Whoa! That's a big ramp. Joe Morahan © 2006 Lat34

Skating the Echo: Mega Ramp at X Games

PHOTO GALLERY Check out Andy Macdonnald and  the X Games 12 Men's Skate Street and Big Air Practice.  VIEW GALLERY >

On my way to find the Press Center this morning, walking under the scorching California sun, I stopped for a moment to stand & admire the monstrous structure which laid before me. I'd never been this close to a mega-ramp before and, take my word for it, you will never really grasp the size (and steepness) of a mega-ramp until you're standing at the foot of it.  But eyes play tricks on you and I still wasn't sure of it's size until I realized that the music blaring out of the speakers at my end of the structure sounded horrible & convoluted.  I finally realized that the problem was the echo.  The mega-ramp is so big that the music coming from the left side of the quarterpipe, travels up the landing, over the gap, down the take offs and smacks into the massive drop-ins at the other end.  The drop-ins are so steep that the sound waves have no where to go but back the other way, so they gracefully complete the routine again and hit your ear drums nearly a second after they left the speakers.  This thing has an echo to rival the Grand Canyon...so as you can imagine, it's big.

A few skaters took the opportunity to practice on the course this morning.  Among them was Andy Macdonald who threw down what was to be the trick of the day - a flawless backflip over the 60' gap, into a HUGE method on the quarterpipe.  Danny Way showed up towards the end and messed around on the quarter too, pulling some gorgeous surf-style lay backs across the top, just under the coping, dragging his arm & all.  He seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly.

Mega-ramp is one of the youngest & most exciting events at the X Games.  When Danny Way first started experimenting with these things a few years back, it was clear he'd taken a page out of snowboarding's book.  Now, as we head into the X Games 12 mega-ramp event, I'm going to take some snapshots for my snowboarder friends because I'm betting that these guys (Macdonald, Way, Glifberg, Burnquist, Lasek) are about to do some stuff that even those of us with our boards strapped to our feet haven't thought of yet.

- Cody Allen