skate journal: mikes camera ledge fun and bank to curb with dave (sept 20, 2020)
On a super nice day I went out to Mike’s Camera area to meet Dave. I was on call for work so couldn’t go far. I was there first and cruised around the area to check it out. A Jeep was parked and took off when they saw me driving right over a median. It was weird. Ha. I tried to start with a warm up line starting in the narrow walkway, down the 2 then over to the ledge. I had slammed really hard on a nollie shove where I hit a rock. I had moved on to kickflip and then heelflip before getting to the ledge. So the line was heelflip, front 180 the two, turn around, boardslide pop out the ledge then I bailed a front heel. It was a fun feeling line. Dave had shown around then and was warming up with nollie/fakie/switch/regular shoves, nollie 180s, etc. He would go on to get a rad line. Kickflip, nollie back 180, switch ollie off the two stair, turn around, ride on grind, then front noseslide. I then tried another line for a while. Halfcab flip, front shove off the 2 stair, crooks the ledge. I got the line twice, the first time the front shove was great, but the crooks was the tiniest little jib. The second time the front shove was sketchy, but the crooks was good. I was happy to get several halfcab flips though, that trick used to be automatic for me. Then rather then just hitting the ledge I became obsessed with another line. 360 flip, kickflip off the 2 stair, noseslide or something the ledge. It took me awhile to get a 360 flip. The first one was bad and I missed the kickflip. Got the next one and landed on the kickflip, but stepped off. Then a security guy came and told us to leave. Doh, I really wanted to get that line. We had fun on the ledge though. We did a lot of ride on grinds and didn’t skate the tall part so much. Dave did ride on back 50 to nollie shove out followed by back 50 down the end. Ride on back 50 180 out then fakie nosegrind down the end. Switch slappy crook, slappy crook, crooks, front noseslide so many more I’m forgetting now. I had noseslide, noseslide fakie, halfcab noseslide, crooks, front 50 on the low part, switch ride on back 50 and I tried a bunch of switch ride on back 50 to fakie bigspin out. I got pretty close, had a couple fakie shoves that I pivoted to bigspin. But I hit my ankle a couple times and it really hurt.
Then we went to a nearby bank to curb. Well, we pulled the curb up. The rebar was still there and scary. It took me awhile to land anything. I never even got front rock or pivot and went in on hurricane. The clip above is basically in order of tricks we did. Dave did alleyoop pivot first try, then did it to disaster and even a revert out. I had sat for awhile and was super sore and thought I might not skate anymore. So I just started trying the rock to feeble and ended up getting some. That might be a new one. Dave’s nollie back neil was cool. The no comply to tail took me too long. It’s such a small bank so it made it hard. Dave had the front hurricane, but the asphalt was chipping away and he couldn’t get it. I tried kick back axle for a bit and Dave was filming it, but had to leave. He said ‘5 more tries’. About 20 tries later I landed it. Ha ha. It was a fun session. There was a weird tweaker dude that came in and asked for a pen. He disappeared behind some bushes for awhile then came out having drawn all over his face looking like a black eye. It was weird. He almost forgot ‘his bike’ when he left too. Some weird stuff going on back there.
(setup 8.25 null spanbauer deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollows, venom 91a bushings with roadside washer, 52mm bones stf 103a v1, 3 washers inside each axle, new balance numeric 440 white size 11.5, thin xero insoles)
(pain level 4/10)