skate journal: dog park battles (july 25, 2023)

After dinner I went to dog park to meet Jesse and Mike and possibly Dave. Mike couldn’t make it but Paul rolled in. Jesse was there and we went right in to a game of SKATE which he would win again. I just can’t beat him. Not even after he slammed and hit his chin on a fakie bigspin. It was crazy. It was decent though. I wore some Es Melange shoes and thought they were great at the time, but now my calf is acting up again. Argh. Anyway Jesse won on treflip and I wasn’t even remotely close. Dave showed and did a lot of parking block transfers to get warmed up before he went on to 5-0 over the arc. After playing SKATE I got a different setup out of my car and mostly enjoyed it more. 8.25 with venture lows. I would get a second try f/s halfcab heel, but struggled with kickflips. I had some fun crooks on the back of the two tier, a few manuals on the pad. Dave was all over the place and settled in on some fakie 50 halfcabs for a while. He also almost did a kickflip off the c pad. I had started committing to crooks on the ledge over the manny pad, but never locked in. I was hyped to feel more posted up and committed. I also tried some kickflips over the green curb and some other random stuff. I couldn’t nose manual the pad to save my life. Argh. By the end there was just one younger skater who was trying to learn nose manuals and I’m sure will have them way better than me next time we see him.

(setup 1 3/10 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, royal 144 hollow kingpin, 52mm bones v1, es melange black size 12
setup 2 4/10 8.25 null esher, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 lows v-cast, 52mm pink snot wheels)
(pain level 4/10)