The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

     Finally got around to uploading pictures from this year’s Thanksgiving feast at my place. As per tradition, all of the standards were cooked: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, etc. We burned off some of the massive amounts of calories consumed through some good ole mini-ramp skateboarding (much like the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621). Enjoy!

     This Saturday 3Hough and I were some of the lucky participants with Motorscooter Sports to ride in the Annual North Park Holiday Parade. Eric and I got up super early Saturday morning to decorate the scooters. We rode through the parade with about 40 other scooter enthusiasts. As usual, the scooter crowd had some of the best energy of the parade by bringing the holiday cheer in conjunction with some great scooter decorations. If you have a scooter, next Sunday, December 13th, Motorscooter Sports is hosting their annual Toy Run. Bring a toy and ride with the crew to help out those in need!

Not one to back down, I did some research and am going to assert my rights to my neighbors. Read my handy-dandy letter which I will be hand delivering to my neighbors. More after the jump…

To my neighbors,

Matt Hough

     Well, after all of these years a dream comes true for this skateboarder. I finally have my own backyard mini-ramp! Max and I built the ramp over the past two weeks. So far we’ve had a few sessions on it and it is a blast! It’s 3′8″ tall, 25′ long, 12′ wide, has a 7′ transition, and 8′ of flat. Also has a 2′ deck and a 3′ deck. More about the construction after the jump.

In building the ramp my main concern was the sound. My neighbors are fairly close and mini-ramps are loud so I was a little worried. I looked into different soundproofing options: carpet pad, bales of hay, mass loaded vinyl. The thing with sound from a mini-ramp is two-fold. The first noise is the ramp surface itself and the second is the coping. After all of my research most soundproofing ideas turned out to be cost prohibitive and didn’t seem to have the right bang for the buck. So what we did was brace underneath the ramp to keep vibrations down. After that we closed in all open spaces in the back and side of the ramp with 3/4″ ply. Then we built 10′ tall sound baffles (similar to highway barriers) and used sound absorbent sheeting that you can find at Home Depot. It seemed to do the trick fairly well. Ramps are noisy and unless you build them inside they’re going to make noise. Good, solid construction will help along with a visit to let your neighbors know that they can approach you if it’s a problem. We also instituted a no-skating-after-dark rule.

For the construction of the ramp it was a pretty standard mini. We cut the templates from 3/4″ ply using a 7′ transition. All of the 2×4’s were drilled in 8″ on center. For the surface we put down 2 layers of 1/2″ ply (staggered so the seams wouldn’t be laying on one another). Then we topped it all off with 3/16″ Masonite, aka hardboard. For the coping we used 2″ outer-diameter steel pipe and just drilled it on. To do this you take a drill bit that’s about the thickness of a screw and drill straight down through the pipe and through the other side so you have two holes. Then the top holes you simply use a slightly larger drill bit so you can fit your drill bit through. Once you can do that just screw the coping on.

The key to building a good mini-ramp is planning. The main things that need to be in proportion are height, transition, and flat-bottom. You don’t want less than 8′ of flat bottom. And if you only have 8′ I wouldn’t build it higher than 3′8″ (this assumes you are using a 7′ transition). Transition is also very important. A lot of people get this wrong and make their transitions too tight. It might look mellow as a template, but everything changes when you surface it and add coping.

And our last important point on mini-ramps: coping. This is another element of a mini-ramp that people mess up. You only want the coping to stick out at the most 3/16″ (unless you like the gnar). You’d be surprised how much moving coping forward or back 1/16″ can make. When adding coping it’s best to have it out too far rather than too deep. If it’s too far take it off then take a circular saw and cut the top back a 1/16″ at a time. If it is too deep add some shims until you have it right.

If you have any questions about building mini’s please post a comment and I’ll answer you in the comment thread.

The Solution (assumes you are working in Windows XP):

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Select Sounds and Audio Devices
3. Go to the Audio tab
4. On the Sound Playback section, click Volume
5. A speaker menu will open, on it go to Option
6. Select Properties
7. Under “Show the following volume controls:”, place a check mark in the microphone box
8. Select OK
9. Now back at the speaker controls you should see the microphone controls at the far right
10. Uncheck Mute and adjust volume
11. Voila! Fixed!

But the most important lessons I learned aren’t ones which can be listed in order or are so matter-of-fact. These are the lessons one can only learn when in soltitude and faced with challenges. Personal lessons about who we are and what’s important. It’s the people in our lives and who we are which give satisfaction and meaning. We are not defined by our jobs, education level, net worth, or clothes on our backs. I realized how important people are to me, without them we’re simply cruising along in landscapes in scenery. The future may be uncertain, and things may change around us, but the firm bedrock of the soul, if discovered and nurtured properly, will weather anything and stay as solid and everlasting as the granite mountains of the Rockies. I hope to be able to take this spirit of adventure I used during this motorcycle trip and apply it to other areas of my life, to use the same courage to challenge myself personally and try to grow as a person by facing down my fears in other areas. Thanks to all who have supported me in the past few weeks, the small and big things mean more than you may know.