skate journal: stubborns saturday marathon in the streets (april 28, 2018)
Work has been so busy I haven’t had a chance to write this for almost a week after. So I’m apologizing up front for how much I have forgotten since then.
Rob, Fuzz and I met up with Jack at the high school in Denver with all the ledges we remember as being fun. I don’t remember if it’s East, West or North high and we definitely couldn’t tell Jack until we were almost there. But we would eventually all be there remembering that the ledges aren’t so easy to skate and the place is covered in cracks. Warming up took awhile. With the exception of Jack it was awhile before any trucks grinded the concrete. No pop noseslides and crack nollies helped. Jack did a couple back 50s before laying into the first of two impossible tricks. Ollie up to crooks 360 shove to 5-0 the lower ledge. That really is what he was trying and getting frustrated with not landing. ha ha. Fuzz and I were trying lines for awhile starting with the downhillish ledge and ending with the pointy ledge. Fuzz was trying no pop noseslide, kickflip a big crack, chinese nollie one right after it, then front 180 nosegrind the pointy ledge. He got real close. I was trying switch front nose, switch 180 over the tall crack, crooks the pointy ledge. I got it at some point. I also tried to ollie onto the a ledge, ollie up the next level, ollie the 2. I don’t think I linked up all 3 and the second ollie up was never graceful, but it was fun to try. Rob was doing halfcab noseslides then back 50s. Fuzz was doing nollie front tails and got a nice front 5-0. Fuzz got me to ollie the bump to gap. He made it look so easy and did the next flat gap too. Jack had moved on to try cab back noseblunts and was going in and out of being close to landing it. He would eventually get a cab nosegrind, but not quite the noseblunt. Dan, Collin and a friend of their’s who’s name I forgot showed up. Dan had some nice tailside variations, Collin with the boardslide and noseslide tricks and tucked in shirt guy with the mega pop front 50 on the second level. Rob heated up with some good back 50s and got a back smith! So sick. Rob and I got crooks on the granite ledge. Man crooks on granite is the most fun feeling.
Then we went to this weird wallride spot. We were pretty slow to get on it. Jack did a wallride in the hard spot, Fuzz did a fakie thruster on it. Rob and I did the wallie nollies on the mellower part which wasn’t easy either. I started messing with a line that I didn’t think would come together, but Jack started filming it so I figured I better make it work. 500 tries later I had another kickflip for my part and a wallie nollie. Ha, it was actually awesome though. I got the line 3 times technically. Once when Jack had just started filming, but it was crappy. Then again a lot of tries later, but both tricks were crappy. So I did the ‘3 more tries’ rule and next time I got to the wallride I did it way better. The kickflip was maybe the best one too. Man it felt awesome. Thanks for filming Jack, I think that might end up being one of the better lines I’ve filmed.
Then we went to Hinkley which I’ve never really skated. And that would be the case once again as my legs had shut down for the day. I couldn’t really convince my body to ollie and I only got one crappy front 50 and a good slam hitting a stop twig. Rob killed the manual and nose manual quick. And I think he did a 180 up, fakie bigspin and then bean plant off? Jack got gnar on a gap to grind, then pulled a pop shove nose manual nollie heel out out of nowhere. It was amazing. Fuzz had done a sick line of front nose drive shove, front shove, front 180 all quick footed and we tried to film it. He did it again, but wasn’t as happy. It’s still sick though.
One heck of a day with the dudes. I need to skate with friends more, it’s so fun.
(setup 8.38 null monico deck, venture black icon 5.8 trucks, bones medium bushings, 51mm bones stf v1 wheels, 3 washers outside each axle, new balance numeric 212 size 11 with footprints gamechanger orthotic insoles)