Skateboarding
Pro skaters Ryan Decenzo, TJ Rogers and Torey Pudwill take on a wild winter challenge – skating a frozen, spinning lake in Minnesota with blowtorches, tricks and moving ramps.
You may be thinking that Ryan Decenzo and fellow Canadian TJ Rogers are no strangers to skating in snowy temperatures, but what is Southern California boy Torey Pudwill doing with them riding a skatepark spinning on an ice carousel in the middle of frozen Coon Lake in mid-winter Minnesota? It turns out this trio can handle anything you put in front of them, including a multitude of rotating ice skate sculptures, as the video below shows.
After previous icy adventures on his board that have included jumping a 6m frozen creek with ramps built from snow and grinding a 21-foot-long wooden rainbow rail, Decenzo is no stranger to sub-zero skate projects, but how did he Rodgers and Pudwill come up with the idea to build this ice carousel park?
Ice carousels are massive circular slabs of ice cut from frozen lakes and set in motion. Born in Finland and spreading across North America – where they've become an annual neighbourhood tradition in places like Minnesota – these icy merry-go-rounds have evolved from small local celebrations and gathering spot to become big, motor-powered attractions. A 541m-wide ice carousel crafted in Maine in 2023 currently holds the world record, although our trio of skaters aimed for something a little smaller, but equally ground-breaking.
The cold was harder than skating any of the obstacles. You can't warm up, you can’t feel your feet, your bushings are frozen solid and don't work
"I actually never knew what an ice carousel was and hadn't seen the videos, but I guess I'm the winter guy for skateboarding now," said Decenzo about the idea of the project coming up. I was up for the challenge, though. I didn’t realise it was going to be so much colder than the other winter things I've done. I don't think many people have skated in those temperatures, it was obscene."
Chainsaw time: Carving an ice carousel skatepark
To bring the idea of an ice carousel skatepark to life, the trio worked closely with ice carousel expert Paul Miller to craft the perfect carousel sizes for each feature they dreamt up. While Miller typically builds large carousels, this project required careful measurement. Working with Pudwill, Rogers and Decenzo, he designed carousels that matched the obstacles exactly. Miller cut them with a chainsaw each night, recutting them the next day for filming. Sometimes, the carousels were spun by hand, and other times, they were controlled by a 4-wheeler or a small electric trolling motor.
Instead of carving out a rink, they built a rotating skatepark that tested their balance and timing over three intense days. The first day's work featured the spinning goal post jump with a 1.5m carousel and a 1.2m gap to jump through. Day two introduced a spinning quarterpipe on a 4.9m carousel. the third and final day saw the trio faced with a circular rail that circled the 3.7m carousel, demanding perfect precision and board control – not easy when the skaters had frozen feet and bushings on their boards. Each feature demanded elite-level skating and adaptability.
Each obstacle presented their own difficulties, but for Decenzo the circular rail was the one that easily caused the most difficulties: "The problem was that the wax didn't work in that temperature. You couldn't get it onto the rail. We were running out of daylight on that one and nothing was working. Torey and I did those tricks raw, just using the wax that was on our boards. It was also the messiest one with freezing water splashing and getting our gear all wet."
Any water that got on your board froze. It was the worst scenario. Your griptape would turn into ice. The same thing with your shoes
The many layered problems of skating in snow gear
A skatepark built out in the middle of a frozen lake that's very, very far below 0°C is not the place for the usual clothes Rogers, Pudwill and Decenzo like to skate in. T-shirt weather this was not. This brought up a major wardrobe-related challenge – how to skate whilst wearing layers and layers of thick, bulky winter gear.
"The way the project was pitched to me was just that it's in Minnesota and it’s going to be ice carousels. And I said I was down,” says the SoCal sunshine native Pudwill. "When I got there, it was completely unimaginable. I've never been in those sub-zero temperatures before. I wasn't prepared for it. I didn’t think it through too well.
"You had to wear as many layers as you could – five layers minimum. I had two pairs of socks and foot warmers in my socks and shoes – then you had to walk out on the lake wearing snow boots, or else your skate shoes would get soaked and freeze solid. I had long johns, a pair of pants and another pair of pants over that, and still freezing. I also had a thermal shirt, long sleeve shirt, t-shirt and one big ol' jacket that went down to my knees – and I don’t like to skate with things on that flare out, or sunglasses and gloves. You also had to wear big snow gloves, so any time you had to adjust your board with the skate tool, you had to take the gloves off. One of the biggest challenges was just to get comfortable before you even started skating."
Even Decenzo, the 'snow skating expert', found the temperatures and the issues this caused unprecedented. "The cold leads to so many other factors. It was harder than skating any of the obstacles," he recalls. "You can't warm up, you can't feel your feet, your bushings are frozen solid and don't work. I knew I could land a trick, but my jacket would be in the way. So I'd take the jacket off, but then get too cold. When I tried to 360 Flip the goal post, my feet were completely numb. I kicked out and ran out on the landing wood and it felt like my feet shattered."
You had to wear as many layers as you could. One of the biggest challenges was just getting comfortable before you even started skating
“One of the biggest challenges was just to get comfortable before you even started skating. When it was time to skate, you’re like, 'how do I warm up?'," adds Pudwill. "There's no warm-up at all, it's just drop in and send it."
Pudwill also discovered quickly that freezing water skateboards don't mix: "That’s something I quickly figured out: if your board touches ice, it just freezes. After about 20 minutes, it gets pretty unbearable. There were a couple tricks that I tried for an hour, hour-and-a-half. When you're that invested, you just have to block out all those factors. The whole crew were gone, they couldn't stand to stay out there, so it was just me, a filmer and the photographer Jonathan Mehring, and there was a point where his camera wouldn't fire because it was so cold."
Blowtorching bushings: How to keep a skateboard working on snow
Aside from a big coat, perhaps the most vital bit of kit the trio made use of during the project was the small blowtorch they used to unfreeze the bushings, wheel bearings and grip-tape on their boards at regular intervals.
"I had blowtorched bushings in previous snow projects," says Decenzo. "Any slush that gets on your board turns to water and gets your bushings wet. This time, though, any water on your board turned to ice. It was the worst case scenario. Your griptape would turn into ice and the same thing would happen to your shoes. It felt like a skateboarding Mission Impossible. I don’t know if I ever want to do something that cold again."
“When the blowtorch came out, that was so genius,” says Pudwill. "The first day, my board got submerged and my bearings froze, my bushings froze, my griptape was frozen – I thought I was done. We blowtorched it, starting with the bearings and the wheels started spinning great – you could see the water dripping out. My trucks went from not moving, hard as a rock, to loosening up and moving again. My griptape got so frozen that it was cracking. Every single try I had to blowtorch my bushings or else it wouldn't turn normally."
So, given all challenges the skaters face before even tackling the ice carousel park, which setup was the hardest to skate?
For Pudwill, it was the quarterpipe that required precise timing to hit the lip, turn around and make it onto the next landing pad: "The carousel quarterpipe was the hardest thing to skate, it threw my whole equilibrium off. As it spun to the left, anything I was trying to do backside was Alley-oop, because the quarterpipe was spinning under you. You'd end up all twisted up. I had to skate it not-moving. I spent an hour trying to do a Kickflip to Fakie on it while it was moving and it wasn't possible."
For Rogers, it was the merry-go-round rail. Pudwill took the Boardslide and just before dark, Decenzo pulled off a perfect 50-50 around the whole thing. "The hardest thing for me to skate was the flatbar. It was a full 360 and it spun, and I couldn’t get a trick on it," says the Canadian. "I was trying a couple Boardslides on it and then Torey did one almost first try. So, I left it to Torey." As for Decenzo’s around-the-rail 50-50, Rogers recalls: "Not only did it take him a while, but he was stressing the whole time. That was the last day of the shoot and it was even colder because it was close to getting dark."
