Tired of the same old vert ramp with a 9 ½ tranny and 1’ 6” of vert? We used to think about ways of making ramps a lot more fun to ride so I sat down with Micke Alba and Chris Miller around 1987 at the St. Louis Summer camp to design this ramp of the NSA competition. It was a 64’ wide ramp with 10’ trannies in the middle and 9 ft trannies on the ends so that the flat bottom would raise 2” inches every 8 feet and the coping would fall 2” inches every 8’. Also to balance the ramp out the flat bottom was 14’ feet wide in the middle and 15’ on the ends. People looking at the ramp were a little skeptical but once they rode it they found out how much fun it was. Paul Schmitt and I exchanged ideas a lot and the Y Ramp was his variation of the coned end concept but minramp style. When I first saw this it was the spine that looked so good and made a lot of trick easier on and over the lip! We always envisioned blowing the whole thing in if permanently set up. Check out the footage from the NSA Y Ramp below see what happened at the end! – Tim Payne
