Man this part is awesome. These dudes rule.

ps .. buy the DVD here.

Jake and I played a game of SKATE in front of my house on a crisp spring morning. I got letters on kickflip and fakie flip. That pretty much sums up how I started. I blame getting used to the new setup a little, but missing those is ridiculous. Then we went and picked up Dave and started at this spot. It was a hard warm up unless you are Jake. He was ollie’ing up the the dock like it was nothing and lined out lots of tricks off. Front 180, front 180 off the nose, nollie, f/s halfcab, ollie over the bench and one heck of a stomped no comply 180. Dave and I eventually ollied up it. We did little grab plants off while putting our hands on the top of the bench. I got a back 180 version as well. I had some slams on some no pop back 180s and landed a no pop front shove off. I could’t commit to the ollie over the bench.

Then we went around to the front where Simon and his friends Tyler and Aaron met us. All nice dudes. They all ripped the bank. I avoided it. After an incredibly embarrassing fall up the curb (not on purpose) I went and hid on the manny pad. I tried a bunch of manual kickflips out (have never really tried for some reason) and got remotely close, but just felt dumb. Jake and Dave got axle stalls on the bank. It’s so gnarly. Dave also did some fakie ollies. Simon’s ollie to fakie is crazy. Aaron did a boy varial that was crazy.

Then we went here and did a little landscaping to make this board slideable. It was epic. Simon was the first to get it. He got it third try! So sick. He got a few more too, but they weren’t all easy. He came remotely close to back 50 too. Coming off the end denied Aaron for a long time before he got a few of them. Coming off the end looked weird. Most of my attempts were not close at all. I would only slide a couple feet then bail out. Jason and Lindy had met up with us to watch and I felt so dumb bailing in front of Jason.

I would eventually get it though! (Dave’s video camera died mid make. Doh!). I can’t believe that when I finally got to the end I actually landed it. Whew. Felt amazing. One of the hardest boardslides I’ve ever done. Not scary, just difficult.

Jake got it a few tries after me too. We were hyped!!!

Poor Dave was the only goofy footer at the session. He did manage to front 50 it with a couple scoots and a couple where he popped out early all sick. He tried some lipslides at the end too that he could have probably eventually got.

But we ended up at Dave’s house where Jake and I skated awhile. Jake slayed as usual. Back blunt, front blunt, a bunch more, but couldn’t put down the no handed nosepick he wanted to do. I did alright for me. Got a front d on the parking block side which I thought was new, but then I remembered I did it a few years ago when Brian said “If you disaster it this try I’ll learn nollie tres”. Ha. I was hella sore after all that skating. Neil, you need to learn how to post photos/screen grabs without reducing the quality!

Since switching back to my orthotics I haven’t found the right insoles to skate with yet so am going to make a note of which ones I tried because I seem to forget and try them again. I had tried Etnies ones. They aren’t so good. Bad board feel.