skate journal: chill early dog park session then some flatground later on (nov 7, 2021)
Another nice day. I met Rob and Eric at dog park shortly after 11. My achilles was feeling much better and I had some new wide toe shoes to try out. Some Splay Freestyle shoes. They are so wide I even wore my toe spreaders which was pretty odd, but kind of amazing. Although they are so wide they made my board feel tiny. I didn’t do much and struggled to land anything. One little line I liked was nollie front tail to fakie the taller pad then switch front nose 270 out a bench. Also had a bunch of fun front slappies the low pad. Rob did some front nose 270s, manuals both pads, back 50s, boardslide transfers and got hyped for a vert ramp. Heelflipping Eric almost got up onto the pad, helped a dude learning boardslides, got denied by the sticky bench on crooks, fast front 50s.
Then after a run to 303, some lunch and chilling with Liz I ended up on the side of the school to skate flatground. I was armed with a 10×10 list from Nate and my 8.5″ setup since the wide shoes made my board feel so small earlier. I was reminded that 8.5 is just a little too big. But overall I think these shoes have potential. After a brief warmup I went into the list.
Kickflip – got one first try then a better one in a few tries
fakie flip – barely got one
Halfcab flip – got a couple but they weren’t easy
Fakie bigflip – first try and got another bad one
Varial flip – took 11 tries, don’t tell the judges
Heelflip – barely held onto one
360 flip – got close a couple times
Nollie back big – I mean maybe it counts on defense?
Nollie f/s flip – not close
switch varial flip – not close
7/10 Not terrible for me. 8.5 is definitely too big
(setup 8.25 early, 8.5 later, ventures, bones wheels, splay freestyle gray size 12 with naboso activation insoles)
(pain level 3/10)