Met Dave, Rob, Bernie and Garrett at this spot shortly after lunch on a nice winter day. I hadn’t been to this spot since they redid it. It is amazing. The warm up process is easier when pumping a bank is involved. Warmups were no comply bigspin for Rob and I. B/s flip for Bernie and I. Hardflip fakie for Bernie. Wallies on the corner for Garrett. Filming for Dave. Ha. I started messing around with a bean plant wallride/bash to fakie. I have no idea why, it just seemed like a cool trick to do there. I would get one kind of quickly with a hand push off then took like 30 more tries to land another one. Garrett did wallie front 180 over the hip so sick. Bernie was doing f/s flips and trying this crazy rock ‘n roll on the corner of the wall. It was bonkers. He got close quite a few times. Rob had smooth wallrides, b/s one foot ollies, close to b/s no comply finger flip. Dave started skating after I finally landed the beanplant trick and quickly rattled off a bunch of tricks. Fakie wallride, switch no comply, switch no comply 360, invert wallride. Bernie won a fakie treflip race. I slammed pretty hard trying to push switch through a crack before the bank. Everyone left except Dave and I. We just kept messing around having fun. We skated the hip for awhile. Dave did 360s, boneless, almost cab big spin. I did a weak sauce b/s flip, boneless, a fakie bigfip where I landed going the same way I came from. The ‘hip’ is round and there is no defined spots to take off from so it’s just kind of weird. After awhile this lady with a baby and a dog showed up to the playground that is right there. The dog was running after us behind the fence barking and barking and barking. It was quite annoying. I did a fun varial flip to fakie. Then we ended as I tried 360 flip to fakie for a long time and Dave tried varial flip to fakie. I managed to get an ‘over 40’ make of the treflip which was a pretty rad ender for a super fun session.

(setup 8.38 null venture wides bones medium bushings 50mm v1 bones stfs nb# pj stratford 533 black/white)

I went to the research ledge before the Meta 15 year anniversary party. There was a puddle before the ledge. I cleared off the little bit of snow that was causing the run off, but it didn’t dry. I guess the fact that it was runoff means it was above freezing. So that’s good at least. One of my first noseslides was so off that I hit my front foot on the wall behind the ledge. That would be an omen for the sucking that would come. Other lowlights included trying to pop a big ollie off the kicker at the top of the hill and the board not leaving the ground, not being able to do a front 50 to save my life, struggling with fakie bigflips again, having troubles ollieing up curbs. All of this made me want to focus my board and quit skateboarding forever. Unfortunately I am incredibly stubborn and kept at it. I did managed a first try boardslide pop out, a couple crook grinds, a horrible back 50 or two, and well, that’s about the only positives.

(setup 8.38 null venture wides bones medium bushings 50mm v1 bones stfs nb# pj stratford 533 black/white)