skate journal: Flatground fun at the steelyards (March 23, 2013)
Another weekend, another snow storm. So sick of it. We got about 8″ and it was still dumping. It was quite cold too so a warmer garage was needed. I went with Steelyards which was quite nice and warm. I had setup a new board with some new Venture Highs. Yes, I will be the first to admit my truck issues are pathetic. But hear me out. I don’t think Thunders are all that great. I hate Indys. I liked how the Venture lows skated, just not how low they were. So rather then putting my old Thunders on I picked up some Venture highs hoping that my truck problems will be solved. I did some kickflips on flat and was kinda bumming on how slow it flipped with the highs. Oh well, I hit the Steelyards parking garage solo. Right out the gate I felt great. It didn’t take long before I was trying real tricks. I was just skating flat because in my head I was telling myself if I ended up not liking the highs I could return them if I didn’t grind anything. I had told myself I had to do a treflip and a nollie treflip before I could grind. It didn’t take long. I was skating way better then the last couple times. I was landing fakie bigflips again. Tried a line of fakie bigflip, front shove off the curb then treflip. Came close, but the treflip eluded me. Tried another run with f/s halfcab flip, nose manual, nollie treflip. Didn’t get the nollie tre with those, but managed a great one in my favorite run of the session. Little front lip on the corner of the unwaxed curb, nollie tre then a high speed kickflip off the curb (first try). I was super hyped on that. I tried a lot of tricks. Came remotely close to a gleNBD of front 180 heel. I had my headphones on and was skating really hard, eventually I got kinda tired and just settled into kick back 50/5-0/tail going one way and front 5-0 kickflip out the other way. I would also huck flippers. Came close to varial heel and got way too close on a b/s bigflip. Got a couple more treflips. Struggled with b/s flips and heelflips though. Front 5-0 kickflip was on my to do list by 40 (before the arthritis flare up that ended hopes of that list) and I got insanely close. Like holy smokes I can do this close. Landed both feet on it and fell off close. I ended up trying it so many times and it eventually wore me out too much and I gave up. I really thought I would get it. Doh. I did get a few kickflip back 50s. One bail that landed with the board balanced sideways on the wheels (photo above) that made me laugh. All in all a great session and I’m glad to have moved on from the low trucks and hopefully I will like the highs and stop being a whiny bitch about my setup.