The Rancho Santa Margarita Skatepark is a fine example of a skatepark gone wrong!! Like many cities across SoCal and the rest of the country the city of RSM did the right thing and stepped up to the plate and provided a skatepark for the skateboarders in their community. However, the end result was a skatepark that:
- was poorly built with some sketchy transitions
- 50% of the terrain was not designed well
- has a skatepark pool that could have been one of the best skatepark pools in SoCal if it would have been built by a crew with the right amount of experience building skatepark pools.
I only took a couple runs in the upper reservoir and the bowl run and had enough very quickly. The upper reservoir truly skates like a ditch, the run that leads into the bowl has some interesting tranny to hit, and once you hit the bowl you really cannot flow back up do to the slope leading down the run.
The pool is amoeba shaped with a 5' shallow, 7' middle section, and 9' deep. The only vert is about 6" from the tile up and spotty. There are some killer lines in the pool and it is fun to skate but frustrating knowing how good it could have been. The surface is a bit rough, the trannys are uneven, the coping is set well for the most part but is uneven in some places, and basically rides like a good backyard pool/ok skatepark pool. There are a few kinks here and there as well.
As far as the street elements go, I am not a street skater but on opening day it looked like the kids were digging what the skatepark had to offer in terms of rails, stairs, and ledges. I did talk to several experienced street skaters and they told me things could have been much better.
Bottom Line: If you are a pool skater it is worth the road trip to check out the pool and decide for yourself how you like it. There are a lot of skaters that dig and rip the pool. I did not skate much of the small trannies and sadlands planter but there were several skaters that said that was their favorite part of the skatepark. YOU BE THE JUDGE
In the end, I am bitter about how this skatepark turned out and feel bad for all of the skateboarders that put time into the design of this skatepark and the skateboarders that live in RSM.
I would recommend any city that is planning on building a skatepark for the skateboarders in their community to visit this website for direction > Skaters For Public Skateparks.
