Rampnation

Having not rode in a couple of weeks, and in an attempt to man up to my hangover, decided to go and check out the new indoor skatepark in Devizes tonight, called 'Rampnation.' The park has separate bike sessions and on Sundays it is from 5 apparently, so at about half 4 I went and picked up Alex and Reece, a couple of the younger dudes in our crew, and we made our way to the park.

First of all, Devizes is much further than I thought, it took us best part of an hour to get there, but eventually we made it (though on the way back I ignored the sat-nav and did it in half an hour). The park is fairly small, but all the ramps are obviously brand new and at first glance it looks like they've made pretty good use of the space. The park has a 4ft and a 6ft mini, then one wall has a long vert quarter all the way down it and the opposite wall is made up of flatbanks. Then side by side through the middle there is a jump box,  a driveway with an up-down box and an up-flat box down either side, then there is also a long flat down rail and a couple more ledges down a short flatbank.

Unfortunately the park is one of those places where there can't ever really be more than 4 people riding at any one time, and so when it is fairly busy you can have to wait a fair while for your go sometimes. Also the only place to wait for your run is at the top of the long flatbank down one wall, which makes the flatbank hard to ride and the wallride completely unrideable. The 4ft mini is definitely designed with the skaters in mind, for a bike it sucked, it was just far too mellow, and I personally don't like how all the ledges have round coping as opposed to angle iron. It's just my opinion but I think ledges should be square and rails should be round and never the other way round. I am glad to say the flat rail was round though, because square rails are far too common in most parks.

Complaints out the way, we did have a fun time riding, some of the Chippenham boys were there, so it's always good seeing them. Unfortunately after an hour or so, I got a bit cocky on a wallride that I landed perfect first go, then second hit, showing off, I landed real back wheel first in to a steep bank and looped out and rolled my ankle kinda bad, so for the last hour or so I rode super chilled and just watched everyone else kill it.

All in all, it's always awesome to have another place indoors to ride for over the winter. The park does have a few faults but it is definitely worth checking out if you're not too far away.

P.S: Check the park website here: http://www.rampnation.co.uk/

Just stole this photo from their website, but you can see the bank to flat rail with the flatbanks/wallride in the background