skate journal: street skating in portland!!! (feb 26, 2015 day 57)
What a crazy day. Started at 4am Mountain time running to a bus stop in a bunch of new snow and 5 degree temperature. Then I was in soggy Portland eating and drinking coffee with Nate and PJ. After lunch it was dry. So naturally Nate and I went skating. We started out at the curved ledge/bank spot that our big crew had skated for hours over the summer. The ledge itself was wet. We did a few basic flippers and stuff before Nate suggested we move on. So we went to the spot above that we wanted to skate last time. Nate front 50’d it first try and it was on. Took me a little longer to get going, but we ended up tally’ing quite a few tricks. Nate did front 50, front 5-0, front 5-0 180 out, front tail, front tail to fakie and front noseslide. I got front 50, front 5-0 (intended to be front 50), front noseslide (not past the crack), front noseslide to fakie (past the crack!) and front 50 shove which took a long time. At this point I was already super hyped on the trip. We skated the metal thing in the middle a bit too. We both did ollie on then front slash then ollie or 180 off.
Remembering all of what happened next is going to be impossible a week later as I write this. I think we ended up here next. It was slightly drizzling which made it scary at first. So I just dropped in and did cali grinds off of it. Then an early grab cali grind off it. That’s what the photo of me is. Not even close to what you thought eh? It was fun. It dried up and we skated the ledge. Nate killed some fast back 50s and maybe back 5-0 too. I got crooks. We both did front 50s.
This was right up the block and was one of my favorite spots of the trip some how. We both did nose manual into the bank then manual the 2 stair section. Sounds basic. It was. And surprisingly fun.
We ended up here for awhile. Nate manual’d and nose mannyd the thread the needle pad quick. I took a long time to manual it. Nate got a no comply flip over the parking block. I fell on a few. We had fun surfing the little reflectors.
This was fun for a minute. Had a fun noseslide to fakie then switch 180 off the curb. It was scary though because of so much traffic. There was also a little ledge drop that I rode off of that was kinda tall. Then we ended up at the crazy mossy area that Silas destroys in a Portland video. It was a really humbling spot that was so much harder to skate then I would have imagined. Nate did some super rad nose mannies the hard way (backside) and manualled another ledge before trying to 180 nose manual a 3rd. I could not ollie onto the ledge backside. All I did was some front 180’s up and switch front 180s off. Might have done kickflilp up/off. Then as the rain started up again I manual’d a box that Nate manual’d ever try and then sloppily ollied onto a tall ledge and slowly dropped off it. Pretty fun. We were beat so the rain was probably somewhat of a blessing.
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)