skate journal: redder curbs fun with a bigger board and stellar crew (jan 9, 2021)
After hitting 303 Kevin and I met up with Rob and hit Redder curbs. Kevin and I hit 303 because we had recent struggles and it’s never our fault, but instead our setup’s fault. Ha. I went back to 8.5 with 8.5 Ventures, but traded in some large 51mm wheels for some narrow 50mm wheels. I’ve never really done the big setup with tiny wheels before. Well, not that I know of. Kevin was also switching back from Thunder to Venture. We woke. We had intended to meet Rob on campus, but the snow was starting to pick up so Redder curbs it was. Warming up didn’t seem too bad for anyone. Rob was on the back 50s and no complies right away. Kevin was figuring out his setup with switch flips. My trucks were way too loose, but I was having fun. Slappies worked well and kickflips felt great. Almost had some fun b/s flips out of the little kicker. Kevin and Rob had nice back 180s. Rob and I had some wallie nollies, Rob had front tails too. Jack showed and quickly did impossibles, treflips, popped kickflips. He is so freaking good. Then he went on to learn f/s halfcab back 50 in a few tries, did like 10 of them in a row and casually added the no comply flip over the mega gap in a few tries. He also learned slappy crooks (of course doing shove out second try), did the most popped no comply 180s and fakie tre’d over the little median. Rob learned slappy front crooks! I ended up doing my first slappy crooks shove (i’ve only shoved out of regular crooks before). I also did a b/s flip over the little hip. I got kind of close to kick back tail on the curb. Near the end I started trying nollie back tail shoves. Most of them weren’t close and were embarrassingly slow and awkward. But out of nowhere I did one and it felt quite amazing. I may have even slid it a little. Kevin joined the learn slappy crooks party. He also took top honors in the slam department. He tried a no comply 180 and went down soooo hard. It was brutal. He also ollied the parking block gap, back lipped the parking block, halfcab bonk the median like it was nothing. Dave showed near the end still riding his putter. He went into noseslides, tails, quickly. I had kind of tuned out at that point and was ready to go. Dave apparently skated for like 2 more hours ha. So awesome.
(setup null 8.5 plant life deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 trucks (red cast baseplate titanium hanger), venom bushings (88a big one no washer, 91a small one flat washer), spitfire f4 classic shape 99a 50mm wheels, new balance numeric 212 mustard size 11.5, footprint mid elite insoles)
(pain level 4/10 mostly the cold causing the problems)