A Beginners Guide to the New Skatepark
- SJ Poulton
- 20 hours ago
- 12 min read
Russellville’s Harmon skate-park, at 201-220 Independence Ave, beside Ridgewood Brother’s BBQ and behind Newton’s Pharmacy, recently re-opened to the public following weeks of construction on a new 7,000 sq. foot addition. The additions to the built-in concrete park have been in planning and development with the City of Russellville for three years with major community support and leadership from Drew Wilson, a local tattoo artist and skate-brand owner.
Constructed by Primary Concrete from Austin, Texas, the park’s triangular design appeals to skaters of all levels. Maximizing on space, the new addition is an open triangle of track, attaching to the original skate park on the eastern side.
For new skaters, it can be intimidating to come to the park for the first, second, or third time. Especially if you’re new to skating. This guide is intended to address common questions and concerns for beginning skaters who might be interested in the new park and are not sure where to start.
It will cover information about the park, gear and safety equipment, features and components of the park, and generally what to expect to find when you arrive.
As of the writing of this guide (December 2025) there is still ongoing construction planned for the premises of Harmon Park, including the addition of wheel-chair accessible bathrooms and a water fountain. Construction may affect its opening hours and availability but is expected to be completed in January of 2026.
About the Park
The original construction included a five foot “bowl” (a bit like a swimming pool without the swimming), and a compact collection of high rails, steep stairs, gaps, and drop-ins. Original portions of the skatepark were designed and constructed by Wally Hollyday, a group famous for their collaboration with Tony Hawk and building pro-skating parks around the world. It opened in 2008 and was a collaboration with the city and community.
There’s still spray-painted vandalism in the old part of the park, but the new concrete is pristine and smooth. There are hopes by the city and people using the skatepark to keep vandals out of the park. While spray paint may be aesthetically associated with skate parks, the paint isn’t favored by those skating. Paint messes with the friction and grip of the surface, increasing chances of injury and leading to the corrosion of the concrete. Longevity in skateparks requires keeping spray cans out of it.
When Drew Wilson started hanging out at the skate park after moving to Russellville in 2022 he noticed the park wasn’t seeing a lot of people and almost no new skaters. He said he’d see kids come through excited to skate, but the park was tough, and they often left demoralized and maybe hurt.
Talking to some of the young people who were skating when I visited on a recent Saturday, they found the original park character-building.
“Skating it meant you had to really get over any like, mental blocks,” one told me.
“It could be scary, but it was that or not skate,” said Jacob, who has been coming to the park since he was young. He chose to keep skating but had hit a wall with it recently.
Jacob told me he had been ready to give up skating before the new skatepark, frustrated by a lack of progress and a lot of hurt. “But now, I’m out here three or four times a week.”
New additions along the concrete track include flat rails, hips, boxes, a red curb, multiple quarter-pipes, several transitions, bumps, and plenty of flat space. We’ll take a closer look at those components later in the guide.
Harmon skate park is open seven days a week, starting at sunrise and closing at 10:30pm. There is on-premise parking. Along with all the new features, the skatepark will have a wheel-chair accessible bathroom, water fountain, and new picnic benches installed.
Gear
In this section, we’ll breakdown some of the necessary and recommended gear for visiting the skate park.
Wheels
While the skateboard is the quintessential set of wheels for shredding at the skatepark, people come with quad skates, rollerblades, scooters, and BMX bikes. A scooter’s low-clearance can present some difficulties on features, but the smooth concrete can be a fun place for young kids to see what it feels like to roll up and down on the transitions or from the drop-ins.
To keep the park safe for everyone and maintain the concrete, no motorized vehicles are allowed at the skate park. That means no electric bikes or scooters.
Overtime you’ll learn more about the gear and the things you do or don’t like about it. Skateboards and quad roller skates will have customizable elements like wheels and trucks (the metal part that attaches the wheels to either the shoe or board) and will have different materials, durability, and sizes. Bikes too will have different choices to make as you advance and as you learn what kind of skating you like to do.
If you’re purchasing new gear, try not to overthink it, especially for beginners. There’s lots of variety, but the best tool for the job is the one you can afford. Make sure it’s sized correctly and fits your budget so you can get started.
Make upgrades accordingly and be sure that gear for young kids continues to fit securely without getting too small and creating a hazard for them.
Helmets
No helmet, no park. All physical activities and sports come with a certain amount of risk and trying to catch air over concrete or go really fast on a board with wheels is no exception. Protect your head and the special bits inside with an appropriately sized helmet.
A helmet that fits will be snug but not tight. It should sit level about two fingers width above your eyebrows. Adjusters on the side should form a ‘v’ slightly in front of and below the ears. The chin strap should be tight enough that only one or two fingers fit through between the strap and chin. When your head moves, it shouldn’t. Adjust with the straps until it sits securely on your head.
If you’re buying a helmet for a young child, make sure to buy the helmet that fits now and not one they’ll grow into. A helmet that doesn’t fit properly won’t be able to keep them safe properly. Check in every few weeks or months to make sure it’s still fitting appropriately. Make sure they know how to safely and securely buckle their own helmet and never let them skate without one.
Even if you aren’t outgrowing your helmet, be sure to replace it every three to five years and after any significant impact. Helmets aren’t meant to withstand more than one direct impact. While skating helmets are designed to withstand multiple small impacts, it’s important to remember that damage to a helmet isn’t always visible. Regularly replacing your helmet can help keep you safe.
Pads
Some people decide they’d like more protection when they go skating and opt to include wrist guards, knee pads, or elbow pads to their safety equipment.
Wrist guards slide over or onto your wrist and have a hard support at the wrist but leave your hand and fingers free. They help protect your wrist if you fall and try to brace yourself by putting a hand down first. They can be helpful for anyone learning to skate, ride, or scoot.
Kneepads will slide onto your knee and attach with Velcro at the top and bottom. They’ll help to reduce the impact when you do land on your knees. Keeping your knees from impacting the hard concrete repeatedly can help minimize the risks of serious injury to your knee cap. If you’re skating on quad or inline skates, knee pads can seriously improve your experience as falling onto your knees is a common occurrence. Kneepads can offer a safer alternative to sprawling out on a fall, but learning to fall only on your knees can have its own risks.
Elbow pads slide onto your arms and are secured at the elbow, though some just Velcro on without having to go up the arm. Elbow pads will help protect elbows from scraps and impacts where you might fall onto them.
Falling down is part of skating, but protecting the areas where you fall can help minimize fear, risk, and can keep you skating longer. Wrist guards, knee pads, and elbow pads are widely available in children and adult sizes, both online and at stores like Academy Sports or Walmart. Keep an eye on the integrity of your equipment and make looking for signs of wear or cracks a part of packing up or putting on your gear so you know when to replace it.
A Note on Safety
What attracts a lot of people to the idea of skating is the danger. The reason the tricks people land look so impressive is because they are hard and require skill, practice, and a certain amount of daring. While it’s important to have the right gear and come prepared, there’s no safety equipment that will one hundred precent reduce your risk of injury. Safety equipment is meant to keep you from serious harm, but all sports carry some amount of risk and skating is no exception.
Wearing appropriate safety equipment can help keep you from serious injury and play a major role in being able to skate for a long time, but also eat, walk, and move on your own. Brain injuries and spinal cord injuries are no joke, and skating without a helmet seriously increases your risk of both.
Always wear a helmet when you skate, bike, or scooter.
Beyond the safety gear, there are other important “rules” for learning to skate safely.
Awareness: Whatever your skill level, everyone at the park is working on their next hardest thing. People move fast and boards that lose their rider and keep going move even faster. People line up for their drop-ins (heading down a ramp, or ledge) even when it’s busy and try to give each other space, but you’ll need to make sure you know where you are, where your feet are, and what’s around you. Skating isn’t a full-contact sport (roller derby has a different track) and you can keep it that way by making sure you stay aware of who and what is around you.
Falling: Falling is part of skating, an inevitable part of the process and product. Even people who have been skating for a long time and skate well still fall. Learning to fall will help you both mentally and physically when that inevitable fall comes.
To learn how to fall, find videos on YouTube or ask people around you at the park. If you don’t want to ask, just watch others skating and you’ll soon see how they handle it. Generally, though you want to try not to panic, try to protect your head, and try to keep your limbs loose and unlocked.
While learning quad skating for roller derby, the advice was to learn to fall small and fall onto your (well-guarded) knees, but lots of skateboarders suggest you try to tuck and roll onto your shoulder, helping to distribute the momentum. Either way, it’s best to be mentally prepared for a fall without being so scared you never get started.
3. Patience: While it’s impossible to avoid ever falling, the next best thing you can do after wearing your helmet to reduce your risk of injury is to develop patience. Don’t get ahead of yourself and spend plenty of time mastering your current skill level before trying to move on.
Before you try any jumps, steep drop-ins, or even ollies, make sure you understand the motions and mechanics of starting, stopping, turning, and even just standing on your board, skates, bike, or scooter. Spend time—lots of time, probably more time than you want—getting your body used to skating and getting really sure of yourself when it comes to all the basics on flat and minimally inclined surfaces before you move on to more advanced moves.
Spending time on your board, skates, bike, or scooter will help develop the muscles, balance, skills, and confidence to help you progress. Plenty of practice will lead to small falls on their own, hopefully preparing you for the bigger spills you’ll take with bigger moves. Progress by understanding acceptable risk and not trying to jump to the next thing without having the right skill set.
Now that you know what gear to bring and how to reduce the risk of injury, you’re ready to learn more about the different components of the new track at Harmon Skate Park!
New Park Features
Boasting 7,000 sq. feet of new concrete, there’s lots of new concrete to skate at Harmon Park!
Entering from the park’s parking lot, the sidewalk leads to the original skate park on the right and the new additions on the left. In this guide we are focusing on the new additions, but there’s good skating in the original park as well.
There’s plenty of flat space along the tracks and its concrete is specifically designed and poured by a skateboard company, creating a really smooth ride. To get started:
Stick to the Flats
Once you’ve got your wheels and helmet on, get your feet under you. Get comfortable riding on the concrete, figuring out how it feels to speed up, slow down, turn, and stop. Follow along with the track, being sure to keep an eye on where others are and giving people space. Move up and down some of the banks and falls, letting your body learn to balance as you speed up, slow down, and turn around corners or away from features and obstacles.
Pinball the Walls
As you get used to the feeling of moving along the flats, the southeastern corner of the park’s triangle, where the new additions meet the original park, has a series of mellow quarter pipes and ramps to help you get a feel for moving up and down and turning on elevated surfaces. Use this area to move back and forth, practicing picking up speed, slowing, stopping, and turning as you go up and down and around, pinballing back and forth against the elevated ramps.
From either side of this, there are bumps/ramps that lead down, if you head towards the Kroger parking lot, you’ll go down a smooth, mellow transition and end up at the flat rail and its mirrored flat box. The flat rail, at a foot tall, is a feature that appeals to skaters who are starting out with tricks and advanced skaters alike.
The flat rail and the box are both fifteen feet long. The metal box has metal coping along the edge that gives it a smoother ride than the concrete ledges of the curbs topped with cement. The box and rail both allow skaters to develop skill as they advance to practice grinds, jumps, and more.
Hit the Hip
Along the east corner of the park, where the triangle forms a corner by the Ridgewood Brother’s parking lot, there’s an elevated bank that’s about three feet tall with mellow drops on either side. At the seam of these two drops there’s a perfect hip, what Drew Wilson said was easily his favorite part of the new park.
These banks are mellow transitions for learning to drop in, gain speed, and transition up from the flats. The hip, that seam where the two ramps meet, also makes for great transition work moving from the different places. As you gain confidence, you can use this space to “drop in”, starting at the top, but also to practice turns and get a feel for how it feels going up and down slanted surfaces.
When you’re ready to try a drop-in from there, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to see how others do it, as skaters will form loose lines, giving people space to ride down before starting.
The elevation at this bank is more mellow, but as you continue to advance there are lots of spots to practice dropping-in. In the picture below, you can see a quarter-pipe on the right side and a longer drop on the left side, so there’s plenty of features that beginning skaters can aspire to as they progress.
Curbs and Other Ledges
Like the flat rail and box from earlier, there are lots of curbs, ledges, and boxes around the park. The red curb mimics the curbs you see in parking lots and includes a small bowl for transitions. Unlike the metal rails and the boxes that have metal coping at the top, the red curb is only concrete which has a different feel under wheels or boards, providing additional friction against wheels and skateboards.
Along with flat rails, the new addition includes an angled rail with a flat element. This bump-to-rail combo inclines towards the southeastern corner of the park with the rail and concrete cresting into a flat bank and on towards more inclines and edges.
The sloped concrete and rail have lots of potential for leveling up as you do, letting skaters of all levels test and try new things.
Finally
There’s more to the skatepark and skating than what was covered in this guide, but the new skatepark additions at Harmon Park in Russellville, Arkansas offer the perfect opportunity for curious would-be skaters to head out and get started.
Intended to appeal to new skaters and expand the existing skatepark, the recent additions at Harmon have helped to revitalize the sport and community in this area. Enthusiasm amongst those already fond of the park is high. The park has quickly drawn attention from around the state and country.
Shortly after re-opening the park, an Arkansas based skate collective hosted part of their championship competition at the park. Visitors have been as wide ranging as semi-local BMXers and skaters from as far away as California and Texas.
Most days you can find groups of kids, teenagers, and adults out at the park. For those who were already involved and those new to it, there’s a real sense of accomplishment and excitement in having the new park and the opportunities it provides.
While starting a new sport or activity can be intimidating and overwhelming especially for one that remains underground (despite being in the Olympics), the main thing is having the desire, taking appropriate risks, and getting started.
So, get your wheels and helmet and we’ll see you at the skatepark.