XC

I finally got my arse into gear and made the trip up to XC in Hemel Hempstead, The Bob and Biffa were gonna come but Mrs The Bob is about to drop their first sprog so he decided to stay closer to home and I think Biffa was standing by with clean towels and hot water.

Anyway I went along and after a detour through some residential streets in HH due to my satnav not recognising the postcode finally chanced upon a sign for XC and managed to find the McD's where I had arranged to meet up with Trev, and Gray. Trev was there with Paul and Gray was on his way.

It's a big building, the skatepark is basically everything to the left of the big XC sign in this photo.

crappy blackberry picture of The XC

After filling out a form with name, address, inside leg measurement etc and signing that I agreed to abide by the rules which I didn't read I then had to fill out another form and show my drivers licence as proof of ID for permission to take photos.
Then after paying my money I was allowed through the electronic security door to be able to skate this.

An indoor concrete pool with steps in the shallow, proper coping and tiles and a bigger bowl and also wooden 4' mini ramp and street course.

It being a schoolday it was very quiet, a couple of the lads that got us into the tunnel turned up with 2 jump bikes and a BMX, a few random kids that should have been at school, a solitary scooter rat and some young and not so young rippers.

The pool is a strange thing, the transitions are eliptical, getting tighter as they get closer to the coping, a feature that had me bottling the drop in all day. The steps are in a funny place, well I thought so, being goofy and starting from the shallow to the left of the steps a backside carve in the deep took me back to the wall above the waterfall opposite the steps, a frontside here aimed me directly into the steps if I wasn't careful.
The surface is buttery smooth though, there was a hole in the miniramp but it looked as though the staff were on the case, also good to see a store of coping blocks hidden under the miniramp.

Anyway I signed the form to allow me to take photos so here are some...

Trev - FS grind in the shallow

and BS too

Over the steps

Not sure who these guys were, they were both taking their fair share of slams though.

Wheeler!

Boneless One!

I feel a bit bad about this last one, I made the guy do his over the steps run 3 times to get the shot, he was really chuffed that I'd got the shot and said he'd never had a decent shot of his skating. I then forgot to get his email address or name, so if anyone knows him let me know.

I've got some more pics on another camera but waiting for a CF card compatible reader before I can upload them.

Back there again on the 18th. . .