and glides back down the ramp. He has just completed a straight-arm aerial, commonly referred to as an "invert". 

Robbins is a skateboarder. And he does a lot of riding down Fulmer Street in the northwest corner of Ann Arbor, where he and a group of neighborhood youths have built their own skateboard ramp. Now they are working on a second ramp — a "half pipe" they call it. 

"We started riding last summer," says Steve Kunselman, 15, one of those who worked on the ramp. "We would ride down Miller to downtown and practice freestyle on the Diag. Eventually we got good enough that we could ride back." The ride back on Miller is all uphill. 

By the end of last summer, Robbins, Kunselman and others like Davy Robbins, Dale Calvert and Luther Jones had gotten pretty good with their boards and wanted more of a challenge than was offered by the hills on Miller and a banked parking lot downtown. So they built themselves a 5 1/2 foot tall ramp out of scrap 2x4 and plywood. 

Some days the guys are out riding for hours, practicing "rock and roll", "inverts" and "tailblocks."

When they ride, they pull the ramp out into Fulmer Street, along one side. Usually they part a car in front of and in back of the ramp to block the area off from other traffic. Still, the Ann Arbor Police have been out a couple times and don't like the set up. 

"I'd rather have them riding right here than worry about them riding downtown someplace," says Albert Bayliss. The ramp usually sits in front of his house. 

Bayliss says there are almost always people out watching the kids — including adults — and the ramp is always put away early enough so it doesn't disturb any neighbors in the evening.

This summer, the guys decided they needed a new challenge, however, and now are building a "half pipe" ramp — sort of a semi-circle curved up on each end. 

They have traveled to skateboard parks — something they wish Ann Arbor had — in Roseville and Toledo to do some really good riding and to get a look at other skateboarders. 

Skateboarding looks simple enough. You stand on this board and propel yourself along on wheels — like roller skating — only the board isn't clamped to your feet. And the guys on Fulmer Street say they haven't had any accidents. They just keep riding up that ramp, aiming for the sky, perfecting their stunts.

- Rick Fitzgerald

FLYING HIGH — Steve Kunselman, left, does a "tailblock" on the homemade skateboard ramp he helped build last summer. Above, Derick "Disco" Robbins does a straight are aerial, also called an "invert," where his hand is the only thing touching the ramp. 

Perched atop their skateboard ramp with their equipment are, top from left, Steve Kunselman, and Davy Robbins; and bottom from left, Derick "Disco" Robbins and Luther Jones. 

A crowd gathers along Fulmer Street to watch Derick "Disco" Robbins do an "invert" on the homemade skateboarding ramp a group of neighborhood youths build last summer. They are working a "half pipe" this year.