There were an insane amount of amazing parts this week, but this one was my favorite. Lines for days, tech with style, amazing spots, good music/filming/editing. This is the style of skating I wish I could do the most and it’s pathetic how little of it I can actually do. Gotta work on that.

Had the day off work, did some things then Jake and I rolled to Wilville on a really nice day. We started at the round curb thing. Oh yeah, I had a new setup. 8.25 board and trucks, smaller wheels. It felt good. Oh yeah, and new shoes! 288S. My fav shoe as of late. We both had front and back 50s. Jake was quick to huck some front noseblunts. Out of nowhere I had a really fun line. Front tail stall, kickflip on flat, ollie the 3 stair, noseslide the flagstone bench. Hyped me up. Jake and I also both did a bunch of front smith stalls. I got one in a line with no comply shove, shove the micro bump, but bailed front 180 on the 3 stair. Lame. I got a first try nollie back tail and came kinda close to kick back tail. Jake was sliding back blunts. He was trying a couple lines too. Uphill way – front smith, kickflip, nollie the 3. Never got the nollie. Then ollie or front 180 up the 3, some 180s then back blunt which he never really got either. I didn’t get up to the 3, but to my surprise I did commit and get very close. Which is kind of surprising because I was on a smaller board with smaller wheels.

Next we went to the rock area. There were a couple rippers there ollieing up the two sets of 3 stairs. Pretty sick. I got a fun line of dropin the tall rock, rock ride to fakie, switch ollie the two stair. Sounds like nothing, but the switch ollie was really fun. Then we both did lines to get down the 3s. Jake did a beanplant rock ride, ollie, olllie. I did drop in, really bad boneless rock ride thing, ollie, front 180. It was really fun. I hadn’t ollied those sets yet. Cracks make the first one kinda weird.

Then we went and played a couple games of SKATE near the food court. Jake got to SKAT quickly on a couple double or nothings. I think one was fakie flip. I won it on halfcab flip. The next game was no repeats. My knees had started hurting so it kinda messed with me. I didn’t really land anymore flippers except varial flip which Jake missed double or nothing then went on to get it in about 5 more tries. I got a letter on fs flip, Creepy spin a couple more and lost on fakie 3 shove. Twas fun. I did one nose manual at the end into the bank and we headed out.

As I walked to the house I noticed a bunch of people skating the curbs. Turns out it was Raul, Saul, Dave L (although I just missed him), Eric, Sawyer and Ethan. So I had to go say hi to a rad crew like that. I went with the 8.25 originally, did one slappy crooks then realized I wanted my big board to be lazy and slappy with. Eric did a long manual, some heelflips, a really good back slappy. Sawyer had some insane slams mixed with really good slappies. Ethan had good slappies too. Saul left right when I got there. Raul did some filming and some back 180 50s. I actually ended up not liking the big setup for slappies too much. Oh well. I had done a few of the norms, slappy front crook was the most fun.

(setup 8.25 null curby deck, venture 5.6 cast baseplate with hollow hanger, 1/16″ riser, 52mm bones easy street stf v5, 3 speed washers on the inside of the each axle, bones medium bushings, jessup ultra grip, new balance numeric 288S jack curtain size 11.5, no insoles at all)
(pain level 5/10 knees were borderline in too much pain at times)

After working from home I went to campus on a somewhat cooler evening. I had been obsessing with the bank to curb spot wanting to try kick back tail. I pretty much went right there and quickly struggled with ollies up the curb. It was so depressing. I couldn’t do a back 50 to save my life, but for the record I’ve always found that difficult there. I couldn’t get slappy crooks either. I had put an 8.3 deck back on in hopes of less sucking, but it didn’t seem to matter. Flip tricks were slightly easier, but really I think the huge wheels were the major bummer. I went on to rotate between manual to noseslide attempts and kick back tails. Getting close to both. I had tried awhile before turning on the camera. I did some flip tricks on the way back, got kickflip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, fakie varial flip, b/s flip. Still couldn’t heelflip, got somewhat closer on treflip. I really hate how little grip the yellow soled westgates have. I gave up after awhile and went down by the Buffalo metal ledge, but my knees started hurting pretty bad. I got a noseslide maybe, not even close to crooks. I always think that area will be really fun, but I never have fun there. Then I went home and obsessed over a setup change consulting Jack and Nate for suggestions. Or rather annoyingly bugged them.

(setup 8.3 null curby, venture 5.8 cast baseplate with titanium hanger, 1/16″ riser, 54mm spitfire f4 99a green lance mountain classics with 3 speed washers on the outside of the each axle, bones medium bushings, jessup ultra grip, new balance numeric 913 westgates b/w/yellow size 12, no insoles at all)
(pain level 5/10 wasn’t bad for awhile, but by the end it was too much)