skate journal: quick early vail then evergreen struggles with the crew (july 1, 2019)
After a fun wedding I had some time in the early morning before the big family breakfast so I went to this park. I didn’t think I would like it so I will say I liked it more than I thought I would, but that doesn’t say much. The fact that the weird china bank lines up the entire side is whack. It’s not very functional. But some of the other stuff is cool. The weird halfpipe at the bottom was weirding me out until I finally realized one side is a foot taller than the other side. How whack is that? I got to a point where I tried a line. Back 50 the halfpipe, noseslide down a hubba, step up onto the platform, front slash the top qp, then try to wallie into back 50 on one of the china banks. Never got the wallie 50. Then I had to go. I probably wont ever skate there again.
After a nice family breakfast then a drive to Evergreen I showed up at the park 30 minutes before Rob, Fuzz and Neil. I thought I was really excited to skate, but things felt off and warming up did not got well. I remembered I needed to do a nollie back 180 over a hip (challenge from Dave) so I did that. Came really easy, but it was scarier than I thought it would be. I did a warm up line that took awhile. Switch 180 the hip, rock fakie the qp, halfcab noseslide the little ledge near the fence. Then the dudes showed up as I was trying the next line. Nollie back 180 the hip, fakie rock, crooks the ledge. Took awhile to get the crooks and I was feeling the new truck no grooves blues. Fuzz chilled for a bit to get the vibes going. Neil’s of Fire was in full effect though. I was blown away. He was so quick to land so many tricks, had so much energy, was popping up / down / over so many things like it was nothing. It was inspiring. Rob had the juice too. Manuals, bean plants, 50s on the curb. I went in on another line, front 50 the little ledge by the fence, front slash the qp, kickflip the hip. When it took my ~7 tries to get a crappy kickflip I wanted to focus my board. Fuzz had joined and was shredding so hard. Switch boardslide the parking block, back d revert the qp, fast manuals, 50s, huge ollies over the hip. Neil was continuing his ripping. Huge ollies over the hip, tried front tail to nose manual, casual ollie over the parking block ledge. There was another old dude there charging and bringing some hype. Rob ollied the parking block ledge pretty easily. I took a couple tries and didn’t manage a clean ollie over. Neil had back 180s out of the little kicker, cabs, one foots. Rob had nose manual shove, back 50 no comply shove, halfcab noseslide. I got a line of front 180 the kicker, switch front nose, switch front 180 off the curb. Then we all went in on backside flips on the hip. Fuzz got several of them, but they weren’t to his satisfaction and he ended up kind of losing it, sat down for awhile, then got up and tried again until he got a perfect one. Rob had a line going into it and this annoying kid kept going and I think he can be blamed for Rob not getting the b/s flip. Neil was the 2nd to get one. No surprise here, but I was last. I had hucked nollie tres and varial heels over the hip going the other way and didn’t get close to either. After getting the b/s flip I just kept skating. I think finally not having incredible knee pain makes it hard to stop. I had a couple terrible ollies up the euro. Then I did a few tricks on the spine behind the hip. Back nose to fakie, switch nose to forward, front 50, back 50. Couldn’t get kickflip back 50 or front smith. Then we left and those guys ate gluten while I sipped water like Jason would. Ha ha. We had fun, but man skateboarding is hard these days.
(setup 8.5″ abstract 6 deck, venture titanium 5.8s, doh dohs bushings (blue 88a barrel boardside one, yellow 92a roadside), bones stf v2 51mm wheels, 3 washers on the inside of each axle, new balance numeric 212 maroon size 12, footprint gamechanger orthotic insoles)
(pain level 3/10)