The 30 Most Influential Skaters Of All Time

By Blair Alley
Tue, Dec 20 2011 1:18 am | Comments

6. WAY.

Stalefish, 1988. Photo: BRITTAIN

On the birth of the Mega Ramp:

I’ve always been infatuated with motorcycles and going fast and jumping far and I snowboarded a lot in the early ’90s as well. I was always able to jump those distances—60, 70, 80 feet on my dirt bike and all that. Mike T and I used to talk about building big ramps way back in the day; this was when I was super young. I used to draw these big ramps in class all the time too. I always had this fantasy of building these big ramps and doing these bigger airs. I didn’t know if skateboard wheels could handle the speed the same as bike tires, I didn’t know any of the ramp dimensions either. So I took some of my knowledge in skateboarding and built my own ramp that had its own dimensions. That was my initial commitment to trying to explore what’s possible on a skateboard or explore what I think is potentially possible.