The skateboard season is officially started and to highlight this moment we’ve all been waiting for, let’s jump in on the action with a good ol' Skatepark Review. This week, we visit one of the best, biggest and most diversified skateparks there is in our province: The new Saint-Jérôme skatepark.
PHOTO CREDIT: @rickdesignskatepark
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The city of Saint-Jérôme invested a total of 1.5 million dollars on this one and it shows! There’s so much stuff to skate in the park that you might need a few visit there to experience it all. We’re also stoked to witness more and more cities giving skatepark contracts to actual skaters. Designed by the good guys over at Spin Works and built by Rick Design Skateparks, you know this one is good and that behind the concrete, there’s years of skateboarding knowledge. In other news, the park has lights and is open late every night, has some of the smoothest concrete around and has every obstacle a skater can wish for. Beginner or advanced.
Located close to freeway 15, the Saint-Jérôme Skatepark is easy to access by car. Check the map below for more details on how to get there.
THE STREET SECTIONThe Saint-Jérôme skatepark street section is really well built and offers a perfect mix of ledges, rails, stairs and other funkier obstacles. Basically, everything a skatepark really needs. This park is one of the biggest in Quebec, if not the biggest, so you know there’s room to cruise around and enough obstacles for the longest lines you can think of. The street section still got a bit of transitions and banks just so you can cruise around without pushing too much.
If you like to skate a ledge and a flatbar, you’ll be pleased at Saint-Jérôme. If what you like is rails and stairs, there some for you too. A lot of that actually. As we mentioned earlier, the flat ground is extremely smooth and there’s enough surface for you to never feel stuck in the park. The diversity of the obstacles is also very impressive and well thought out.
One part of the street section we really like is the 3 back to back small down rails/stairs. That spot is incredibly fun to skate as you can just smoothly hit 3 down obstacles in a row without really pushing. As opposite to a lot of outdoor parks in the region, this park also has a big section and by big, we mean big. If you’re in the mood to get gnarly, you’ll be served with the 3 blocks and 10 stairs/rail/hubba section.
All in all, we can guarantee 100% that you’ll have fun at Saint-Jérome if you are a street skater.
THE TRANSITION SECTION
The transition section of the Saint-Jérôme park is sick and very diversified. Although there’s no bowl or no full-on transition section, there’s a massive hip/quarter pipe at one end accompanied by another smaller hip/quarter pipe that’s positioned in the middle of a large 2-sided bank. This one is really fun.
Both of these transition obstacles will lead you to the middle of the park, where you’ll find all kinds of small transitions, banks and bumps to keep the party going after the rush of the big quarter pipe section. The little China bank replica is sick and placed perfectly so you can use it to do trick or just to roll around the park without losing speed.
At the other end of the park, you’ll find a small transition with various sides and shapes that covers the whole width of the place. On one side, a roll-in type of transition for the beginners and on the other a regular quarter pipe with a metal coping. The regular quarter pipe is a bit higher than the other side and has a small pocket so you can easily pump back in the park.
We would say this park isn’t the best one if you want to get your real transition skating on, but if you like to skate everything, there’s enough great transitions at this place to keep you stoked for days.
THE FLOW
The Saint-Jérôme park's flow is really good. Although there is a lot going on and a lot of obstacles all over the place, you’ll quickly find out lines at this one are infinite. The transition section links with the other ones perfectly so you can move from one section to the other with speed.
As we mentioned before, there are transition sections at both ends of the park so you don’t have to stop in the middle of a line, you can just turn back into the action. The street section is also sprinkled with banks and small transitions so you can keep your speed while hitting obstacles.
The flow going up the rail section of the park can be tricky as there’s basically 3 levels to skate up to before you hit the top but the opposite direction is sooo good though. The fact that you can hit multiple down obstacles, makes up for it and if you turn left after hitting that section, you’ll be able to keep going through the ledges/manual pads section.
The only bad thing about this park’s flow is that it is always crowded during the day. And when we say crowded, we mean it. If you go to the park on a Sunday afternoon, you’ll most likely won’t be able to move through the park. That being said, early and late sessions are flawless.
