Met Dave on a nice afternoon at Blue Skies after a busy day at work. Yes, Dave is skating again! It ruled seeing him. We started in the basketball court as there was a father/daughter combo skating around the hockey rink. I was struggling super hard to start. Actually, the whole time, but it seemed more embarrassing initially. I was struggling to hit my tail on 180s, couldn’t back 180 at all. We moved into the hockey rink. Dave still has the fakie shoves like it’s nothing, did some regular shoves, cabs, nollie 180s. He was looking good on his board for having such a big bandage on his knee. He was doing lines with 180, switch ollie or fakie shove, cab, switch no comply shove then trying to end with kickflip. He never quite got the kickflip, but definitely got the confidence back to commit. I had put different insoles in and as embarrassing as it is to use that as an excuse, I think it really did mess with me. I got kickflip, fakie flip, barely a halfcab flip, both heels down on a fakie bigflip, not close to treflip. The redeeming trick was getting super close to Rick flip.

(setup 8.3 null collage deck, venture 5.6 v-lights, spitfire 52mm tablets 99a f4, 3 washers inside each axle, bones medium bushings, jessup grip, new balance numeric 255 b/w size 12, nm# Foy insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

On a cool night I went exploring the new research area. I started in the back area after a brief push around. I was pretty bummed there was still snow in areas making the ledges weird. Warming up was whatever. Did some basic lines like ollie a a little brick section, boardslides, kickflips, etc. I was happy that the wood grinded fine. I didn’t stand up on crooks or halfcab noseslide like I wanted to, but I was excited to get on front 50s pretty easily. I guess it’s not exactly tall, but it was quite cold. I basically worked into two main lines. One started by ollieing the 2, then come around and front 50 180 then switch 180 the little brick section. The other was kickflip the bricks, crooks, treflip. Never got the tre in the line though. I would go on to do one by itself at least. Then I went to the taller section around the building. It took awhile, but I got ollie up then ollie the gap. I tried to go fast enough to not push up top, but I think I was a little too sore/tired to do that. Last I went to the concrete manny pad off the 4 stair. It was more awkard than I thought for a regular footer. No wonder Hayden hit it switch. All I did was ollie on and ride off.

(setup 8.3 null collage deck, venture 5.6 v-lights, spitfire 52mm tablets 99a f4, 3 washers inside each axle, bones medium bushings, jessup grip, new balance numeric 255 b/w size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 3/10)