skate journal: breaking in new stuff and finding some sun (feb 11, 2018)
OCD kicked in a bit and knew I needed some new wheels and shoes before Hawaii in a few days. So I hit 303 since they had the Es Swift. I added in some 52mm Spitfire F4s. I drove around Denver for a bit looking for something dry, but it was still pretty wet. I drove back to Boulder, parked at research center, changed my wheels out and twisted the new shoes around. I started on a new two stair area (not above), but it was pretty wet and boring. I went up near the Max G rail and was hyped to see they redid the concrete so the long two was skateable. I started slow, but ended up trying some hard runs for me. I could tell that the bigger wheels helped me ollie up the 2 stair (my old wheels were probably down to 47 or 48). I didn’t do many flip tricks, I just tried lines. I would start at the crappy ledge, go around a couple corners, ollie up the 2, then turn around and do a trick down them. I did boardslide, front 180 up, front 180 down. Then halfcab noseslide, ollie up, back 180 down. The back 180 down took a few tries so it took awhile. Then I tried halfcab boardslide, back 180 up, switch front 180 down. Man. The back 180 was killing me. I haven’t done a back 180 up anything in awhile and a long two was hard. But I’m stubborn and I stuck with it. Even when the sun went behind the mountains I kept at it. It got cold quick and my bushings froze up making for some funny and awkard switch pushes up the hill to the ledge. I finally got a back 180 up and of course missed the switch 180 due to some awkward pushing. About 10 tries later i got the back 180 again and the switch front 180 came easy. I was quite hyped on that line. Exhausted with sweat freezing I headed home.
(setup 8.25″ clutch sample deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, 52mm spitfire F4 101a classic shape, 3 washers on the inside of each axle, white venture bushings, es swift 1.5 black/white size 11, custom orthotic insole)