skate journal: All day skate marathon in SF (March 5, 2010)
After a somewhat late night of partying I woke up early (8am) at the shop. The forecast was rain for the day, but it was dry. Skate! Nate and Neil woke up too and we were out by 8:30 to Eagle Donuts then hit the streets by 9. We cruised down the mellow hills and ended up near the Potrero skatepark so we just continued on and went there. Those hills near the shop are SO fun. I was still hurting when I pushed though and it was bumming me out. There were a few people at the skatepark, but not many. Neil was ripping pretty quickly. He had some cool lines going with lots of little ollies and good speed. It’s hard to remember this as it’s 5 days later and we partied every night. I know Nate did a rad lipslide across the box on the mellow bank. I did a couple first try tricks on the super mellow q-pipe. Front D and b/s nose grind kinda. At some point I started trying wallies out of the bank to ledge to manual to the little q-pipe. Never quite got it. But it was cool to see it took Brian Anderson a couple tries to do the same trick a couple days later. Then I started trying Neil’s line of carve on the huge bank, b/s 50 on the q-pipe, ollie on the twinkie, tailslide on the bank. I never really got an ollie. Partly because I suck at ollies, partly because there seemed to be someone coming everytime I was near the twinkie. It took both Nate and I a long time to do our first kickflips. I got an undercrook on the ledge. Ha, it’s my patented 2″ jib crook. Neil started doing tricks up the euro. Kickflip, one foot, b/s 180, no comply. Ripping. Nate and I tried tricks on the tight brick q-pipe. Nate got a rock ‘n roll and a scratch grind. As I went for an axle stall I said to Nate, “If I land this one it wont rain the entire trip”. Landed it. Hyped. Unfortunately it didn’t quite hold true. After a few hours we got a call from Lazer saying they were ready to skate. Back to Eagle Donuts for breakfast #2 and meet up with the crew.After the best bagel sandwiches in the world and new Trick Factory calendars from Brian we hit the streets. We started around the corner by the shop. Everyone was kinda messing around. I still felt awkward on my skateboard and pushing hurt. Ugh. I managed a couple runs I wanted to do since last time. Kickflip up the curb, cruise down. Front 180 up the curb, sw 180 off the little drop. We worked our way up the hill a bit and bombed into the corner. Nate, Fuzz and Neil were hauling ass. Then we rolled toward the flower shop by way of lots of hiking up hills, skating down them, hiking up other, skating down. SO FUN. I was foot dragging alot instead of power sliding, but at least going pretty fast for me. We fanned out at the Omar Salazar noseblunt ledge. We ended up on top of the hill by the flower shop and Gordon offered me $10 to bomb the hill with no foot drag. I went for it. I was going quite a bit faster than I thought because at the end I did a foot drag to stop but it wasn’t enough and I ran into a fence. It was maybe my favorite moment of the trip though. Even though I didn’t slide out at the end it still felt awesome to bomb an entire hill and only foot drag at the end. The rest of the crew came flying down and everyone was hauling ass. So awesome. People were flying. I didn’t get the $10 because of the foot drag at the end, but whatever I had fun.The Flowershop was locked so we skated the ledge area for awhile. I was hurting. So sore and tired. Ugh. We skated the gap area. I did a little run with an ollie over a flat gap then a super slow ollie over the gap where I landed not moving at all. Fuzz and I laughed a good minute over that. Carleigh ollied it first try then landed on pop shove first try. She beat herself up for awhile and never quite landed it. Lazer ripped it with an ollie over the last flat gap to manual pop over the gap. Sick. Fuzz did some cool ollies up the ledge then front 180 the flat gap then switch ollie the gap. Nate had a good clean ollie over it too. Next we skated the actual ledges. Fuzz did a sick line with all the basics. Front 50, front 5-0, front tail and the worst halfcab flip ever done. Brian got his tallest front 50. Nate did some nollie front tails and some basics. I was bumming out and sad that my body was so sore already and unable to ollie well. I got a couple front 50s, but that was about it.Next we skated the Flowershop tranny spot. I sat out the first part of the session just trying to catch my breath and get some energy. Everyone was ripping. A couple other dudes were there ripping too. Gordon did some crazy stuff. He skates that park so well. He got a new trick for himself there on top of all his sickness – it was either a fakie D on the big wall or a frontside grind. I’m not sure. Fuzz was cruizing around fast, Neil was flying around and ollie’ing into tranny the way only he could, Brian almost got front rocks on the extension, Lazer skates tranny good, Nate was having fun too and landed a grind on one of the vert walls as we were leaving. Fun session. After all that skating we hiked more hills/skated down them, etc back to the shop. Party time.