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May, 2025

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Backyard foam pit/airbag

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cornholio
Posts: 3952 - Karma: 3,057
i have a friend who wants to dig a 20'x30'x7' deep hole in his yard to put in a foam pit or airbag or something. anybody have any experience with this?

imo the foam pit seems like too much maintenance, impossible to keep weather out without complicated drainage system, foam would go bad and need to be replaced too quickly, pit would need to be too deep and have expensive shoring to keep from caving in, etc, etc,

i think the airbag wouldnt need a big excavation or be below ground necessarily, but would maybe require drop in/kicker to be elevated a little higher. above ground would seem to eliminate a lot of issues that come with the "pit" construction. airbags are pretty expensive though.

he owns the land, has no hoa restiction, basically can do what he wants (as far as we know). it seems like a long shot but i was wondering if anyone had experience with this? i'd post in build-a-jib but thought this would get more traffic.

he's a snowboarder so if any or all the ideas seem borderline retarded thats why.

also if anyone has a hookup for used airbag lemme know
12 years ago
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kamron_708
Posts: 944 - Karma: 1,129
Aha! I'm your man. I can send you for my current project. Digging a huge pit in my backyard. What's happening is I'm getting a 14 by 9 flybed an putting it in the pit. Now imagine foam all the way around te trampoline for 8 feet on each side. Idea is than almost any trick can be thrown any direction into the foam from anywhere on the tramp. Imagine a 22x17 foam pit(5-6 feet deep). Now drop a flybed smack dab in the middle and hours of fun and possibly the best home trampoline setup in the world
12 years ago
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cornholio
Posts: 3952 - Karma: 3,057
the idea of a below ground tramp was thrown out there but i think he's pretty set on doing something with an actual run in and takeoff
12 years ago
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kamron_708
Posts: 944 - Karma: 1,129
Is he talking summer setup or winter? If winter? Why dig it in? Summer- is he trying to work until he dies or what?
12 years ago
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cornholio
Posts: 3952 - Karma: 3,057
summer. IF we do a pit, we have hookups to get a backhoe relatively cheap for the weekend to dig it all out. the rest of the labor would be given because we're all idiots. we'd need to figure a shoring system to keep the dirt from collapsing (current thought is some fence posts plus either wood or steel), something to line the pit with to keep weather out, and we're debating a drainage system (some of us think its necessary, others not)


12 years ago
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stupendous-man
Posts: 8637 - Karma: 13,297
This seems really obvious... just cover the foam pit? I know travis pastrana has basically a roof that he just slides off his pit when he want to use it. If you're going to go all out and dig a hole and such, putting a legit cover over the pit would just make sense.

Also... why in ground? Just build a big drop in, could be easier/cheaper than renting and excavator and putting in retaining walls to hold back the dirt.
12 years ago
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roddy116
Posts: 10656 - Karma: 7,741
well if you had a foam pit i think that mold/ mildew would be a huge problem. but an airbag would cost so much to upkeep, but they would both work fine.
12 years ago
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Poikenz
Posts: 1533 - Karma: 4,344
In all honesty foam pits fucking suck. The blocks rip apart in no time and it sucks having to dig yourself out of a pit every single time, I could only imagine how shit it would be to try and get out with skis on. A solution to that are giant soft foam pads, so instead of thousands of tiny blocks you just have one giant one, you can't really land on your head but you will still sink a good 4-5 feet (like an airbag but in foam form).

I would just go for an elevated ramp and airbag though. Seems like the easiest and it could be used in the winter. Just throw together a nice takeoff ramp and cover it in some sort of "artificial snow" like msnow, there are other companies who make a similar product but I think they are all europe based/ pretty much all out of business since snowflex came out.

Oh and when you build the jump make sure it has a larger rise than run, as you don't want to clear the airbag but constantly land near the middle.
12 years ago
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SamMcChesney
Posts: 2905 - Karma: 2,199
dude. Make it more than 8 feet. I tell you this from experience (friend has a flybed). If anything put the tramp at one end so you have like 15 feet out in one direction. trust me, 8 feet is nothing on a flybed, shot can get real gnarly when you overshoot (again from experience)

http://vimeo.com/52358554
12 years ago
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CraigAK
Posts: 1871 - Karma: 320
Air bags are 20k. I'm trying to look into these big foam pads you are talking about, do you know any brand names of places that make bigger foam pads?
12 years ago
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theabortionator
Posts: 52609 - Karma: 174,433
One thing you should think of. When you dig a hole in the ground and it rains, that whole will fill up with water, even if you cover the top. You could line the sides and the bottom but if it starts leaking through you could have some nasty moldy foam.

I was going to build one in my bmx days. Planned to have a box jump into one with a tramp on the bottom.

I feel like you have a much better chance of keeping out the water if it's above ground. You can google used gymnastic foam cubes. I know they're always up on ebay for varying prices. You can also find other foam shit like egg crate mats and tear them up.


Good luck. As far as airbag's I've got no idea. You could buy a used blob and throw something on it so you didn't puncture it. I've seen people use those aircastle wedges as landing ramps before.

Click for larger image

^ like that but a bit steeper. They have a dendex drop in
12 years ago
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Naptown
Posts: 495 - Karma: 1,722
Pastrana lives 5 minutes away from me. His yard is insane now
12 years ago
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NoBigDeal
Posts: 2790 - Karma: 629
Pics or it didn't happen
12 years ago
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kamron_708
Posts: 944 - Karma: 1,129
Either way, it's still ground level. Biggest risk is landing on the lib of ground to pit on your ribs and shyt
12 years ago
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gotti
Posts: 4269 - Karma: 4,552
How about water ramps. If you're going to build a jump and you wanna build a deep hole just line it and fill it with water, when you're wearing a helmet and a life jacket the impact wont hurt.
12 years ago
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Fluttershy
Posts: 586 - Karma: 763
http://foampitcubes.com/
theyre really expensive though. i feel like itd be a total waste to leave these outside all the time
12 years ago
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MACK.
Posts: 1230 - Karma: 1,892
http://youtu.be/3vmfyTfnZyo embed wont work but this is the best summer setup ive seen
12 years ago
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