Former world champion snowboarder Roope Tonteri builds skate ramp on a frozen lake
Roope ‘Thunder’ Tonteri, 26, from Kouvola in Finland is a former snowboarding world champion. Tonteri won gold in both slopestyle and big air at the 2013 FIS Snowboarding World Championships.
In his down time Tonteri likes to shred down mountains with his friends and generally have a good time. Lately though he’s been busy building mini half pipes in some pretty strange places.
In 2014 with the help of his dad Pekka and old friends Jaakko Tossavainen and Eero Ettala, he built a ramp complex complete with a sauna and floated it out on a barge on the lake near his home. In 2016 he built a mini ramp in the tree line and another amphibious ramp.
Now the slightly eccentric Fin has taken his mini ramp onto the Ice. Far away from any graffiti soaked skate parks full of kids with skinned knees and tatty jeans, in -20 degrees Celsius on top of a frozen lake in Kouvola is where Tonteri built his latest mini ramp.
As if building a mini ramp on a frozen lake wasn’t enough, he brought along a chainsaw to carve out a circle around the ramp allowing the ramp to float and rotate as it’s being skated. Check out the video of Roope Tonteri and his pal, 2011 Volcom European Wild in the Parks championship winner Jaakko Ojanen tearing it up on the freezing mini.
When asked if he had anymore mini ramp projects in mind for the future Tonteri said.
“I’m for sure always thinking about new projects and up here in Alaska (where he’s currently based) I for sure have time for that, haha.”
So hopefully we can look forward to some more whacky skate tomfooleries and whacky builds from Roope.
Tell us what you think of Tonteri’s ramp builds in the comments. Why now peruse this skate-tastic tale too.
