On a warm summer day you will see quite a few street skaters, BMX riders and in-line skaters frequenting this hot and well-known skate spot. The park is adorned with tons of concrete benches—most of which that are already waxed from other skaters—it also has several differing stair sets, long stretches of smooth concrete and of course a few good spots to grind on angles.

The park serves not only as an epicenter of the city’s park system—but it is also totally legal to skateboard here. There is a community center nearby with vending machines, so if you get thirsty or need a snack no problem. If you end up skating too hard and you need to take a break, a Jack in the Box and a Mobil on the Run are nearby—which have great AC and offer deals on food and snacks.

Indian Bend Park also offers the avid street skater exactly what they seek in street skating—plenty of benches, stairways and rails, and a few other angled chasms that can challenge even the most astute skater. There used to be an underpass that followed the bike path underneath Camelback Road—a place where a natural concrete half-pipe formed—however due to several people injuring themselves the city added iron rails to the walls so nobody could skate it. That aside, I highly recommend this place for skating.

I spent many a long summer day skateboarding with my good friends at Scottsdale Civic Center. The park is very large. It has several ponds, a public library and is bordered by hundreds of stores and businesses. Most of the park is paved with smooth brick and offers more than fifty different brick benches, as well as walkways and ample stair sets.

My favorite place to skate here was right by the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts—where there is a famous twelve-set stair with a rail and an awesome angled brick slide, which is great for grinding. Be careful when you skate these stair sets, although the brick layered ground may seem smooth, one wrong fall and you will be eating road rash for a week.

Keep an eye out for security guards. Most often they will let you pass on through, however if they see you skating for too long they may ask you to leave. Several covered parking garages make for a fun and shady skating experience, especially if you have been out in the sun too long. There are several nearby businesses that sell beverages and that offer cool AC should you really need to cool down; the park is adorned with plenty of water fountains too.

On days where we were just sick and tired of skating the usual spots in Scottsdale, we headed out to the beautiful Borgota. This small yet amicable shopping plaza has much to offer the street skater. Brick benches and small stair sets that border fountains assure that you land your trick lest you lose your board underwater. Smooth concrete parking garages with tapered pillars offer much to the wall-ride fancy skater. There are also plenty of rails to grind and plenty of small curbs that you can wax up and slide to your heart’s content.

Several small businesses, cafes, eateries and bars line the complex—offering a break from the blistering sun and cool refreshments for weary skaters. There are not too many security guards here, but from time to time you may be asked to leave. The coolest thing about the Borgota is that nearly no other skaters know of its existence, nor are they aware of the many cool skating facets that this retail complex offers. If you are looking for a less-known and more personal street spot to skate—you have found it here.

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This place is now a public skate park and is the only official and legal skate park in Scottsdale Arizona. It did not used to be that way however. Back in the day (roughly ten years ago) it was just a cool looking park that bordered Scottsdale’s Green Belt (a park area that stretches for 60 miles in both directions). It was coined with the name The Wedge because there was a huge concrete wedge that was bordered on both sides by long stretches of concrete.

Skaters, bikers and in-line skaters loved to hit this spot up on a daily basis—due to the fact that you could gain ample amounts of speed on your way to The Wedge and then shoot up over it, grabbing immense amounts of air. It almost worked like a concrete launch ramp; only this wedge was about five-hundred feet wide and twenty feet deep. The police in Scottsdale began to really crack down on street skaters at the time.

After my brother and I were issued several skateboarding citations we decided to form a committee to get the funding for Scottsdale’s first and only legal skate park. We successfully managed to garner the needed 10,000 signatures and lo and behold within a few years time the park was entirely revamped and outfitted to serve as a skate park.

The city took our design schematics and implemented everything and anything. They added several pools, a few bowls and tons of rails. They also added ramps, a fun box and a few other skater attractions; and yes they left the infamous Wedge the way that it was, but they also included a few new picnic tables and they repaved it so it would be smoother. Skating The Wedge is great fun. One could easily spend an entire afternoon there and still not get bored. If you find yourself here at this awesome and legal skate park, grab some speed and air-board it over The Wedge—you will never get more air anywhere else in Scottsdale.

Fashion Square Mall was a hotspot for local skaters of all ages during my hay day as a skater. There are several reasons why skateboarders love to skate this mall. The first and most obvious reason being that there are tons of great places to skate in the many parking garages that line the mall—places that are shaded, offer tons of grind spots and the oh so smooth parking garage flooring that lets you gain monstrous speed.

Another reason is that if you ever get too hot or beat—all you have to do was walk into the mall where you will get blasted by the best AC known to man; the mall food court offers beverages and food for tired skaters. The best place to skate at Fashion Square is the Nordstrom’s parking garage underneath the Goldwater Bridge.

This parking garage has a nifty 45 degree angled slop that intervenes and cross-sections with some of the best curb-sliding known to man. There are not too many stair sets, but there are few nearby that will get the job done. Keep a wary eye peeled for mall security. They will not do anything but ask you to leave. If you get caught too many times they may ban you from coming back to the mall for a few days.

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