more pymble pool video

#1

Here is the link to the rest of the 78 Pymble pool footage. For my money, four f the five best Pymble skaters - Adrian Jones, Wedge Francis, Peter Aitken, amd Johnny McGrath - are seem a great deal in this footage. Thye fith, Tony Man, is sadly absent. Major SkateCity stars like Biff and Chris Briggs are present in glimpses (Tim and Biff are watching rom the 8/6 for much of the footage).

This is where vert skating in Australia really got real (I reckon). These were amongst the best days of my life and I am forever stoked to have been part of it.

A few points.

The new stuff is shorts3 and shorts4. If downloading time is a problem, go for just shorts3, because most of 4 is just a list of skaters I could still remember in 2003. (it does have a final burst of rad footage though).

Big apologies to Tim Whitton if he’s out there - I somehow changed your name to John Whitton!

Where possible, I used real names (rather than ‘Wedge’ or ‘Fox’ or ‘Barbs’ etc)

Wedge, re-send me your address to my email and I should now be able to send you and Johnny DVD copis of the full high resolution version.

http://www.putfile.com/drstoopid

#2

Bill, what excellent footage it is. Well done for posting it. How was Chris Brigg’s frontside inverts!! Adrian and Wedge as we all remember ruling. Pete Aiken’s backside airs were rad. Adrian and Wedge look so young. I suppose everyone does. Looking at those sessions I know why some of us used to go to Pymble at 4.00am in the morning … to get a few more goes!

#3

Dale, didn’t we first meet when you and Wombat turned up at Pymble before dawn and discovered me and Tony Man asleep in the bowl? You woke us up dude!

Anyway, I’ve realised that in 2003 I left out a lot of names from the credits, particularly guys who seemed much younger than me in those days (you know, 1 or 2 years is a big deal when you’re 15). I should have included:

John Finlay, John Grey, Danny Van, Greg Ambler, Richard Thompson.

If anyone else is left out (Lord Parker?), let me know, and I’ll fix it all when I re-edit.

#4

I finally got the patch that lets me watch this on my mac.
Except I can’t get #2 to download at all - never mind.
Is it John McGrath riding the board with the green top - he looks so tiny on it. He looks so flexible.

The bowl looks so tight and steep in the film.
I wish we had something like that in a skatepark. Not that I mind what we have - with a tight deep end and a big broad shallow end (use skateable but whippy transitions).
The bigger shallow end would make it possible to get a bit of relief. I’d like to see a Coborg with such a shallow end. - it would make it just a little less maniacal. Add a love seat. A light. deathbox. And other features.

The Dog Bowl at Marina Del Ray was a remake of the backyard Dog Bowl wasn’t it with a skateable shallow and the Keyhole was a remake of the original pool Keyhole. Does anyone know the facts? What about a remake of Pymble but skateable in the shallow. (when we are really old everybody could revert to childhood and stand around in the shallow making single runs at the deep). Or is that a bad idea.

Both Coborg and Frankston have shallows which are smaller than the deep (across) and I understand the physcis of this - but if there was a pool like bowl you would or could get into the differences of skating one end from the other rather than just the physics of speed in the shallow end. The Newport Bowl is like that - pool like shallow- but the rest of it is pure skatepark bowl. Its small but its not too bad at all - and it would be nice to see a bigger slightly more freeform version.

I say all this having just seen Frankston and realising that its a giant warped version of Belco and now having looked at these new clips of pymble.

#5

Parker did get to skate Pymble once but, it was only on our last session there. We left Pacific Skatepark with a strange idea to go bail and skate Pymble just one more time. It was all of the Blacktown crew Greg, Johnny, Fin, Steve Henshaw, Steve Parker Kaster, Bim Kaster and partime Blacktowner Rad Brad. Johnny dared Parker to RocknRoll 8’6 after just 5 minutes of skating and he made it first attempt, he was a freak then and still is, pretty sure that he was the only one to do it. We were probably the last to skate it. The Pymble buzz was still on fire. I dont know why but we never went back there again. It wasnt long after that it was gone.

#6

Michael, I think know what you mean about skateable shallow. Something you have time to set up for and can do a clearcut trick on/in. Pools with open space in the shallow sound good but are rarely ever part of contemporary bowl design; Newport is some sort of exception.
Oversized pool replicas are often the norm, but then again Manly Vale in Sydney is on its way and the Godbowl in Brisbane has been around a while.
The most ‘skateable shallow’ I’ve encountered in a while is the shallow end of Riverwood. It’s has mellow trannies , while the bowl itself is quite open and spacious. I got a big shock when I went back to a much more compact San Remo and all the walls seemed to be coming at me at once.

I don’t know about Marina but i did make it to Del Mar back in 1987. it had 3 bowls, the famous keyhole with the roll in that you could drive a Winnebago through, a 7’ deep swimming pool replica kidney and a super tight square ended monster with about 3’foot of vert that didn’t get much media exposure. However, The Transworld photo annual that year had a photo of Mike McGill doing a fronside air out the top and round the corner in it!
Other than the keyhole, I had trouble skating them because I had no idea about lines in a pool, having learnt to skate vert on 1/4 pipes, halfpipes and the occasional fullpipe.
From what i’ve encountered I guess each spot is different and at our age needs to be skated within one’s limits and hopefully, a big smile will always appear on our dial.

#7

Sorry Doc for prattling on in your thread.

#8

Cozmick, I have contacted the thread police and you will soon be placed in a Singleton detention centre for illegal border crossers and queue jumpers. The sting will put into action when you pick me up from Newcastle uni tonight.

Michael, please draw up architect’s plans immediately for Pymble replica. I will apply to be buried under it.

GodHead, Peter got rocknrolls quite early (shortly after this film was made). He had no idea how it worked, but persisted with the tried and tested Peter Aitken method: slam hard, slam hard again, slam yet again, and eventually you’ll get it. You can see this insanity already in action in his amazing backside airs. flight through pure testosterone power …

#9

When I’m in Sydney for the Boat Ramp heritage session I will want to investigate the archives of the Council.
What is the Pymble Council called? City of …? Municipality of …?
Can anyone tell me - post here details.
Also what was the address of the old display centre - this will help.

There should in fact be plans of the old display centre in a dusty file somewhere which may just give the specs of the old pool including drawings. I want to obtain them and then file it away in my archive.

This may come in handy one day once enough standard issue , standard transition bowls have been built or if I ever have sufficient resources to build a private bowl. I have decided that such a hypothetical private bowl will be a pymble replica. You can apply to be buried under it Dr., but I’m sure there are laws which prevent the disposal of bodies in these circumstances.

Alternatively you could be cremated and washed down the plughole or have your ashes loaded into a gonzo cannon and shot into the deathbox.

#10

Over the moors, the Mayfield moors, dig a shallow grave and lay me down.

#11

and hurry up about it! :unamused:

#12

Hi fellow skaters and rum corp rollers - Russ here on behalf of my peaceful but paradoxically avante garde melbourne friends.

There is only one funeral thats going to happen and thats the one for you pathetic old bowlriders. Pools are passe, dreamers, and vertical is verbotten in my pleasant world of smoke free bars and golden wigs.

The revolution is revolving and you will be turned upside down.

#13

Not sure on the council details St Ives or Hornsby but the pool center was UNEEDA POOLS Bridge St Pymble

#14

Thanks GH.

#15

that footage is priceless unreal :laughing:

#16

Re Cosmicks agreement with comments for tight deep ends and contrasting big skateable shallows.
Now that we have Frankston and Bondi - satisfying the need for vert comp venues the next pool bowls could get on with the serious task of say a reconstructed Pymble. Note large skateable shallow end in this example and tighter deep end.

#17

Or this triumph of purity - I don’t think the Godbowl is quite like this - you know what I mean. Is Pymble worth recreating with a skateable shallow - whats the GOD HONEST TRUTH - because if it is I’m sure we could interest CONVIC in that discussion.

#18

Michael, surely mere replication is either too nostalgic or too postmodern or both). I would turn instead towards Thunderbirds, Animal Chin, and Dark City to find precedents for a MODULAR pool that would be capable of taking inspiration from different pool models according to the end-skater’s moods.

Feel like a 6.5 love seat on the left hand wall? There’s one there, but it can be retracted or opened at will. Same for the cutaway. Multiple deathboxes whereever you want them. Do you prefer coping in steel or pebblecrete Sir? Our shallow end transition can also be modified at will Sir, for a TOIT wallride or a much gentler ascent towards the grindpoint.

OK, its fantasy. If you insist upon an inert bowl, then I suggest these parameters:

  1. Big bowls with open lines for BOTH shallow and deep. Shallow goes to vert; deep has at least 32in of vert (so that entire board can be vert for pure weightless slides).

  2. Graduated transition between shallow and deep, instead of dramatic waterfall (more Riverwood than Bondi).

#19

Replication of Pymble or any pool is not necessarily as nostalgic as it seems, certainly no more so than fitting out skateparks with steps, handrails, planterbox profiles and other things from the real world.
No - I would classify it as most definitely a surrealist project. I had asked the question earlier, from those who would know, whether it might however be in fact a nightmare - just to be sure.

All these questions are based on observing Frankston - saying to myself it looks like a pool - but - it really isn’t at all its too big and in fact its a big vert ramp in the shape of a pool. Not that that is bad - but lets have a pool now that its out of everyones system.

But - a modular bowl. Everything else is so last century after this suggestion.

It could of course be done. With a timber bowl inside you could actually make roll in roll out full hieght modular wall sections that fit together with designated optional features as you suggest. ITs the military model bowl or Tokyo style bowl where you pack up the skatepark. (a morphing model is hard to envisage unless you could come up with some kind of elastic material that say responds to an electric charge and adopts some rigid configuration according to a set of memories - not entirely inconceivable in terms of the not so distant future)

Your spec for vert is utterly logical. I’ll commit that to memory.
I’d still like just a headache tight deep end contrasting a restful wide shallow end. But thats me - I’ll admit - I just can’t take being in the deep end for too long.
And a non waterfall or more gradual waterfall would be a sound alternative.

#20

All sound’s good.

Hey MM, earlier in the 70’s before it was Uneeda Pools it was Frank O’Neill’s Pool Centre.