My friend Jon Colyer in Seattle filmed and edited this and it’s so good. Of course the skating is sick too. It was great seeing Jon in Seattle.

Yeah so here I am in one of those setup OCD cycles. One thing I’ve come to learn is proportions are very important. The board should be as wide or wider than the trucks. Skating the 8.25 in Seattle with 8.5″ trucks doesn’t work well, it does’t flip as fast and it just feels weird. So after work I grabbed a barely used 8.5 from a previous setup spat and put the 8.5″ Ventures on it. After dinner I went out front of the house thinking if flatground goes terrible then I’m over it and I’ll go back to the 8.25 with small trucks. Only it didn’t go bad, it actually went very good. My halfcab flips felt better than they have in awhile, I did like 8/10 heelflips, one in a line with a bad treflip. But the fact that I landed a treflip at all made me happy. I had hucked a bunch of flippers. All of them felt fine. Then I wen across the street to the curb area and had a grand ol’ time. I landed a switch front 50! It felt cool. Which led to me doing a fakie front 50 without turning out. It felt cool. And I almost got one with a switch 180 out. Couldn’t do front tails, but most everything else was going well. Kickflip up the curb, fakie ollies up, kickflip off, b/s shove off, back 50 front 180, front 50 back 180, intentional front 5-0s. Even got a sketchy bs flip up the curb. After awhile I was sitting and posting the vert clip on the gram and Ollie came out of nowhere and scared me so good. Ha. Then he skated for about 20 minutes. He had a few clean ollies up the curb, a back 180 up the curb! Manuals into 5-0s, kind of a front hurricane trying to back 180 up, then he actually tried a hurricane and got one. He also did his first ever nollie shove. Fun night.

(setup 8.5″ null rabethica deck, venture black icon 5.8″ trucks, venom 88a bushings, old 52mm bones stf v5 wheels, 3 washers outside each axle, lakai ellis black/white size 11.5, spenco 3/4 orthotic thinsole and thin adidas insole)

After a couple recovery days from #cloggingyourfeedwithstokepartdeux I went over to the school. I had put my smaller trucks back on. I thought it would be this glorious return to a setup I loved. It wasn’t. I had really enjoyed the wide trucks in Seattle, but hey dont’ work with 8.25 so well. But it took me awhile to realize that. Low trucks make me kind of clumsy. You have to land everything so perfectly (which is normally easy for me, but I was tired ha ha). I don’t think I even got a clean back 50. I hucked a lot. Got a switch crook jib or two. Didn’t get flip tricks, but man them kickflips rotated fast. I had new shoes. Some Lakais. They felt good, a little narrow in the foot, but good. Had a couple front tailslides, couldn’t do fakie 50.

(setup 8.25 null atomic cowboy deck, venture awake 5.2 lows, bones medium bushings, 51mm bones stf v1 wheels, old swiss bearings, lakai ellis black/white size 11.5, custom orthotic insole)

Coffee, DIY and plenty of all-over body pain. With @the_neviathan, @corpoglenny and @chipbaker #ibuprofenpatrol #cloggingyourfeedwithstokepartdeux #jpskatecrap

A post shared by Joshua Pluger (@boredzinejp) on Mar 31, 2018 at 10:36am PDT

Great weekend skating hanging (and eating) with a great crew of people @nolancormier @boredzinejp @the_neviathan @corpoglenny #mattspears #sam

A post shared by Seattle Skate Rock (@shopdeckcollisioncrew) on Apr 2, 2018 at 2:12am PDT

After skating til almost midnight we were up by 7:30 to get Joe to the airport. After a breakfast we were back to knowing the only thing we know how to do besides eat. Skate. We ended up at Long Acres DIY. At first it was just Josh, Nate and I. Chip joined for awhile. Then later on it was also Nolan, John, Matt, Sam and a couple locals. It was good seeing Chip. He tries a lot of flip tricks and I love seeing it. He wasn’t able to stay too long. Josh, Nate and I skated surprisingly well considering how beat our bodies felt. Having little wallie options to get going is fun. Transferring over the keg spine was so fun. Josh had disasters on the qp right away, ollies over the hips, pole jam, sweepers on the mellow bank. Nate got going on the granite ledge with front smiths, front nosegrind (I think), and I think back 5-0. I was skating the best I had all trip. Doing lines with basic tricks. Had a line with comply shove on the mellow bank, front 50 the coping ledge, turn around on the qp, kickflip fakie on the mellow bank, switch noseslide the granite ledge, transfer the keg, kickflip on the bank. I had some other fun tricks like no comply flip on the bank, front rock on the qp, switch front nose the granite ledge. It was fun. I started to get sore so Nate was kind enough to film a line of me. It was okay, I kind of wish I had tried something else in retrospect. Oh well. I filmed Josh get a line first try. Polejam, back 50 transfer the qp, keg transfer, sweepr. So good. Nate was up next and got a banger of a line. Front smith the granite ledge, frontside ollie the qp hip, keg transfer, nollie 270 flip on the mellow bank. Whoa what! After that Josh and I didn’t skate a whole lot. Nate did nollie inward heel on the bank and another crazy trick. I filmed Nolan destroy it. Dude rips so hard, especially stuff like this. Matt and Sam ripped it. John ripped it. What a fun crew.

@nolancormier #pivotfakie #cloggingyourfeedwithstokepartdeux

A post shared by Null Skateboards (@null_skateboards) on Apr 1, 2018 at 11:35am PDT

#skateboardingrules @the_neviathan #cloggingyourfeedwithstokepartdeux #skatetourist

A post shared by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Mar 31, 2018 at 4:07pm PDT

Then we went to Garfield school to see it in person. When we showed filmer Jon was there who was so rad to see. The dude he was filming wasn’t stoked on people watching him though. Ha ha. We dorked around with some wallrides at the top. We had miniramp lines with a drop in then wallride. Matt had really high wallrides. Nolan had a gnarly pivot to fakie. Ha. Then we found this fun little bank ride hand plant around the corner that is amazingly fun. Nate went frontside, Matt did a push up, Nolan went up and down the whole bank. It was an epic ender for the trip. Then we had tacos at a nearby taco truck and I went to the airport. What a fun trip. I can’t believe how great the weather was. Thanks to everyone for such a great time, especially Josh for hosting us in such an excellent way.

(setup 8.25 null atomic cowboy deck, black venture 5.8 v-light, 3 washers outside each axle, 88a venom bushings, 51mm bones stf v1 wheels, old swiss bearings, new balance numeric 255 baby blue size 12, spenco 3/4 thinsole with 5mm footprints insole)