skate journal: stubborning at platt (jan 18, 2020)

On a cool morning we chose a spot that gets a lot of sun. I arrived at Platt first. I did a manual or two then was messing around the 3 stair area and saw that you could switch noseslide down it while holding onto the rail. What a perfect warm up. Ha. Dave L showed up around then. We both kinda just looked at things and checked out the spot. I had brought out the 8.25 again, this time with stock bushings. I had realized that I like the stability of larger setups, but the flippability of smaller setups. So why not just make the smaller board more stable with stiffer barrel bushings? It was a little weird at first, but it seemed to prove the point. Jack and Carleigh were next. Kevin and Eric awhile after that. Everyone was feeling things out, skating it pretty differently. Jack did back tail and kick back tail up the 3 stair. Dave was trying to grind down it and bonk a tree stump. Carleigh was ollieing the kicker and kickflipping down the 3 stair. Eric was on that heelflip tip right away and landed a couple I think. Kevin manny bonked the stump and did some funny kickflips down the 3. I had started trying to motivate myself to b/s flip down the 3 stair. I had done this several years ago. It took a boardslide and no comply shove as well as Kevin filming to get me to really commit. But I struggled so much on the no comply shove that I lost the trigger on the backside flip. Doh. It was cool trying hard and getting remotely close at least. After that I filmed everyone else. Kevin came up empty handed on nollie b/s flip. Eric didn’t land the heelflip again. Dave got a sick line though. Manual, nosebonk 180, switch 180 down the 3 then pivot shove on the bank to curbish side of the 3 stair. Carleigh threw down too and got the ollie and kickflip combo. Then I tried a dork line for awhile while Carleigh did no comply down the 3. Switch noseslide the 3 stair then go around the handicap ramp and wallride nollie off the 3 stair. Took awhile and I felt super dumb, but the wallride nollie did indeed feel awesome when I got it. We hit the manny pads briefly as it got colder. I took a long time to nose manual it. Dave switch manualled it and came close to nollie front 180 nose manual. Jack did the back 180 fakie manual 180 out. Then we went out for dinner. Yum.

(setup 8.25 null abstract 6 deck, venture 5.6 cast baseplate/v-hollow axles, stock bushings, old 53mm pj bones stf v1, jessup ultragrip, new balance numeric 306 foy white/gum size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(Pain level 4/10)