Word is growing about free weekly skate jams at Surf & Skate's Sacramento headquarters.

At least 20 skateboarders have been showing up each week since the Citrus Heights shop's custom-built Skatelite bowl and street course opened a year and a half ago. The skate sessions changed this week from Wednesday to Thursday nights.

Most skaters are locals. But up to 60 people from as far as San Francisco and Truckee have dropped in to carve the bowl, practice tricks and learn from each other on any given evening, said Surf & Skate owner Bob Mitchell.

"You'll see some of the best skateboarders in the country show up here," he said. "(These) nights are pretty off the hook."

Mitchell was a record-breaking pro water skier at Redwood City's Marine World in the 1970s. By 1981, he was snowboarding in the Sierra Nevada and working as a carpenter in Sacramento. After breaking his leg for the third time, he gave up snowboarding and carpentry.

He opened Surf & Skate beneath a brothel at Del Paso Boulevard and El Camino Avenue in 1984. He now operates three stores in Sacramento, Citrus Heights and Elk Grove. He closed a struggling Roseville store and one in Fair Oaks replaced by the newest store.

Mitchell bought an old bank for his newest store at 7411 Greenback Lane in Citrus Heights. Mitchell sells high-end swimsuits and sunglasses in the old bank vault. The store carries lots of bikinis and equipment, clothing and accessories for skateboarding, snowboarding, wakeboarding and surfing.

The $200,000 bowl and street course were designed by 49-year-old Nevada City pro skater Steve-O Brockway, who's built "tons" of skateboarding ramps for World Cup Skateboarding competitions throughout the world.

"It's all about creating a scene," Brockway said. "For us, the scene has to happen first. Everything else will follow."

For Surf & Skate, he designed a roughly 35-foot by 30-foot, one-of-a-kind bowl shaped like a square-jawed Mickey Mouse head. Using nearly 2,000 custom-cut plasticized wood pieces, the bowl took nearly four months and four carpenters to build. The bowl surface can give skaters a lot of speed because it was made with a material that doesn't change in the rain or in cold or hot temperatures, Mitchell said.

Brockway also turned the bank's old drive-through into a 120-foot-long street course featuring a mini half-pipe, ramps, rails, curbs, a pole jam and other obstacles. The course includes a replica of a famous San Francisco skate spot known as China Banks.

In the 1970s and 1980s, skating was a more isolated sport. Skateboarders had to be in a group to be at the right sessions, Brockway said. Surf & Skate jam sessions are open to everyone. The jams are held from 7-10 p.m.

Other pro skaters such as J.J. Rogers of Sacramento and "Noggin" of San Jose said the sessions give experienced skaters — including some who've skated together for 30 years — a chance to teach the sport. Three generations skated together last week.

"It's not about who's skating the sickest lines," Noggin said. "You watch them progress and you get stoked, too."

Many cities like Sacramento have built state-of-the-art skate parks that can be used for free. But skateboarders like skating at Surf & Skate because the bowl and street course are maintained and free of debris. The sessions are monitored, so no one's ever skating alone. Previously, there was a $5 charge to skate for four hours.

But possibly most important is that the area is open only to skateboards. BMX bikes and scooters aren't allowed, so there's less wear and tear on the facilities and less chance for collisions.

At some skate parks, there are ongoing wars between different types of riders, said Placerville photographer Michael Chantry, a snowboarding pioneer and former pro skateboarder also known as Master Blaster. He's traveled the planet to capture skateboarders and snowboarders on film and video.

"This is a labor of love," Chantry said last week as he stood on the platform built around the edge of the bowl. "It's built entirely by skateboarders for skateboarders."

Brockway has been skating 36 years. He's now teaching his 11-year-old son, Ezra, to skate at the skate jams.

"This session is about being able to bring all the skaters together in a nice local setting," Brockway said. "It's like keeping our skate family together."

Photos by Suzanne Hurt, a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.