It had snowed overnight, but only a trace. The sun was out and it was nice and since there was no school for MLK Day I went and skated flatground. I had 8.25 with Thunder. Meh. Kickflips felt decent initially. I somewhat quickly got the Reynolds line – backside flip, fakie flip, halfcab flip. I thought I was gonna be ripping. Only landed a questionable f/s halfcab flip after that. Was close on a few. I really should throw away all my Thunder trucks, I very much dislike them.

(setup 3/10 8.25 null time warp, jessup ultra, thunder team hollow 148 t-ii bushings, 52mm bones stf v1 103a, splay rev s-series green size 12 remind cush insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

On a nice morning I went to Lafayette to meet up with Brian and a crew of others Cass, Jake, Gordon, Gray, Kyle, Will for a minute, and more. I really struggled for a long time. After some warm up there was a flyout session out of the bank. Jake got comfy with ollies. Cass ripped the front shoves. Gordon nollie and shoves. I could not get a kickflip and it made me so mad. Oh we had skated the toilet bowl some and I slammed on my first roll in. Argh. Brian and Jake had some tricks on the taller steeper walls. Eventually I swapped my setup out for the 8.25/Indy setup and liked it more, but that’s not saying much. I would struggle to get a line that was the one thing I was somewhat happy with. Kickflip on the mellow mountain bankpipe then a kickflip to fakie on the other bank. Oh there were some fun wallies over the corner of the rock. Gordon had some good back 50s on the granite pad. Will had some good front 50s on it. I couldn’t even 50 it. Kyle killed a bigflip up the euro. Brian had cool back 180 nosepicks up it.

Gordon, Cass and I went to nearby by Ryan Elem. Nothing good happened. We just kind of dorked around on the little brick bank. Cass went for front shove fakie. Gordon was close to back tail on the wall and popping it back into the bank.

Then we went to the metal curb spot, but were looking at the 7 stair out ledge then found this nearby. Such a sick spot. Dear Mark Suciu, come skate this, your quick feet would destroy it. Anyway, Gordon was quick on the front 50s through the kink and the 180 out was nice. I struggled for some questionable crook jibs. Cass was the noseslide king and shoved out through the kink which is pretty nuts.

(setups 8.3/slappy highs 1/10, 8.25 indy titaniums 2/10, splay rev s-series black size 12 nb272 insoles and currex runpro insole which I liked less than the reminds)
(pain level 5/10)

Let the temps warm up after a cold morning. Was going to dog park, but randomly remembered this spot on the way there that I’ve never skated. I was there about an hour myself. I had a setup change. 8.3, slappy trucks, old 51mm wheels. It felt good although the wheels felt small. I would get manual pretty quickly. Never got nose manual. Hucked a lot of flippers, landed very little. They have these tall butter benches that are light and I pulled one out to skate. Had some noseslides and noseslide to fakie on it. Was trying non-stop lines, never quite getting any good flippers. Was close to kickflip up the curb then front shove out of the curb cut. After one attempt I went to push off, but my board totally stopped and I slammed so hard. Turns out a bearing had broke and the wheel got wedged against the axle. Doh!

So after a quick trip home and wheel swap out I was back. I had opted to switch to some larger wheels and boy did I hate them. I could no longer manual or do many flippers. It sucked. I had pulled out the bench again, but a car pulled up right where I had put it off the sidewalk. It was the janitors, but they were happy to see me and waved. Dave showed a little after this. He would take a bit, but did manual body varial out. We got the curb to grind/slide a little. Dave slammed on a back tail. Fakie nosegrind to nose manual was first try on the camera. I had gotten close to the front slappy, kickflip up, front shove off, but couldn’t kickflip up when Dave filmed. I never got the front shove off and I don’t know why. Dave had some nice kickflips off the curb. I was hyped to get a couple crooks on the tall butter bench and some back 50s on the curb. Dave’s back 360 at the end was so good. Fun session.

(setup 4/10 null 8.3 hayden, jessup ultra, slappy lights 8.5, old wheels 51 then 53, splay rev s-series black size 12 remind cush insole)
(pain level 4/10)