skate journal: stubborns saturday epicness (sept 22, 2018)
Went to Safeway on a warm Saturday to meet Rob, Fuzz, Kevin and Sean. Kevin and Rob were there when I arrived. Kevin was already doing nollie flips and tailslides or something. I was feeling pretty good as I warmed up with the ol’ no-pop noseslides and went into some of my basics. Fuzz and Sean showed around the same time. Sean went on to totally destroy. He landed pretty much everything first try for awhile. Rob was in the zone for awhile. Cab front nose fakie, bigspint front nose to forward (Rob NBD), back smiths, nollie lips. Totally shredding. Fuzz came life and threw down a sick little line for the Stubborns. I couldn’t do kick back 50, but I did get a first try front 50 front shove out that felt really good. Kevin did a back tail shove. Sean learned fakie flip front tail and did it buttery ( that might be the first time I’ve used buttery on this blog). Oh yeah my 255s tore on the sole so I changed over to some old 212s.
Then we went to La Raza. I was starting slow and Rob was feeling a trick so I filmed him get a line for the Stubborns. Back 180, halfcab board shove, no comply shove. The tricks alone sound great, but then remember that style king Rob did them and you can get even more excited for the video. Rob was also kind enough to film Fuzz after this go for a tech hammer while I warmed back up. Less than 20 tries later Fuzz put down a banger. Switch board to front board. Powerful as all get out. Dang, we stacking clips! Kevin and I skated for awhile. Kevin was trying a line of fakie bigspin over the weird crack then nollie nosegrind shove. He was getting close. I took a long time to get a regular shove over the crack then tried to follow it with front 50 or 5-0 shove out. I didn’t get it and started filming Kevin who eventually had to call it.
All day I had been thinking of a trick I wanted to try into this bank. Sean had said he thought it was possible. Having never been to this spot it was hard to say, but I wanted to no comply finger flip into it. When we got there the bank looked intense. I couldn’t even drop in from the top initially. But I stayed calm and played with it for awhile. Dropping in a couple feet further each time until I felt comfortable with the roll in. Kevin rolled in a couple times too. I started playing with the trick just to feel it out. It kinda seemed doable. The runway is absolutely terrible. It was super hot. There were ants everywhere. There was gum right where I wanted to push. But I kept at it inching closer and closer before getting a lame one. Thankfully Fuzz knew I could do better and told me to give it another try. I went for it that try, but the board didn’t flip right. Did I mention my fingers were bloody from flipping the board? A good slam and a dozen more bails then I rode away from a better one. It felt pretty amazing. What’s also amazing is the camera died on the roll away. Luckily there is enough roll away that it looks fine. But man I was happy as it comes. Everyone was. We stacked some good clips and had fun. On the way to the car Kevin did nolle flip and nollie treflip while holding onto a bottle. Ha. We went out to dinner and had some margs and it was a blast.
(setup 8.25 null lazer deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, bones medium bushings, 3 washers inside each axle, 51mm v1 bones stf wheels, new balance numeric 255 cream/gum size 12 then brown 212s size 11.5, footprint flat 5mm insoles)
(pain level 3/10 general soreness)