skate journal: fun crew, street struggles and some fun at sauls (march 16, 2019)
Heads up, I’m writing this almost a week after the session so my memory of what happened might not be so good. It was my first day in contacts in quite some time, the weather was decent. Kevin and I went to meet Dave downtown. We ended up near the dentist 5 where we saw Will and crew skating. Kevin and I tried some flippers in the street which is when I realized my arthritis was bad and my skating would suffer. I didn’t think it would suffer as bad as it did though. I felt as if I could not skate at all. I debated going home. Dave showed. Kevin had done a few flippers, ollied the 5 super easily. We ended up hitting some nearby parking blocks. Jack, Carleigh and Sean joined. For awhile there was one block by itself and another with two orange cones sideways on top of it. Kevin, Sean and Jack ollied it like it was absolutely nothing. Jack went on to do like 30 tricks over them. It was quite incredible. Switch varial heel was hot. He did fakie tre before fakie flip. Sean agreed it was easier. Okay I’ll take their word for it. Carleigh kickflipped the curb quick then ollied the coned curb. Dave ollied it too. I was the only one to not ollie it. I did try and commit, but couldn’t get over it. I had a no comply flip over the block in a couple tries which was my one saving grace. Dave was doing sprack to manual to almost boardslide. Kevin switch ollied the coned block, kickflpped it, 180s. Sean did the cleanest backside flip I’ve ever seen over the block. It was seriously stunning. At times I was so frustrated that I was whining like a baby. Sorry friends, it was frustrating. At least my friends were ripping.
Then we went to Saul’s minus Sean. Saul and Eric were there. I felt a little better not having to ollie and had fun. Eric was ripping. His grinds keep getting faster and longer, almost lipslides, manual to axle stall to fakie, heelflips. Saul too. He had some long grinds. My favorite is still the crazy quick carve grinds. Carleigh learned to ride on grind transfer in then backed them with some solid runs. Jack was funny at first just doing hurricane grinds from the deck transfer in. He did some crazy stuff like front 5-0 to fakie over the hip, nosepick shove, bigspin pivot. Kevin shreds transition. Switch disasters, sketchy roll ins, lofty back disasters, pivots fakie. Dave is always a treat to watch there. Such long lines, huge bag of tricks. The photo is him doing a front smith with the whole crew in the background. I had some fun carve grinds, a couple front disasters.
(setup 8.38 null lazer deck, venture ftc 5.8, venom 88a bushings no boardside washer, bones stf v1 pj 53mm wheels with all washers on the outside, new balance numeric 379 all black size 12, stock insoles)
(pain level 8/10)