Photos: Moonhead Media
It looks like the DyFi is a fertile building ground for Dan Atherton. Not only has he sculpted the gorgeous but frustratingly non-public DyFi bike park, but he’s also converted this old warehouse into a rough and ready wooden skate park.
We’ve seen glimpses of it on Insta and paid it a visit the day before Hardline but this is the first time we’ve seen it shredded in anger on film… well SD card anyway.
Joining Dan for this epic nighttime session were team mates Gee and Kade Edwards as well as invitees, Kaos Seagrave, Gaz Brewin, Louis Meade… loads of them!
Here’s how it came together in Dan’s words:
“The process isn’t that different to building a downhill trail – except its way nicer, It’s a good contrast to being cold and wet all day! Actually its more the mentality that is the same, the process is slower when you are working with wood; you definitely need to have more patience, to go through each step, get it right before you go on to the next, dirt’s faster.”
“Actually scratch that, it wasn’t all nicer! Before we actually started to build anything we had to dig out three feet of sheepshit with the digger and the dumper, then bring in loads of badger sand to level the floor up. Then we got onto the roof. Waterproofing the place was one of the worst jobs of my life, hanging plastic sheets from the ceiling and sealing them to stop condensation falling from the steel roof, the fumes were awful.”
“Then at last we got to start the actual build. There was no one way of doing it, probably 100 different ideas and 100 different options that would all have worked out OK, the hardest part was deciding what it was that we wanted then sticking to it, its not like when I’m working outside and am guided by what nature has already laid down, we were working with a massive empty barn, not working our way down huge rocks or finding our way across a bog.”
“I got shit loads of advice from Jason Carpenter, I was texting him all day, every day, the guys at the Boneyard, were great too, we knew the ramps that we liked and they were really chilled about giving us the dimensions, all they wanted was to come and ride it.”
“The great thing about being part of such a strong biking community in the Dyfi is that there was a crew of friends more than willing to help with the creation, we are lucky to have Olly and Chris as part of that crew, both of them really good carpenters so slowly our skatepark started to come together, very slowly! Everyone was super-excited when Silverline sent us a screw-gun, that speeded it up loads!”
“Those guys also need a huge shout out, their support with all the tools for the build and funds towards buying ply, OSB and cross members made sure that the whole project got off the ground.”
“In a way building the skatepark was almost more rewarding than working with dirt, it’s more immediate. As soon as you finish building you can ride – there’s none of the after care and waiting for it to settle like you have with dirt. In fact that’s why its not finished – the skeleton is there but we’ve still got to add a final layer of ply, God knows when we’ll stop riding long enough to do that. Chris is building a bowl in the corner because that’s what he likes to ride, and there’s another couple of small things were talking about. That’s how I see the thing evolving now, piece by piece with people adding the things they’re excited to ride. More of the local kids are being pulled in to ride with us so it’s lucky we’ve got the space to keep progressing the build.”
