skate journal: street grabs, my best treflip in forever and my first injury in awhile (Mar 12, 2011)

Posted in Skate Journal on March 17th, 2011 by corpo

Brian, Neil, Carleigh and Jason showed up in the kind of late afternoon on a pretty SF feeling day (upper 50s). For whatever reason we started trying ollie grabs in the street in front of my house. It was a pretty comical display I’m sure. I don’t think anyone got a legit grab, but we did get some little snatches. Brian got a melon, Neil melon and frontside grab, Jason mute, Carleigh kickflip (wrong trick Carleigh), I got a couple frontside grab scrapes, couldn’t get the tail on a one foot tail grab and scraped a cannonball. After all the street grab action we decided we should go to a launch ramp. The Basemar kicker was agreed upon and Brian bailed. Neil was the only one that stuck with the street grab theme and lofted some good melons. I had troubles with ollies, but put down kickflip first try. After awhile Neil and I tried some lines. He was trying either melon or pop shove off the kicker, ollie into the bank, kickflip out. He never got the kickflip out. Jason had some poppy ollies and put down a back 180. Carleigh had some good ollies, pop shove first try, then got really upset about kickflips not being easy. I had a fun run of manual coming the other way, ollie into the sidewalk bank then front 180 out. Off the kicker I was trying treflips and put down an amazing feeling one. Maybe my best treflip ever. It felt so good. I went back to kickflips and was struggling and at one point landed really weird and stretched my back foot out pretty weird. I tried to walk it off, but no luck. I skated through it knowing I probably will have to take a few days off. It took awhile, but I got a kickflip off the kicker, ollie into the bank then front shove out. It was a super fun session until the foot part. It’s gonna be a few days ..

skate journal: Last day skateathon in SF (March 8, 2011)

Posted in Skate Journal on March 17th, 2011 by corpo

Today was the last day in SF. Boooo! The morning started kinda slow. I spent a lot of time freaking out how I was not going to ruin another pair of good socks since I only brought good socks on the trip and had worn a whole in my shoe. Luckily, some duct tape and cheap dollar store socks were acquired and things were good. Fuzz, Nate and I started at the 3 up 3 down around the corner to get things rolling. We all started slow, but eventually some things happened. Carleigh had joined us, but sat and shot photos. Eric and Neil rolled in late and we moved on. But first, some photos.

Fuzz killed it. Manual. Maybe even manual front 180 out? Front 180 up fakie ollie off (first try). Front 180 up, f/s halfcab flip off.

Nate manualled it and nose mannied it. He got into some back 50s too, but we were leaving around then.

Oh yeah, the way we started warming up was pretty bad. Fuzz and Nate decided to try what I tried. I think half the time I would bail so early on they couldn’t even tell what I was trying. A couple time Fuzz just kicked his board toward the stairs as a joke. The warmup back 50s felt good though and I got a little scraper front blunt on the button step. Then we decided to get gnarly on the stairs. Ha. I was really struggling to ollie up it, but after awhile it started coming and I posed kickflips for awhile before finally putting one down. Don’t let the photo fool you, as soon as my back foot connected it went down and it was a hella rocketed kickflip.

We moved on to see what the city had to offer. We hit some fun mellow hills, kickers, flat gaps, etc. A highlight for me was kickflipping into a driveway bank, but I was going really slow. Eventually we ended up at a tall ledge that Nate, Eric and Fuzz skated really good.

Eric did a real front board. Mine were slow and lame.

Although, once again, my shirt is way cooler. See photos of Fuzz and Nates 50s and 5-0 at Carleigh’s blog. As if you didn’t already know to check her blog all the time though. We got kicked out of the ledge spot pretty quick and ended real close at a sick looking flatground spot. A game of SKATE was gonna go down, but some weird lady started walking on the maze painted in the circle and she got lost in it.

We got some mediocre food, hit a couple more hills, stopped at DLXSF and called it a trip. My favorite SF trip yet. I had a blast with everyone. TF, you guys rule.

skate journal: sf day 5 – hangover skate from mission to the pier and more (march 7, 2011)

Posted in Skate Journal on March 17th, 2011 by corpo

I will say that the Cruz Rollerskate party was one of the craziest party nights of my life.  I’m not gonna pretend that I’m gnarly and have seem the craziest nights or anything, but that was a crazy night.  After such a fun night I woke up to the sound of a dog lapping up something about 6″ from my head.  I was on the floor and I turned around to see Cole eating dog puke (mostly dog food) right by my face.  Not a good way to start the day.  Especially an eating contest day.  Anyways,  people work up, we got things rolling and some of us decided to go street skating.  The crew was Nate, Fuzz, Carleigh, Neil, Eric Fauvre and I.

The first spot was this wallride and ledge spot nearby that we saw when out walking in the rain the day before. I was hurting big time at this spot. I even sat down for awhile. Eric was killing it. Lots of flippers just rolling down the street. Not the basics either. Nollie tre, nollie flip (even harder then nollie tre), sw back heel I think. Fuzz was ripping as usual too. I think he was the first to put a grind down on the ledge. nate was in there too. neil had a front 50. Carleigh may have gotten a noseslide and was trying a run with pretty much every trick I’ve seen her do on flat in it. I was so out of it I would either run into the ledge or miss it completely. I had a blast doing slappies on a round curb though.

We moved on, hit some mannies in an alley for a bit after picking up a longboarder bro. Neil, Nate, Fuzz and Eric all did long manuals. I kind of did one. It’s funny though because I was still hurting pretty bad and when I got into it Fuzz said I made a horrible face like I was super bummed because I had to do the manual. We moved on again and cruised down tons of mellow hills toward EMB. It was SOOOO fun. We were just cruising having a blast.

Then we made it to EMB! Carleigh didn’t even know what this spot meant. WTF???? Ha. I thought it would be good time for an epic game of SKATE, but instead Carleigh went gnarly and ollied, then pop shoved the six stair. Not only was it a pop shove, but it was PERFECT. Seriously an epic pop shove.

Fuzz also had a cool ollie over the handrail sideways. I was thinking of ollie’ing the 6 stair, but instead went with the hangover cure of trying to make it over all the skate stoppers

This isn’t the make, Fuzz’s phone died after one take. But both Fuzz and I did it. It was seriously fun. That nipped the hangover pretty good. It was super funny though, Neil gets tired kinda quick. He had been ripping, but started crashing and could not even get up onto the ledge to the first stopper. He got pretty bummed, but that stuff happens at our age. We skated a nearby ledge for a bit too. Nate killed it with non-basic ledge tricks first T. I tried a run of ollie over the ledge, noseslide, bluntslide off the curb, but never got the bluntslide. Nearby Fuzz and Eric were trying to boardslide what looked like a really tall ledge:

Little did they know, you didn’t have to boardslide the top of it, you could just boardslide the side:

Eric went on to get a sick noseslide before we headed over to Pier 7. Fuzz killed it. Kickflip manual 2nd try. Eric got nose manny pretty quick. Nate too. Nate tried nollie shove manny and came super close, but we got the boot. I could not manual to save my life, but got close to nose manny. I’m gonna put my picture, solely because of my magical shirt.

After that we pretty much headed to the eating contest. It rained a bit, we walked a lot and we were all tired. Perfect for eating! I went on to win. 7 chili dogs, 6 beers for a score of 13. My fatness applauds me.

Oh, did you notice Tommy Guerrero watching us eat? Yeah, he’s starting Real Eatboards. I’m the first pro.

Go to Carleigh’s blog from the day and see tons more photos.