skate journal: the best crew at several spots in omaha (may 18, 2017)
On a cold midwest morning we went to a park I’ve never been to in Omaha before. Seymour. It is terrible, but we had fun. I started in the bowl with Carleigh and Eric. It’s funny because most of the tiles were missing which left a crack that to drop in over. There was a small patch to drop in on though. It was alright. Most everyone skated the ledges, but I wasn’t up for ollieing. Eric and I ended up trying these weird front cab rock’s on the wedge that were pretty fun. It was a lot harder for us then it looks. Then a flatbar session was going on. Damon took top honors with a textbook first try kickflip back tail. It was seriously amazingly good. Carleigh lined out kickflips, boardslides both ways and heelflips. Matt was almost getting nollie shove feebles. Jack was doing boardslide to switch smith? I don’t know, maybe more just a nosebonk. Joe took awhile and got a front smith.
Then we went to this amazing spot. We had to sweep it out initially as there was tons of salt on it. Careligh spend some time sweeping out the top part that looked fun too, but we never ended up skating it. Doh. But the manhole and main bank were really fun. Especially landing tricks and rolling into the second bank. I tried bean plants to tail on the manhole for awhile. I got into them, but chickened out on the drop in. Lame. I did have some fun boneless and beanplant variations on the bank though. Got a new one. Bean plant finger flip. Carleigh did axle stall and feeble stall which are so much more gnar than they sound. Also an alley oop bean plant. Jack did front pivot to fakie, but was too sore to skate much. Joe did a nice fakie flip and front pivot 180 out on the manhole. Damon just kind of mauled the manhole. It was funny. He would do frontside nosegrinds and then just kind of ride through it. He had the sickest noseblunt to end it. Eric did his fingerplants on the bank, rock fakies on the manhole, tried blunt grab out to fakie and slammed! Matt did every trick on the manhole. Blunt, crook, back disaster, blunt to disaster (I think?), seriously everything. Local legend Jeff Chase joined us for awhile which was pretty cool.
Then we went to ‘One Step’. I was too sore to ollie at this point, but it looked so fun to skate. There were a bunch of people there, it was like a 90s session. Jeff was killing it. Carleigh relearned front 5-0 on a step while I did slappy crooks over and over. Matt and Joe were getting the lines in. Jack was skating harder than I would have thought. Basically that spot ruled, but I ended up sitting after awhile from being in too much pain.
Lastly we went to this spot where I didn’t even try to skate. Everyone else ripped it though and Dan even joined us. Carleigh with the back d, Matt with back blunt, Damon blunt to fakie, Dan front smith, Joe tuck knee rock ‘n roll, Jack put down a lot of tricks, but they are failing to memory right now. While waiting I had taken a pair of Joe’s Vans out of his car and put them on instead. After wearing them all night it seemed like a lot of my pain might actually be caused by how limiting cupsoles are. I’ve thought this before, but I haven’t skated with superfeet in vulcs in a long time. I’ll probably try that next. Anyways, the day was rad. I obviously wish I could have skated more, but it was still fun and the crew was out of this world awesome.
(setup 8.5 Null Ollie deck, venture 5.8 wides, 3 washers outside each axle, Venom 88a bushings, 52mm Spitfire F4 conical 99a pink/purple wheels, bronson bearings, New Balance Numeric PJ 533 black/white 12 superfeet insoles)