skate journal: saul’s with will and saul then solo suckfest at wilville (jan 12, 2018)
After a long day off work hanging with Liz I finally stopped slacking and went skating. Saul was skating and that sounded good and I decided to skate there. I took my normal 8″ setup. I only did a few ollies along the bike path, but it seemed to warm me up pretty good. I was surprised how good my setup and shoes felt at Sauls. Low trucks rule. Will and Saul were already ripping. Carve grinds are the funnest thing ever. Will can do them frontside and backside, switch and regs. He was also working on bag ladies, flash and rolls, front and back rocks. He got them all. His front 5-0’s are so good. Saul might not have as long of a trick list, but he gets better every time I go there. More standing up on grinds, more control and looking more natural. He tried some tricks like front 50, tailblocks, slash grind while grabbing, etc. I felt better than I thought I would. Carve grinds, a few slight back 50s, got my first couple front axle stalls on the brick section, kind of a little jib slash to fakie, almost a kickflip way under coping, front rocks the opposite of how Will did them. I spend a lot of time mini ramping it and the front axles took too long, but it was a fun session for sure.
Since I skated there I went by Wilville on the way home and after bailing a couple nose manuals into the bank I decided to try and do a kickflip to fakie. I was kind of surprised how good I was ollieing up the curb and equally surprised how I could not get setup for kickflips to save my life. Then a crew of young’uns came and it was weird. Like I was trying a kcifklip to fakie, bailed and a dude manuals right under me. No one said hello until later on. Freakin’ kids. Ha. I was so pissed by that time anyway because I was like 0-20 on kickflips. I just couldn’t get my foot setup to flip. I tried going faster and having more time on the bank. Nope. I tried going slower to feel more comfortable landing with my front foot back a little. Nope. I eventually snapped and focused my board as it was rolling down the bank. Ugh.
(setup 8″ null Monico deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, 50mm bones stf v1, 3 washers on the inside of each axle, white venture bushings, new balance numeric 868 black/gum size 12, custom orthotic insole)