Skateline Bishan Park Officially Opened! 2005 April 24

Skateline Bishan Park is officially opened! We are pleased to present Singapore's largest private outdoor skating rink, bike rental kiosk and cafe all rolled into one outlet!

Heartland SkatePark : A brief History
Skateline has in fact been managing the Bishan skate park since 2002. At the time, it was an aggressive skate park featuring wooden ramps for the local aggressive community. In a move to serve more skaters, the aging ramps were taken apart in 2003 to make way for a fully flat and open skating rink. The park immediately saw a dramatic jump in usage, from scores of aggressive skaters every weekend to hundreds of begginner skaters within weeks. The park became the most active learner venue for new inline skaters. At the time, Skateline occupied just one third of the space at the facility, sharing space with the bike rental business and a cafe. Skateline recognised that integrated operations between the skate, bike and cafe will make operations smoother and realise the full potential of the venue. In late 2004, a successful tender was made to the National Parks Board to run the entire facility (skate, bike and cafe). This allowed a redesign of the floorspace, doubling the retail space and bringing the cafe location right next to the park track. Now Skateline Bishan Park is the island's only private outdoor skating rink, and the only integrated bike/skate/cafe venue serving park goers in central Singapore.[]

Guests arrive in time for the official opening at 1pm ,with the release of Skateline's orange balloons! Guests were immediately treated to an opening demonstration of the Essboard, an on-land surfboard, by Essboard experts. This was followed by a slalom demonstration by special guests, a local slalom trio Wenlong, Ivan and Wenling. The trio demonstrated basic to advance slalom moves, graceful and sometimes seemingly impossible swirl of limbs around cones.

Guests take advantage of the special carnival prices

Shortly after the slalom demonstration, showers with thunder came at about 2pm, driving participants to seek shelter in the cafe, bike retail kiosk and skate retail shop. The rain however does not dampen the carnival mood,most guests waited the rain out, either but chatting with other guests or checking out the special offers in the skate shop. Fortunately the cloulds moved on in time for the mid-afternoon program, the urban skate, the free Inline Funstart lessons and the Safe Skating Clinic by the Skate Assist Volunteers.

Registrations abuzz for the coloring contest, free InlineFunstart lesson and Treasure Hunt.

The first round of lucky draw at 3pm saw 25 lucky guests win a pair of brand new inline skates each. By mid-afternoon juniors were sprawled around Bishan park putting their color pencils to paper in the kid's coloring contest, and scores of beginners were on the concrete learning skating for the very first time.

Instructors and Skate Assist Volunteers accompanied skaters participanting in the urbans skate for a cruise along the Kallang canal. Skaters went beyond Bishan Park along the edge of Toa Payoh all the way to Potong Pasir estate before turning back.

Skaters who were interested in inline hockey had the opporunity to try-out the game first hand, shooting pucks into nets tended by hockey players who were there to share the sport with new skaters.

At 6pm guests gathered for the prize giving for the winning entries to the kid's coloring contest and winning teams of the Treasure Hunt. Another 25 lucky winners took home a new pair of skates!

The carnival was brought to a close by the director of Skateline Felix Yeo, who in his closing speech challenges all skaters to pursue their own dreams, just like Skateline had done with the launch of Bishan Park. We look forward to seeing you in the park![]

See more pictures of the carnival here!
Photos by Skateline Instructor Faussi Lamiran