skate journal: setup OCD testing and maybe a setup change (june 18, 2018)
On a rainy night I drove around a little looking for new spots. Saw one great looking new ledge spot, but it’s right by a police station. Looked at red curbs, but it was all wet since the rain was so intense. Ended up in the Steelyards garage. I had my normal setup and an 8.25 with Venture lows on it. I started basically doing a side by side comparison. I would try a line on one setup then the same line on the next. I did this for about 30 minutes and I tried to be as unbiased as possible. Both setups felt better/worse at times. The surprising turning point was how much better I felt popping the board on the smaller setup. I had better kickflips on the bigger board, but heelflip tricks were way worse. Doing little grinds on the curb felt similar. Well, it felt about the same to get in, but I had more control with the lows once I got in. Manuals felt better with the bigger setup, but that might be because I was more used to it. After the 30 minutes I skated the 8.25. I posed ollies over the big cone in the photo. It felt remotely doable and hucking it was fun, but I never committed. I tried the ironman line and had a great feeling kickflip, great feeling heelfip, then sketchy hand down treflip. I counted it. Treflips really bring out how big those shoes feel. I’m not sure I can keep trying to skate them. Anyway, the ironman line came kinda quick so then I tried to do a fakie ironman. I had some great feeling fakie flips, one insanely slow fakie heelflip and didn’t land the fakie tre. I hucked other flip tricks, but didn’t land much else. So yeah, here we go, I’ll probably skate the small board for awhile again, get flip tricks back, then want to change to a bigger setup, enjoy it for a bit, then want the small setup to get flip tricks back again, blah blah.
(setups: 8.38 null perception deck, indy 149 ray barbee trucks, oj 52mm ez edge insane-a-thane wheels, bones medium bushings, es accel slim navy/white asta size 12, footprint gamechanger low profile insole
8.25 null monico deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, same shoes as above)