Adidas might make some of the worst shoes in skateboarding, but their videos are normally amazing. This one is no exception. The Busenitz lines at the start are pure gold. Diego is on some next level skating. The switch heel noseslide in a line. Oh my!
After another tough day at the office I needed to get out and push. I wanted to be alone so I went to campus and pushed to an area I’ve never really been to. I messed around for a bit doing a fun little narrow ollie and some firecrackers down a couple two stairs. I had chose to wear stock insole this time instead of gamechangers. Why? Because the more I read about the dangers of orthotics and the more foot exercises I do I shouldn’t need them. It was a little weird though. I got a warm up line kind of quickly that felt great. B/s flip on an imaginary hip, switch 180 up the curb, ollie down the 3, front 180 off the curb. Then I tried to do a halfcab flip, pop shove up the curb, front 180 down the 3. But I couldn’t get the pop shove up and the halfcabs were killing me. So I ended up trying another line starting at the top of the hill. Wallride the jersey barrier, slappy crooks the yellow curb on the top right of the photo, back 180 on flat, switch front 180 up the curb, ollie the 4, ollie the 3. I struggled with the slappy crooks at first. Then I struggled with the back 180 on flat. That about ruined me. Then I kept bailing the 4 stair. The downhill approach scared me. It started to sprinkle and I guess that was the motivation to get the line. Street skating rules because as much as I struggled when I landed the line it felt great.
Since it started raining I went under the engineering building and skated this ledge. I got boardslide, noseslide, noseslide fakie, crooks jib, switch front nose halfcab noseslide. I did a back 50 on the little curb off the 3 stair then walked back to the car. Weird day with some struggles, but felt good to skate a couple different spots.
(setup 8.38 null atomic cowboy deck, venture black icon 5.8 trucks, bones medium bushings, 51mm bones stf v1 wheels, 3 washers outside each axle, new balance numeric 255 cream/gum size 12 with thin stock NB# insoles)
Rainy night. Setup a new deck and started some new shoes. I did some warming up that didn’t go anywhere so I just started hucking nollie flips. I got super close to getting both feet on a few, but that was it. Hucked a few nollie back heels and there was one that almost felt like I was going to do it. Tried to end it with a couple quick treflips, but could only land 270 and shoot out so I called it a night.
(setup 8.38 null atomic cowboy deck, venture black icon 5.8 trucks, bones medium bushings, 51mm bones stf v1 wheels, 3 washers outside each axle, new balance numeric 255 size 12 with footprints gamechanger orthotic insoles)
Another day where I got home tired from work and had to make dinner and do some cleaning. So my skating was limited to flat or school. I chose flat in front of the house as rain was threatening. I wore the Swifts again, but with the stock insoles this time. It felt okay at first, but after awhile I was hating it. I wanted to do 10 tricks I was happy with. Quite a few of them like both halfcab flips and heelflips sound great on paper, but were anything but in reality. The f/s halfcab heel was after a fakie flip though so that felt cool. I got an absolutely terrible treflip. I couldn’t nollie tre or nollie varial flip. Got pretty close to nollie flip. The shoes were weirded me out after awhile and I definitely came close to an ankle roll. I finished with a very slow fakie varial flip and called it a night.
(setup 8.38 null monico deck, venture black icon 5.8 trucks, bones medium bushings, 51mm bones stf v1 wheels, 3 washers outside each axle, es swift 1.5 grey size 11.5 with stock insoles)
First day of being Mr Mom for a week. Went across the street feeling pretty motivating and wanting to try some old cupsoles in hopes that they would help my legs feel better. I was in the mood to jump down the curb. Ha ha. I tried a lot of lines. Grinds, up, down. It was a weird session as something would work once, then not again. I don’t remember the lines very much, but some of the tricks up/down I remember were first try b/s flip up, kickflip up going both backside and frontside, both pop shoves up and down. I did some intentional front 5-0s, fakie 50, front tail jib, an over 80 fakie back tail. Tried a run of back 50 back 180 out followed by fakie front 50 switch front 180 out, but never got the switch front 180 out. Had a really bad heelflip. Some regular manuals. Tried a lot of kick back tails, but didn’t get into any.
(setup 8.38 null monico deck, venture black icon 5.8 trucks, bones medium bushings, 51mm bones stf v1 wheels, 3 washers outside each axle, es swift 1.5 grey size 11.5 with footprints gamechanger orthotic insoles)
Work has been so busy I haven’t had a chance to write this for almost a week after. So I’m apologizing up front for how much I have forgotten since then.
Rob, Fuzz and I met up with Jack at the high school in Denver with all the ledges we remember as being fun. I don’t remember if it’s East, West or North high and we definitely couldn’t tell Jack until we were almost there. But we would eventually all be there remembering that the ledges aren’t so easy to skate and the place is covered in cracks. Warming up took awhile. With the exception of Jack it was awhile before any trucks grinded the concrete. No pop noseslides and crack nollies helped. Jack did a couple back 50s before laying into the first of two impossible tricks. Ollie up to crooks 360 shove to 5-0 the lower ledge. That really is what he was trying and getting frustrated with not landing. ha ha. Fuzz and I were trying lines for awhile starting with the downhillish ledge and ending with the pointy ledge. Fuzz was trying no pop noseslide, kickflip a big crack, chinese nollie one right after it, then front 180 nosegrind the pointy ledge. He got real close. I was trying switch front nose, switch 180 over the tall crack, crooks the pointy ledge. I got it at some point. I also tried to ollie onto the a ledge, ollie up the next level, ollie the 2. I don’t think I linked up all 3 and the second ollie up was never graceful, but it was fun to try. Rob was doing halfcab noseslides then back 50s. Fuzz was doing nollie front tails and got a nice front 5-0. Fuzz got me to ollie the bump to gap. He made it look so easy and did the next flat gap too. Jack had moved on to try cab back noseblunts and was going in and out of being close to landing it. He would eventually get a cab nosegrind, but not quite the noseblunt. Dan, Collin and a friend of their’s who’s name I forgot showed up. Dan had some nice tailside variations, Collin with the boardslide and noseslide tricks and tucked in shirt guy with the mega pop front 50 on the second level. Rob heated up with some good back 50s and got a back smith! So sick. Rob and I got crooks on the granite ledge. Man crooks on granite is the most fun feeling.
Then we went to this weird wallride spot. We were pretty slow to get on it. Jack did a wallride in the hard spot, Fuzz did a fakie thruster on it. Rob and I did the wallie nollies on the mellower part which wasn’t easy either. I started messing with a line that I didn’t think would come together, but Jack started filming it so I figured I better make it work. 500 tries later I had another kickflip for my part and a wallie nollie. Ha, it was actually awesome though. I got the line 3 times technically. Once when Jack had just started filming, but it was crappy. Then again a lot of tries later, but both tricks were crappy. So I did the ‘3 more tries’ rule and next time I got to the wallride I did it way better. The kickflip was maybe the best one too. Man it felt awesome. Thanks for filming Jack, I think that might end up being one of the better lines I’ve filmed.
Then we went to Hinkley which I’ve never really skated. And that would be the case once again as my legs had shut down for the day. I couldn’t really convince my body to ollie and I only got one crappy front 50 and a good slam hitting a stop twig. Rob killed the manual and nose manual quick. And I think he did a 180 up, fakie bigspin and then bean plant off? Jack got gnar on a gap to grind, then pulled a pop shove nose manual nollie heel out out of nowhere. It was amazing. Fuzz had done a sick line of front nose drive shove, front shove, front 180 all quick footed and we tried to film it. He did it again, but wasn’t as happy. It’s still sick though.
One heck of a day with the dudes. I need to skate with friends more, it’s so fun.
(setup 8.38 null monico deck, venture black icon 5.8 trucks, bones medium bushings, 51mm bones stf v1 wheels, 3 washers outside each axle, new balance numeric 212 size 11 with footprints gamechanger orthotic insoles)