skate journal: ditch, death defying ditch, downtown abq (oct 19, 2019)
Up not so early on a gorgeous day we set out to this spot. It was just me and the Nullers for this spot, Monico would arrive a little later than the rest of us. It’s crazy how spots like this are just everywhere in ABQ. People did their warm ups. Garrett died on a drop in that slid out. It was sketch. So he was out of it for most of the session. Jack and Nolan made noseblunts look easy. Hayden styled out some ollies to fakie and noseslides. Sean did a lot of flatground and had some sick front tailslides. I skated, but didn’t really land anything. Then I filmed Nolan get a banger 5-0 to fakie. You know it’s gnarly if Nolan is filming a 5-0 to fakie. Monico showed and skated some flat with Sean and Hayden.
Then we went to the insane rainbow bank spot. It is so much gnarlier than it looks in videos. Jack did a noseblunt on it right away. So incredibly gnarly. I putzed around on the bottom bank that everyone jumps over on their run out. It has these fun little 1′ gaps. I’m surprised there was no forensics on it at all. I took a long time to do a little gap to back tail. I technically didn’t roll away because of rocks, but whatever, I needed to start filming Jack destroy himself. And oh man did he ever. Jack was so close so many times to noseblunt shove, but man he slammed. Over and over, hard. It was a brutal display in determination and stubbornness. Hayden and Garrett skated the hip on the other side. Hayden put down a sick varial flip. I was impressed how quickly Garrett did back 3 over the hip. Too bad we were joined by the Agush who already did blizzard flip because Garrett was close to that too, but when he heard it was ABD he stopped trying. Nolan got a cool front tail to 5-0 and somehow avoided death on the roll away. Jack eventually had to stop. I felt bad for him, but the effort was commendable.
Then we went downtown. Went to a ledge over trashcan spot that Monico kickflipped so casually first try, but we got the boot. So we went to a nearby spot that Monico and Sean killed. Monico makes tall things look short. He had a sick back 3 into a bank. Sean did such a powerful back 5-0 to front 180 into the bank. His ledge skating is incredible. Then we were off to dinner. Yum.
(setup 8.25 null nolan deck, Venture 5.6 trucks, venom 88a bushings , spitfire F4 52mm 99a green swirl wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, new balance numeric 306 Foy b/w size 12, footprints gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 5/10)