skate journal: lafayette park with carleigh, derek and more (jan 24, 2011)
A pretty chilly January night. Probably in the mid 20s when we started, lower 20s or less when we finished. Ugh. I didn’t bother with the multiple layers and went right for a jacket. Warming up was not fun and surprisingly the park wasn’t totally empty. Collin and Sean were there ripping. Derek was already ripping too. Carleigh went to work on noseslides pretty quick on the bump to ledge and landed most of the ones I saw. I didn’t see a first try noseslide shove however. She tried them in a line with a manual on the little manny pad up top too. Derek was skating the vert bowl so we joined him. He did kickflip to fakie, but well under coping. I finally dropped in the shallow section and survived a carve. It ended up being pretty fun and I’d like to skate it more. Carleigh skated it for a bit too. And by a bit I mean one run and one kickturn. Ha. Derek also did full cab, halfcab and ollie to fakie (while yelling) below vert. Still sick though. I kinda went into a frustration period for awhile. There are so many things I wish I could do at that park first try just flowing around. I never land anything though. Other than a faster than normal noseslide down the hubba the only things I was hyped on was things I hadn’t done there before. Horrible ollie over the perfect rounded hip in the collision course, kinda close to manualling the way to tall pier 7 replica, and at the end finally nose manualling the little manny pad. I really am bad at skateboarding and this place really brings it out. Derek on the other hand is really good at skateboarding and it shows at this park. Endless lines. Fakie flip on the gnarly stone bank, treflip fakie on the extension in the little bowl, nosegrind down the hubba, kinda close to front board b/s flip out on the flatbar, etc. He is hilarious too. All in all I skated like crap, but left the park in a decent mood and I wasn’t too sore.