On a warm day I rolled up separate and met at the spring canyon ditch spot. Taylor, Brenden, Dave, Mike, Ed were there. John showed up immediately after. Hayden, Andy, Peyton and others after awhile. Dave was already lining things out when I got there. He is built for spots like this. Ed was on the tailblock then 50 pretty quick. John slammed hard on his first axle stall attempt. Everything is harder than it looks in the clip. The pool coping is bigger on one side. But man what a fun spot. I managed a no comply grab to tail then 50 over the “death box” which was really fun. Then John did a finger flip to tail and I wanted to learn it. As you can see it’s still a work in progress, but it felt cool. Maybe not as cool as front 5-0s on the pool coping, but still fun. Even little slashes on the qp were hard. There were a lot of awkward slams. Taylor had such sick front 5-0s. Brenden did some really cool unique stuff. Dave was doing legit lines with wallies, back 180 over the bank medians, etc. John also did front shove to fakie then front shove revert but we’re saving that for Stubborns 2 (slower, lower, older ha ha). Mike had some long back 50s, nose stall to front 50, no comply front 5-0. Hayden showed up and did some stuff quickly. The fakie flip is sick because setting up for that bank is so hard. I had tried kickflip and failed. It was good seeing Hayden getting back into the groove after his foot injury. Peyton had some wild moves. Russian boneless, flamingo, boardslide down the bank median. I think all in one line.

We eventually left to eat and continue at Spring Canyon. Upon arrival it was super crowded though. Argh. Somehow the curb out front didn’t have cars in front of it so we mostly just skated that. Mike Salba’d it and it started grinding for real. It took me awhile to get a real slappy. Peyton was charging it so hard. Mike had some solid slappies. Taylor did a rad front slappy to no comply tailslide to fakie. John was doing nollie tails. I got a slappy front crook. I was feeling better as I had switched to some cupsoles I had in the car. Should have kept skating, but I went home.

(setup 8.75″ null valley deck, venture ftc 5.8s, doh dohs bushings (blue 88a barrel boardside one, yellow 92a roadside), spitfire f4 radials 52mm blue/yellow swirl wheels with 3 washers on the inside, new balance numeric 379 tan/gum size 12 with lunlarlon insoles then adidas 3st.003 blue size 12 with stock insoles)
(pain level 6/10 knee/foot pain)

On a nice morning I went to Southern Hills around 10:30 am. Liz and I had lunch plans and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to skate after that. After the fun flatground session yesterday I was incredibly sore. So sore that it had me scrounging for some old cupsoles that would hopefully reduce the pain. I went with the 868s. Man they are comfy. I started out trying warm up lines as I normally do. Boardslide, kickflip, 50 the step, noseslide. Also front boardslide, back 50 the step, front nose another bench. Kinda worked. I went for a random new line after that though. Noseslide to fakie on a bench, switch front 180 to 50 on the step, then crooks. To my surprise I would get the line. The switch 180 50 was locked in, but just don’t look at my hands as they may have used the 2nd stair to balance. Ha. I thought I was going to bail a crook, but landed it and it felt cool. The bigger setup made halfcab noseslides feel more doable, although I don’t think I actually landed one. Then I went in on front 50s. Ugh. This is where it got ugly. I decided a line would help. Kickflip into the handicap ramp then front 50. I was feeling good, getting kickflips, getting into 50 then all of a sudden I could no longer kickflip. That’s when I switched back to the 379s. But I felt so sore I switched back again after awhile. I guess my body just can’t deal with vulcs right now. After those switches I kinda ran out of time. I hadn’t been able to ollie up the 2 either. Ugh. So all in all kind of a bummer. I thought the huge board would help me ollie up things. It doesn’t really seem to.

(setup 8.75″ null valley deck, venture ftc 5.8s, doh dohs bushings (blue 88a barrel boardside one, yellow 92a roadside), spitfire f4 radials 52mm blue/yellow swirl wheels with 3 washers on the inside, new balance numeric 868/379s size 12, basically stock insoles)
(pain level 4/10 some knee pain)

Dave convinced me to meet him and Rob at Blue Skies on a gorgeous Friday. Warming up wasn’t easy for any of us. Rob went the manual route. Dave seemed on the shove/180 tip and I was on a similar program. Kickflips eventually started coming for us. I had some hideous fakie flips at the start. Struggled with halfcab flips. That trick gets so much harder with a bigger setup. I made up for it with a first try f/s halfcab flip. Couldn’t get fakie bigflip. Magically got a nollie treflip (with some toe drag) that felt pretty great. Rob was lining out some shoves/180s/fakie bigs to kickflips. Dave had some cabs, fakie bigs, kickflips. He had a pretty magical f/s halfcab flip where his momentum stopped, but he wanted it so bad and stuck with it. Rob was doing some cool old school tricks in the mix too. I got a sketchy treflip which fueled the desire to get a fakie tre as well to get all 3 of the tres (switch doesn’t exist in my world). We played a game of SKATE. Or rather, Rob and Dave played because I was out so quickly. I got 2 letters on front shove, bailed a halfcab one foot, got a letter on sex change (although I was very close) and lost on shove revert (can’t believe it). I tried a line of treflip then fakie treflip while they kept playing. I got a few treflips, landed on a bunch of fakie tres, but never got the line. I saw Rob get Dave with a halfcab flip. Dave get Rob with a creepy spin. Dave do the steeziest hand down fakie varial flip. Rob got a sick fakie bigspin then no comply bigspin line. I had to get going to work so I did just fakie tre until I got one. It also had some toe drag, but it still felt great. Then it was off to work. I’m surprised how much I like this big setup. Although halfcab flips and heelflips seem impossible.

(setup 8.75″ null valley deck, venture ftc 5.8s, doh dohs bushings (blue 88a barrel boardside one, yellow 92a roadside), spitfire f4 radials 52mm blue/yellow swirl wheels with 3 washers on the inside, new balance numeric 379 tan/gum size 12, lakai rubbery insoles)
(pain level 2/10 felt way better than expected)