Vaughan Jones – pole jam.

Another standard day in summer, we were skating the DIY spot The Joint and were thinking of hitting some street spots. We set off towards Kirkstall and had a cruise seeing bits and bobs on the way, and eventually we arrived at this bank spot. The banks are rough and pretty similar to a cheese grater, if not worse.

Foz was with us and he wanted to get on top of the roof through the hole, which you can see just above Vaughan’s head in the photo. We gave him a boost to get up there and he scrambled around for a bit and managed to get on top to eye up the roof gap to the bank, which is as ‘mosher’ as you like. He then came back down looking scared.

I saw the white pole and jokingly said it would be sick to make that into a pole jam so you could go off it into the bank. Foz and Vaughan then noticed that the slabs under the pole were quite loose so they manoeuvred the pole around until it gradually angled to create a pole jam. The floor was proper rough so with a bit of DIY from all the guys we found some bits of wood and tape to make the run-up bearable, and then we were sorted and ready to go.

It took a while for anyone to man up to this death trap but Vaughan and Foz both attempted to skate it in turn. After quite a few stressful attempts Vaughan managed to get a straight pole jam in to the bank, Foz also nose-bonked the end of the pole and into the bank.

In the end it was a rad session and all the lads effort paid off.