After a bad night of sleep I was woken up by Liz’s alarm as she slept through it. So I got up and since I had some free time before work I went to skate. I started at valmont and wasn’t really feeling it so much and thinking that “uh oh I’m not going to like this setup”. But I went over to dog park and liked it a lot there. I had some decent warm up lines and then would chill a bit in between and catch my breath. I really started liking my setup doing a simple front 180 over a parking block, it felt so right. Fakie flip and halfcab flip after didn’t come easy though and I bashed my knee real good with my board once. Argh. But some things came so much easier than normal like front 50 180 on the taller pad, manual the low pad, halfcab noseslides. Crooks didn’t feel good though. I had a fun front 50 back 180 out (it was a flop out, but it was first try and made me smile). Fun run of accidental front 5-0, crooks, back 50, b/s flip. Near the end I was trying nose manual then front 50 the bench, but I kept not quite getting the nose manual. I was super close to some treflips, but ran out of juice and needed to get to work.

(setup 8.5 null vhs deck, jessup ultragrip, thunder hollow lite 149 venom 88a bushings, 52mm snot pink/yellow swirl 101a, new balance numeric 440 white/red size 12 half insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

Drove through rush hour traffic and pulled in to Rocky Mountain as soon as it started raining. Argh! But it was cool to catch up with Rob. He was on his board for the first time in a while. The rain finally let up shortly before dark and we tried to squeeze in a session. I had all new everything. Well, the trucks aren’t actually new, but I have barely used them. Somehow I’ve never done Thunder hollows on 8.5 before. It felt pretty great. I’m just determined to finally make 8.5 work as it feels so natural to ride.

Rob rolled around on his cruiser at first before getting out his regular board and getting a bunch of axle stall combos. I was all over the place never really sticking with anything. Couldn’t quite get nollie back tail on the ledge, had a fun first try crooks, some back 50s on the curb, slappy front crooks, kickflips felt okay, couldn’t get Dave’s trick, was definitely struggling getting used to the setup change. Dave did his fakie front crooks a few times, boardslides to fakie, nollie to fakie on the bank, halfcab boardslide the curb, ride on front tail shove. It was a fun session even if it was cut short by rain.

(setup 8.5 null vhs deck, jessup ultragrip, thunder hollow lite 151 venom 88a bushings, 52mm snot pink/yellow swirl 101a, new balance numeric 440 white/red size 12 half insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

Left my house and it was dry after work. Halfway to Dog Park and everything was wet. Argh. Got there and dog park was totally wet while Valmont was mostly drained well with some puddles in low areas. I had followed Kevin’s recommendation with a slight setup change. 8.5 deck, Ace lows. I liked it, but it was still pretty hefty. I did skate the transition better than normal, but flippers were hard. Anyway, I warmed up slowly and there were a bunch of annoying kids on bikes doing the famous dumb evergreen loop. I was getting pretty frustrated with the kids when all of a sudden they all left and this dude Fergs showed up and we went on to have a great session. I had a really fun and tic tacy long grind on the pond side going almost the length of it. Also got the euro, volcano manual, and finally back 50’d the high to low. Fergs did backside flip over the hip, then varial flip, then heelflip. He was shredding. I got close to 360 flip fakie on the bank and even closer to b/s flip over the hip when the darkness became too much. I left with a good feeling.

(setup null 8.5 plant life deck, jessup ultragrip, ace af1 low 55 hard bushings, 52mm bones stf v1 103a, 440 white/red size 12 half insole)
(pain level 4/10)