Building Backyard Skateboard Mini Ramps

Back in the day I designed and built the majority of the skateboard ramps my friends and I skated at our house. Though I had plenty of help building because what skater doesn't want to help a new skate ramp get built as quickly as possible?

The crowning glory of all the ramps I built was my backyard mini (pictured), which I've written about before in this blog.

It started out as a 16 foot wide, 4 foot high, 30 foot long mini, to which I later added 1 foot extensions. It probably had a 6 foot transition but I can't be sure. I used to draw transition templates free hand and just eyeball it until it looked right to me. I never worked off a plan either. It's not a hard structure to just plan as you go.

There are lots of photos of me doing
frontside ollies. It's the only aerial
I could do above coping height.

Despite the surface growing increasingly sketchy due to wear and tear and the elements it was a solid ramp that my friends and I skated every day we could. Back in the 1990's there wasn't a public skatepark in almost every suburb, so this ramp was pretty special.

If you couldn't build something like this yourself, your next option was a road trip to one of the few private skateparks that existed (In Perth, Western Australia, that was The Edge Skatepark for us). I can't begin to tell you how good it was to have a home ramp to practice on through the week and then take your tricks onto bigger ramps at the skatepark on the weekends.

The main benefit of having your own backyard ramp is the community that springs up around it. You control who skates it and everyone always gets a fair turn. Back in the day, even at skateparks, if you were on any kind of mini ramp there seemed to be an unwritten rule that you look out for anyone wanting to skate it, and make sure they got a fair turn - people rarely monopolized the ramp for themselves. That doesn't seem to happen in today's public skateparks.

Post mini ramp... sad face.

Ultimately a backyard ramp is a great place for you and your extended group of skate friends to hang out and share a common love of skateboarding... and make no mistake, it is the ramp that's bringing you all together. When I eventually had to pull down my mini ramp, our group gradually drifted apart. We didn't stop being friends but it was the ramp that brought us together.

At this point I have to say this post is not sponsored... this post is as much for me (reminiscing) as for anyone else contemplating building a mini ramp in their backyard. I came across two fairly old videos that show how to build 4 foot high mini ramps properly.

This height of ramp is great for a backyard because it's a good size for beginners to learn and still a lot of fun for even the most advanced skaters. Plus it usually sits below fence height (Tip: try not to locate your ramp near any back fence that going to disrupt your neighbors privacy. Consider some kind of privacy screen if this can't be avoided.)

The first video is by EasyHalfPipe.com and shows how to build an 8 foot wide mini ramp. I would suggest 8 feet wide is the absolute minimum width for a 4 foot high mini. It's enough room to skate but you're going to wish it was wider once you progress into slides, grinds and ollies above the coping.

This ramp uses PVC pipe for coping, which tends to be more slippery compared to metal but does reduce the noise of the ramp overall. You'll need thick PVC so it doesn't break and/or you can fill it solid with sand for extra support (and cap the ends).

The great thing about this ramp is that it's modular, so you can store it away or move it if you need to. Easy to make wider too... just build another next to it and bolt them together for 16 feet of perfect mini ramp!

Easy Half Pipe

If you want something a little wider the following video from Vice.com shows how to build a 12 foot wide mini ramp and has a few extra tips for perfect transition templates and improved ramp surfaces.

Vice.com

If you are contemplating building a backyard ramp but a 4 foot high ramp looks a little too big. I can tell you a 2 foot high mini ramp is just as fun and costs less to make. The basic plan is the same as a 4 foot ramp (same transition) just cut it off at 2 feet high. You may want to reduce the length of the flat to 6 rather than 8 feet too otherwise the smaller transition might not give you enough speed over 8 feet of flat to do tricks.

Comments

TV Series Review: Skeleton Crew (2024) (Disney+) No Spoilers

I f you saw the trailer for Skeleton Crew and decided the show looked too much like Star Wars for little kids, and didn't watch, you missed out on a real treat. While I will say this show was definitely targeted at bringing in younger fans to the Star Wars universe, it is very much more like family viewing than kids only TV. Not to mention, characters are literally gunned down or murdered on this show, but without the really graphic violence you might see on a more adult orientated show. It's actually no more kid only orientated than the first series of Stranger Things (2016), or even the original Star Wars (1977) movie. In fact the whole show is a not so subtle homage to original Star Wars (1977), Treasure Island (1950), and eighties movies like The Goonies (1985), ET (1982), Explorers (1985) and others. The plot is very straight forward. A group of children, living in the Star Wars equivalent of the suburbs, find an aband...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

TV Series Review: Creature Commandos (2024) No Spoilers

O fficially, Creature Commandos is the first show of James Gunn's kind of reboot of the DCU. Technically though, it starts with James Gunn's, The Suicide Squad , and includes his series, Peacemaker , as the events of both are either referenced or felt within the show. Potentially that means Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn in the DCU, but I'd be surprised if she would even want another crack at it, let alone that James didn't recast the role. However that's a whole other rabbit hole for a character that may not appear again for at least a few more years. Creature Commandos is Suicide Squad but with monsters, and no real threat of Suicide - well, having your head blown off if you stray from the mission at least. Though I don't recall that being a thing in Gunn's Suicide Squad movie since the team was renamed 'Task Force X'? Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) somehow still has a job, but is no longer allowed to use humans on her team, so she assembles a team of...

Introducing the Second Sunday Skateboard Sessions - Doing Less to Skateboard More

This was my second heelflip attempt of the day. I was pleased I at least got the full rotation even if I didn't land it. I am determined to keep skating for as long as possible, though, since my last post in May 2024, about reigniting my kickflip battle at age 54 , I've probably been skateboarding less than I had hoped. Still haven't landed that elusive kickflip either. Strangely I've been wanting to film myself skateboarding again but have been reluctant to do so because it can be a bit of a hassle trying to create interesting content, not to mention a lot of editing, if you want to capture the full journey of learning a trick. I really hate editing. Looking at my camera equipment the other day I was thinking what is the most minimal setup that I can put together that would make it easy to film skate videos anywhere? I landed on using my Samsung A13, Android phone, mounted on a GoPro selfie stick that has a tripod base in the handle, and a wireless mic I bought some t...

Meanwhile, In Australia... The World's Most Boring Government Is Fine... We're All Fine.

That's um... What's his name? T o be honest, I stopped following politics in Australia years ago. The only time I check in is usually around election time just to see which set of woke lefty independents, I'm going to vote for, ahead of my fallbacks of the Greens, and then Labor. Despite my sister trying to categorise me as more of a 'left brained' person I definitely lean 'right brained' more at home with my cry baby, woke, alphabet, lefty people. (For the record, if this is the first musing of mine you've ever read, I'm a straight white male who identifies as an artist... Male artist - just in case you were thinking artist is some new kind of gender you hadn't heard of). This year is an election year for our Federal Government, potentially the world's most boring government, for no other reason than during its entire term, if you asked me who was our Prime Minister I'd actually have to stop and think for a moment. Maybe our 31st PM shou...

The Path to Becoming a Successful Visual Artist Selling Work for Thousands, or Even Millions of Dollars

I'm calling this, 'Stand Up Comedian'. Image by Leonardo.ai and TET. I consider myself to be a successful working artist. I use the term 'working' quite loosely but basically what I mean is I work for myself, I earn money from my art or knowledge, and most of my time I can create art that interests me. I've never been motivated to be a 'career' artist. By that I mean, an artist whose work is displayed in all the top galleries, and that the super rich buy as more of an investment for wealth, than a love of art. Which is not to say these investors don't love art but when you're buying a single artwork for thousands, or even millions, of dollars, you're generally looking for a return on that investment too. That said, I'm not opposed to artists who want that kind of recognition. Certainly, if you're prepared to do the work, in countries like Australia, you can earn a nice passive income off the secondary market. Which means each time yo...

Squeezing the Toothpaste: A Metaphor

I remember when toothpaste was sold in a metal tube. Back then, as a child, you'd cop it from Mum or Dad if you squeezed the tube anywhere but from the bottom. You could even buy special keys that would wind the toothpaste tube up from the bottom so you could get every last bit of paste - no wastage. Then along came the plastic tubes. Finally you could squeeze anywhere and the tube would retain its shape - or so they said in the sales pitch. For the most part this was true. It wasn't as much of a problem squeezing the new plastic tube from the top. Squeezing toothpaste from the tube was now easy - or so you thought. The thing about squeezing the tube from the top (or even the middle) is that it leaves some of the paste at the bottom. Eventually you do have to spend extra time pushing the paste from the bottom up into the top of the tube. Not like the old days when squeezing from the bottom meant you got just the right amount of paste and the tube was always ready for the next p...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog