Bob Burnquist was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He started skateboarding in his hometown of Sao Paulo at 11 years previous. Impressively he turned professional when he was simply 14. In 1995 he first competed on the Slam Metropolis Jam in Vancouver towards nearly all of the highest skate boarders on the earth. Being just about unknown on the time, he was to shock the skilled skateboarding world along with his technical type and swap stance skills. He ended up taking first place at this competitors and the remaining was historical past after that time. Bob’s specialties are his swap stance type and creating vert methods. He has a signature trick known as the Wee Willy Grind which is a fakie 5-0 to kick flip that he pulled out and gained on the X Video games Finest Vert Trick Contest in 2000.
Remember to hearken to our total podcast episode on the Lake Tahoe floating ramp
Burnquist has had monumental success over the previous few a long time, taking numerous Gold Medals and X Video games competitions. One in every of his most well-known X Video games runs was in 2001 with a showdown towards Bucky Lasek, he countered with an virtually excellent run, after Bucky’s flawless try. This has been described as the most effective vert runs within the historical past of skateboarding.
He’s additionally not shy about performing insane skateboarding stunts. Throughout 2006 he accomplished a BASE bounce trying a 50-50 into the Grand Canyon. His first try almost price him his life after he missed the rail and fell uncontrolled. His second try nonetheless was profitable.
He additionally has his personal non-public skate park known as Dreamland, probably the most well-known elements of this skatepark is his megaramp, the ramp is made up of a 50-70 foot hole bounce, adopted by a 30 foot quarterpipe. He additionally opens this park as much as different skilled skate boarders, enabling them to coach for mega ramp competitions. If you’re eager to see simply how expert a skater Bob is, you have to take a look at the video under of him skating Dreamland. It’s so insane, even to at the present time. The truth that he can pull these strikes off on a ramp of this measurement is unbelievable.
Bob Burnquist Floating Ramp
So throughout 2013 when Go to California approached Bob to be a part of its Dream Huge Marketing campaign, to spice up tourism within the state, it was pure that he was going to drag out one thing radical. The Dream 365 undertaking, was a digital initiative that showcased sharable video and picture content material that may be used as a medium for inspiration and celebration, with a deal with goals and making them a actuality. Bob’s floating ramp video was simply one among many tales from completely different celebrities that have been featured throughout a 24 hour interval. They showcased 24 goals in 24 hours over quite a lot of digital platforms. So Bob and workforce, of their ordinary style, got here up with the thought to create a floating ramp and place it in Lake Tahoe. His workforce, together with grasp ramp designers Jeff King and Jerry Blohm, spent over 300 man hours, spanning over 4 days together with 1,250 screws to create this virtually 3.5 ton floating ramp.
This was nonetheless, not the primary time this had been finished, throughout the identical yr, Volcom constructed a floating ramp which was featured within the movie ‘True to This’, skated by Grant Taylor and David Gonzalez.
What ended up being created was a 8ft tall wood financial institution ramp, accompanied by a smaller 5ft secondary half-pipe. Each wood ramps relaxation on prime of a 35 ft lengthy floating platform. You even have a rail that’s on the other facet of the 8ft financial institution. It runs off a smaller ramp that goes straight into the water. The wooden on the ramp is stained in a spread of various colors, it virtually appears like a designer piece of furnishings that you’d see in a very unique ski chalet. The design workforce’s important issues have been round weight distribution to keep away from leakage and ensuring that this factor would truly float and never simply find yourself on the backside on the late.
In order that they find yourself towing this factor out onto Lake Tahoe, the climate is completely pristine with the water being aqua blue and floats completely. They’ve drones which can be flying round overhead, Bob drops into the half-pipe and begins skating it. It’s a really cool quick movie that will need to have been fairly a success for the tourism marketing campaign. He does some ramp methods and airs, which is completed off with doing a 50-50 grind on the rail straight into the water of Lake Tahoe.
