Arthur, ON

 Brent Barnes Memorial Skatepark

Arthur, ON

Tucker St

After many years of hard work by the Lions Club of Arthur, the town finally has its own subpar park, riddled with minor issues that could have been easily corrected by a good skatepark company that cares about the final product.

(Update 2023- 'Canada's Most Patriotic Town' finished the sodding and recieved the 'Snap' ramp that was on back order. Update first, then the old review. Someone contacted me regarding these issues and tried to call me out. See comment section below)

2023

As posted by Anonymous 1, there is a 1/2 inch lip on the ramps.

The crushed gravel has been replaced with sod as Anonymous 2 said. 

The 'Snap' bank ramp from CRC's 'Pro-Ops' line was what drew me to the park originally (see below).  I was disappointed it was missing last year. Now that I've skated it, I'm not impressed. There are way better 'bank to wall/tombstone' features out there. I got a sesh in, but I wouldn't recommend communities spend their cash on these.

The top has a harsh angle making tricks, even dropping in, difficult.

Yikes, that's a lot of of rust in a year.

Final Verdict. Fun, not worth the $$$ or time. A 2ft quarter would have been better.

Here's what I got up to.

OG POST

The park looks like your average pre-fab park, and it is. Metal ramps on a fresh concrete pad. 

For some reason, the whole pad is surrounded by crushed gravel (same stuff that's on the baseball diamond) and it is all over the park, causing wheel bite.  I hope that it's replaced with grass(it was). 

The one feature I was interested in skating is the 1/2 deck ramp(Top Right of Concept). Guess which ramp isn't included in the finished park!?!

One thing this park has it space. Space that could have been better utilized. The deck of this box is so short that it made ollieing the small stair set difficult. The rail is too high for the run-up. 

This big, triangular pad. Why? I thought is was going to have donor names but they appear to be on the sign. Maybe they'll be added but for now, it's an expensive place to have a bench. 

Pumptracks, fun for about 3 laps. Ok, maybe that's my bias but putting it on the grass will surely lead to problems.

Crushed rock on the mini? You Bet!

This is what kills me. The Concrete Pad was donated (time & materials I think). The concrete guys did their thing. The pad is smooth, not broom finished, and the joints are clean.  The Professional Skatepark installers could have made the choice to move the ledge ON the joint rather than leave the joint in the run-up to the ledge. This is also the only ledge/manny pad/rail in the park.  The ledge is the classic 2 segmented CRC ledge and the rail is higher than average, ~18". 

I have never been to a perfect CRC park. I would love nothing less than CRC and all other companies under the parent company to close forever. Even their concrete parks are flawed. Bad coping reveal to bowls and entire parks being deemed unfit for use. Do better or get out CRC!