What can I say about this spot… well, it’s the first VANS park on the east coast, part of a nationwide network of giant parks by the people of VANS. One thing I can say that I can be positive about is that this spot is giant! Something around 68,000 Sq.. feet! Inside there’s 3 wood-made street courses, 1 very smooth concrete street course, 2 bowls, a 5′ half pipe and a vert ramp. There really isn’t anything more you could ask from a skatepark except, we are darn good at finding those, “if only…” items. One issue with the spot is that it’s very repetitive. All the standard obstacles are there, hips, banks, quarter pipes, ledges, etc., just like any competition you see on the boob tube. Booooring… come on, do something interesting. like, throw in some bowled corners somewhere in the street course. the old back-and-forth thing gets old if that’s all you got to work with. they had 68,000 Sq.. feet to work with, built 3 different wood-made street courses and didn’t put one bowled corner in ANY of them! If you’re going to make a giant, kick skatepark, give it some lines! There’s lots of awesome things to hit in the street courses, don’t get me wrong but some more flow would have kicked this spot up to champion status. The very smooth concrete street course. Well, nice try. Granted, we were there on the pre-opening day party, and it was swarmed with people, and we only got to skate for about 2 hours and then had to get back into the car for the 5 hour Drive back to NY (yeah…it really sucked) but that spot wasn’t really built all that well. Maybe, maybe, maybe after skating there a lot there could be some lines in that spot, but it was just too small to really have awesome in. If you’ve got 3 street courses made of wood that have every street skater’s goal setup, make an area that has some speed lines! if you dig skating half pipes, be them big or be them mini, you’ll go apesh*t over these puppies. Perfect trannies, super-duper insanely quick coping, Skate Lite covered, and solid as a truck are only begin to describe the ramps at The skate park. I managed to kill myself very good on the mini, taking a nice trip from the coping (for grinding) to the flat bottom via my hip and shoulder as a result of never having skated a Skate Lite ramp that was that quick ever before in my life. Did I mention that they were f*ck”n quick? ahh….the bowls. you’re possibly thinking, “whatever, you guys like bowls and will just go on and on about how great they were. Well, you’re half right. At the pre-opening party there were some very heavy hitters gracing the coping (for grinding) of the big bowl (9” deep/ 5”shallow right kidney), so we didn’t get to really get a long session in as a result of all the snaking that was taking spot, but I can tell you to wear your kneepads. That piece of concrete is smooth and can be very unforgiving if you’re not ready for it. The other bowl is kind of a bad example of what you should do with concrete. it’s shaped like a light bulb with the shallower part being the screw base of the bulb while it looks good at first, it’s kind of difficult to stay any speed in it because the transitions are so mellow and there really isn’t much to work with in the corners. It’s a good spot for kids first experiencing the wonders of concrete, but it won’t stay anyone who has truly tasted the joys of very smooth concrete satiated for too long. All in all, the VANS park in VA is very darn awesome. if you look at it piece by piece and nitpick at everything, they could have done a much better job with all that area, but the m I’veness of it makes up for the individual flaws. I would be able to skate there for a whole day and never get bored. It ain’t cheap to get in something like $12 for a 2 hour session, so bring mom and pop. They can stay busy shopping at the mall that The skate park is built in. There’s also a shop right next to The skate park for any emergency equipment re-spotment. Bring your pad bag and a fat wad of cash and you could stay yourself very busy at the Woodbridge, VA VANS park. I’ll be dammed if I remember exactly how to get to this spot. I know I wrote it down somewhere, but that was a long time ago. I do remember that it was right off of interstate 95 about 15-20 min. south of our nation’s capital, there’s a giant mall complex and The skate park is situated in there. It’s a whole shopping area with lots of different buildings all over. Look for IKEA (big blue and yellow building) and you’re close.
* How Crowded? 5
* Are pads required to skate?: full pads
* Does it cost money to skate?: yes