Redcar’s R-Kade skatepark has been undergoing some big changes over the past few month, a full re-design of the whole park with loads of new bits and a great bowl that just got finished less than two weeks ago. Check out the Photosynth panoramic below, you may need the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in to view it.

Apart from the odd glitch on the ledge in the street section everything came out pretty good considering it’s an iPhone snap.

To round up what’s in panoramic and whats not its basically made up of 75% tranny and 25% street. The newest and post popular bit i’ve seen people session has to be the jump box rhythm section over in the back of the photo. It’s got two jump boxes with rolled tops on them that you can take on in both directions, including the option of blasting back towards the first and bigger box on your way back.

The new bowl is sick, with what I remember being a 5ft and 7ft section, two hips and lots of space to flow around it, its a winner. The floor does’t dip down instead the coping just gets higher around you.

The street section includes a long driveway bit with a square, chunky rail, long ledge on your right and a smaller ledge on your left as you get nearer the bottom of it. There’s loads of flatbank stuff in the middle of the park with another rail, still square but not as chunky and this time kinked and another ledge with a tight angled flat bank type thing at one end so you can bump up onto it. For some reason they decided to stick a fire hydrant in the middle of one of the flat bank to flat bank setups which I find pointless but I guess it’s representative of some street somewhere in America so you better start learning to hop that shit!

Other than whats mentioned above you have your usual helping of quarters, a big flat bank and a quarter that goes to vert. There’s also a little section at the front of the park that’s made for beginners, skaters and scooters but you can session it now unlike in the old park where BMXers weren’t allowed on it.

So all in all its a million times better than the ten year old stuff that was in there before, a breath of fresh air from the ground up and if you don’t want to go when all the scooters and skaters are there then you have BMX only night, 8-10pm session on a Thursday. It’s priced at £6.50 for a session (prices may change), make sure you have a helmet with you or you’ll not be allowed to ride. They do sell them in their shop but you should check before hand or just buy one from your local bike shop.

Here’s the details of where you can find the park and how to get in touch with them:

R-Kade Skatepark
Majuba Road
Redcar
TS10 5BJ

Tel: 01642 483520

Web: www.r-kadeskatepark.com