Most years I challenge myself to my age in flatground tricks. It’s kind of torture and gets harder each year both physically and having to add another trick. Last year I wasn’t up for it, but here’s the one from two years ago. It was a beautiful morning, no high winds. The 45 clip isn’t exactly in order. I didn’t skate to warm up at all. I just filmed everything starting with the nose/tail no pop shove, moved into shoves, did some flippers, some no complies, finished the flippers, then finished with the easy part of 180s and some bonelesses and stuff. The trick I was most worried about was treflip as it’s given me lots of problems lately. When it came in a few tries I felt stoked, relieved and encouraged. Dave showed up when I had done most of the flippers and was finishing up on fakie tre which took the longest. I did sex change after that, but no more flippers. I was so exhausted. Dave had a couple cameos, Matt with the first try treflip while out with his dog. Going through the clips later in the night I had actually done 46 tricks. So I deleted the ugliest one which was a creepy spin where I didn’t fully rotate at all. Calling it my ugliest trick with all of the ugly tricks above is saying a lot. Ha ha. I was very hyped on the nollie varial flip and nollie treflip. The fakie tre took the longest, but felt amazing when I landed it. Getting both halfcab heelflips felt rad too. I really need to learn some switch tricks to make next years a little more interesting. I must say the Thunder trucks flip great, but the weird turning sure makes for some weird tic tacs.

Then Dave and I met Jake at Boulder park. They skated the mini while I ate. Then I joined them in the combi bowl. I thought we would just be carving around, but they were really skating it. Jake was grinding the deeps, trying sweepers. Dave was doing front pivots on the crazy steep narrow corner, manualling the deck, airing the little bumps. Hopefully I’ll post a clip of it at some point. I got in on it and tried a line of roll in, tiny grind, back 50 into the bigger bowl. I was so content with the flatground session that my brain couldn’t get me to roll into the little 3 foot section. I did eventually though and got the line with some good tic tacs on the back 50.

Then we went to Saul’s. Jake and I were already beat. The only thing I really did was a few carve grinds. Jake had a killer run. Ed joined and ripped it. Saul gets more coping in one run than anyone. It was a fun ender for a great day.

(setup 8.25 null monico deck, thunder 148s with old forged baseplate, venom 88a bushings, 51mm bones stf v1, new balance numeric 212 b/w size 11, footprints gamechanger orthotic insole)

Went to Blue Skies trying to beat the forecasted wind. It was nice out when I left IBM. I was sore, but really wanted to skate a ledge. The minute I arrived at Blue Skies the wind hit. That place is a wind tunnel anyway, so it was extra bad. I managed a couple switch noseslides and a front 50 shove before focusing my old warped board after slamming ollieing the low part of the snake rail.

(setup 8.25 null atomic cowboy deck, thunder 148s with old forged baseplate, venom 88a bushings, 51mm bones stf v1, new balance numeric 212 b/w size 11, footprints gamechanger orthotic insole)