skate journal: Solo Rampy, kickflips, ollies and yellow curbs (Jan 2, 2011)

Day one of Liz and the kids being gone for a week and me being a bachelor.  Naturally I saw them off then hit the booze immediately.  Or maybe after they left I watched John Cardiels epcily latered then skated the entire day.  Yeah, yeah that’s it.  Rampy was a blast.  I ended up just trying a run of back 50, back 5-0 to fakie (don’t worry I still do them really bad), tail stall, frontside ollie, rock fakie, fakie hurricane.  I got all, but the fakie hurricane quite a few times.  After awhile I was even kinda stoked on some of the frontside ollies.  In between runs I would try a 1mph manual pop shove out.  Got a few of them.  Then I would try a nollie flip.  Got none, but a few were close.  Sometimes I would also do kickflips until I bailed one.  I eventually did the whole line, felt stoked and went inside to grab some lunch as Carleigh and Chad were supposed to be over soon.So I ate, then I watched Bernies video and then I watched the Kenny Hoyle video.  And then I waited a bit.  I went outside and waited.  There was a tiny patch of dry concrete in the driveway so I did about 100 stationary kickflips.  Literally.  I kept thinking C & C would arrive, but they never did.  I noticed that the sidewalk was remotely dry and started pushing down it and ollieing sections of sidewalk.  It was scary because it was narrow and if I shot the board out or landed bad I or my board would go in the snow.  After about 20 of these a big 4 wheel drive truck drove threw the slush and covered the sidewalk.  I flipped him off.  He laughed.  Back to stationary kickflips.  Eventually Carleigh and Chad showed.  Yeah.Yellow curbs near Crisis was next.  Neil met us there.  Some of the Crisis kids were there for about 5 minutes then they moved on.  Things started and stayed pretty lame for me.  Chad had some good moves.  Neil has the basics so good.  Carleigh shouldn’t have been skating, her foot is jacked.  She learned powerslides though and worked on pushing switch.  Everyone was doing there own thing.  Eventually Chad pulled out a trashcan on it’s side to ollie over.  Chad and Neil ollied over it like it was nothing.  Chad also front 180d it, back 180, kickflip, switch ollie and even switch heel.  Ridiculous.  Neil no complied over it.  I took my sweet time just to ollie over it.  It took a lot of effort.  I had done a kickflip manual on one of the long manual pads and it really hyped me up.  I’ve never done that trick longer then 8 feet.  I tried to do it again, but never quite got it again.  I really wanted to ollie the trashcan in a line.  Kick manual, back 50 the a fun yellow curb curve then ollie the trash can.  But seeing as how I knew I would never get that kick manny again I kept losing motivation for the ollie.  Eventually I just did it solo.  Carleigh was snapping photos.   At the end Chad and I played SKATE.  I got Chad to SKA each time, but that was it.  He’s got all the nollie, switch and regular heelflip variations and they took me out.  Super fun day.  Hyped to ollie the trash can even though it was easy for Chad and Neil.Neil complyChad switch heelMe ollie captured a bit late. Although I’m sure I’d look just as awkward (if not more) if the photo was captured at the “peak” of the ollie.A lot more photos at Gnarly Carleigh dot com. Thanks Carleigh!