We went to Florence on the day after the grand opening in hopes that some of the shiniyness would have rubbed off and we would have some lines to ourselves. Big suprise, it was still pretty busy but we had plenty of fun anyway. We arrived just in time to see Stephanie from Airspeed break her wrist in an aborted attempt to carve over what the locals are calling the Lifesaver™, which they should know better since the word is trademarked™.

The Scene: Florence is a sleeply little beach resort town with camping, a lake and the ocean near by. The vast abundance of sand dunes means you'll also see lots of No Fear™© pickups and trailers pulling dirt bikes, four wheelers and dune buggies, not to be confused withthe Hanna Barbarra cartoon Speed Buggy™©®. Uh yeah. Hanging around the park are a lot of nearby Reedsport kids, underaged and overdeveloped girls, a huge (relatively) posse of scooter kids, and street rats. The main pastime seems to be sitting around smoking while calling each other a bitch and listening to shitty rap music. Of course my observations were made in a one day period, so go there and tell me if I am wrong. The second largest demographic is mostly older "kids" from out of town who are there for the roundwall.

The Park: This is an Airspeed park and as such has some of thier familar characteristics, including the faux tiles under the coping in the bowls. Like Reedsport, the deep ends are deep and the that part of the park seems to be focused on the main attraction which is in this case, the lifesaver. Unlike Reedsport, the coping is mostly imitation pool coping poured in very large pieces. There are a ot of hips and small escalators and and extensions which can either be daunting while you are trying to figure it out, or fun once you have. The deep half of the park is laid out in a way that it really rides like a one person at a time park since there is a blind spot created by the poop chute. I call it the poop chute becasue it is where everyone gets spit out when you realize you don't have enough speed to make the carve on the face of the lifesaver. You can enter through the out door via a large snowboard-type launcher. Poop chute bowl is really tight and goes over vert in the back pocket that includes the hole, which is maybe 8 feet tall. There is a small corner pocket cradle at the opposite end of the park as well as a quarter pipe wall with extension and metal coping and a tiny ledge that everyone satnds on like it is the platform of a halfpipe, albeit a foot wide platform. A big pump bump in the middle and rollin in the corner round it out. The concrete riding surfaces are mostly smooth, except in some of the more obscure nooks and crannies that are pretty much impossible to hit for mere mortals.

The Street Course: Oh yeah, the street course which was seeing some heavy usage. A basic opposing banked/trannied sides with obstacles in the middle, and big set of stairs with a railing. I dnd't pay much attention to it, sorry.

The Rules: Anarchy Burger! The sign says you need a pads and a helmet, however there is nobody enfocing anything. The flip side is that the sign says there are no scooters or bikes allowed, and nobody is enfocing those rules either. In fact, the locals don't mind the bikes and it was left to the out of towners to vibe the lone biker out the bowl.

Overall: This is definitely one of the more unique parks you will likely come across. Some people may prefer a more straight ahead approach that you might find with something like Site Design, where all the trannies are basically the same and the lines are more readily obvious or not even necessary. On the other hand, a park like that is rarely worth driving 3 hours out of the way for. That's what it's coming to in the Northwest, you have to make it interesting or it's just another park among many. It's my opinion that Airspeed has built a memorable park in Florence. I had a blast, and everyone else was having one too.

Note: There is a problem with sand at the park right now. The whole thing was dug into and built up with the surrounding soil which isn't soil, but sand. It blows all over the place and collects in some potentially dangerous spots, especially in the deep end. City plans on planting grass to allieviate the problem, but they haven't gotten around to it yet. Bring a broom.

photo © Kilwag