skate journal: Lafayette in the snow (Jan 3, 2011)
Day 2 of bachelor life. Woke up remotely early, ate breakfast while watching the Blueprint video, ran some errands then met Neil at Lafayette which was supposedly skateable. The mini and medium bowls were dry. The manny pad was dry, but with a narrow runway/roll out and the steeper rock was dry. We started in the mini bowl. My first runs were so pathetic. It didn’t help that the sun was blinding when going southwest. Eventually I didn’t look like I just stepped on a skateboard for the first time ever. Neil had some good runs. Front slash on both extensions, back 50s on the lower extension and some good ollies over the pump boob in the middle. Chris Jones met up in awhile and skated it pretty good too. Boneless tail on the rock first try was sick.After awhile we moved on to the bank to rock. Neil was struggling with a back rock ‘n roll on it which he’s done before. At one point he said “I wont ever get laid again if I don’t land it this try.” He landed it. We laughed. I tried some front rocks, but ended up landing a horrible layback front rock. Chris was doing rock fakie and saying they were so fun. He eventually did a back feeble on it. I worked up to a back rock and like Neil said, it was fun.Next up we went over to the marble manny pad/ledge with the goal of each of us doing 10 tricks. Normally this would be pretty easy, but the narrow runway and landing due to snow made it tough. At one point a kid lost his board into the deep bowl and was stuck in it for 20 minutes before escaping the icy walls of death. Most of the tricks were pretty basic. A couple I was really hyped on. Front 50 to manual to the bank and manual drop to manual to the bank. Those two really hyped me up. The 10 tricks I got were back board, front 50, manual, crooks, back 50, front 5-0, front 50 manny to bank, manny drop to manny to the bank, front 50 front 180 out and struggled to get a number 10 until I just wimped out and did a 2″ front board.Chad, Daryl and crew showed up too. I skated the little bowl with them for a minute. Chad’s warm up run was pretty funny. He did an ollie to fakie on the extension to “get a feel” for the tranny. Must be nice. Chris and I played the worst game of SKATE ever. Well, maybe not from his point of view, but I’m pretty sure I raised the bar on the worst heelflip that’s ever been done in the history of skateboarding. I got smoked. Before leaving I skated the medium sized bowl finally, got a few back 50s and called it a day.