On a warm morning Rob, Paul, Dave and I drove up to Evergreen park where we met up with Jake, Cass, Sean, Garrett and Kevin. Yes, Kevin! Although he was hurt and couldn’t really do much beyond some kickturns and pivots. I felt pretty nauseous from too much coffee and eating earlier than normal and it took a while to overcome it. I also went through waves of extreme anger and disappointment with my skating even though overall I skated okay. There were a lot of us and we skated for over four hours so it’s impossible for me to have seen everything and remember it. So I think I’ll just kind of list some highlights from everyone.

Paul had some nice grinds on the ledges. Back 5-0 180, back 5-0 then quick front 50 the hubba, some poppy ollies on the hip. Cass did his thing where he lands tricks real quick again then chills. Back big the hip, b/s flip the hip and kind of followed it with b/s flip the hard way over the hip. Also some good crooks and back 50s. Rob graces us with a bean plant over the hip so the day was made. Also back 180s up the curb then halfcab boardslide pop out, front tail and halfcab noseslide the bank to curb. Him and Jake chatted for quite a while. Jake did make some quick work of his moves though. Nollie back tail, halfcab noseslide shove, crooks, front smith the vert qp.

Sean’s warm up first ollie over the hip had everyone of us jealous. He also did one of the funniest back 180 heels over the hip (and a couple perfect ones of course). The nosegrinds on the out ledge and grinds up the hubba were fire too. Garrett has a broken wrist and took some bad slams on it, but still ripped some nollie heels over the hip, back 3s, back ds, nollie flips, nollie nose manual.

My skating was all over the place and I didn’t really stop at all over 4.5 hours which is crazy and explains the amount of pain my knee is in right now as I write this. Early on I took a while to kickflip up the curb, then later on would punch the flat bar on accident kickflipping up and thought I broke a knuckle. Luckily it’s okay. Had a line of a slow halfcab flip, crooks, terrible b/s flip. Took a long time to get b/s flip over the hip. Would get one then spend a lot of time to get one then did another in a doubles with a Garrett nollie heel which was my highlight of the day. Would also get fakie bigflip over the hip and a sketchy little f/s halfcab flip. tried to line out some slow flatground treflips. Got one followed by 180 up the curb then switch noseslide shove. Then struggled soooo hard to do a front 50 shove after and never got it which made me super angy. Not being able to pop into front 50s anymore bums me out more than anything I think. And I wonder why my knee is swollen? Ha ha. At the end I had some noseslide 270s, kickflips over the hip, but could not kickflip off the curb.

Dave won the demo for sure. He was the last one skating and hadn’t taken a break either. Pivot shoves, switch pivot shoves, gap to tails, slappy crooks, back tail shove all on the bank to curb. Kickflips, switch ollies, varial flips and multiple f/s flips over the hip! Most of which were in long lines with tricks on both qps as well. I’m forgetting a lot, Dave was shredding.

(setup 6/10 null sample 8.5/14.25, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 v-cast/ti royal bushings flat top washer, spitfire f4 52mm classic shape, new balance numeric 272 teal size 12 half insole)
(pain level 7/10 serious left knee pain at times)