skate journal: flatground friday then some slappys later (may 24, 2019)
The sun finally came out! And of course so did the wind. Argh. I met up with Rob, Aki and Dave at Blue Skies for an hour lunch break flatground session. I haven’t seen Aki in awhile so it was great to see him. Aki was doing kickflips quickly and got a treflip pretty quick. He had gotten there first and he’s only 30 something. Ha. Rob has his quick feet routine down. Fakie big, nollie shove, shove, front shove, kickflip and b/s flip this time I think? Rob and I had both gotten first try kickflips. I got a first try treflip too a little later on. Halfcab flips were okay. My board feeling huge. Dave arrived and did a lot of nollie 180s, halfcabs, fakie shoves to get going. The wind and the sun made it all feel like it went so quick. Aki had a bunch of heelflips and learned f/s halfcab flips and sex changes in a few tries. I got one at the end too. Dave had done a couple, varial flips, fakie sex change I think. Rob had gotten a couple halfcab flips and close to fakie bigflip. I couldn’t put down a heelflip. I had hucked a bit and it was fun. Then I had to head back for a meeting only to find out it had been moved. Then I was sent home early anyway.
After a long walk, dinner and a few drinks Liz and I were walking home only to see Saul and Dave skating the curb. Dave grabbed his phone and pointed it at me and said “30 second kickflip challenge!” Oh man. I quickly grabbed Sauls board, missed the first one, but got the second. Whew! Then I went home and grabbed my board to skate with them. I kept it pretty mellow with mostly slappies and almost no flippers. I saw Saul do the longest slappy yet. I think it was two full sections. Dave was getting tech doing lots of flippers and trying switch crook kickflip out. That would be so nuts. He had some really long slappy crooks too, back 5-0, back 180s out of the median the hard way, nollie front tail. Saul has frontside slappys now too. Also hands behind the back and layback slappys (or street plant or whatever you want to call it). He also did a couple front 50s where he ollied in. Even saw him get kinda close to kickflips. He had some nice slappies around the corner. That was really fun to see them and skate some more. Oh yeah, I had started some new b/w 379s.
(setup 8.75″ null event horizon deck, venture ftc 5.8s, doh dohs bushings (blue 88a barrel boardside one, yellow 92a roadside), spitfire f4 classics 52mm green/yellow swirl wheels with 3 washers on the inside, new balance numeric 379 brown and then b/w size 12, nike zoom air insoles)
(pain level 5/10 in the knees)