I work late this week so cruised across the street for some slappies at lunch. Todays setup change was to put 5.8 hangers on and venom 92a bushings. Immediately the bushings were too soft and I was getting wheelbite like crazy. Argh. Even when coming out of slappies. I didn’t really do much of anything and kept it pretty mellow. Got a front shove from the curb cut to the parking lot and a b/s flip out of the curb cut. Jack came and met up and skated for a bit too. He had a front slappy even though he says he sucks at slappies. He was ripping the flat ground. Heelflips, fakie tre, varial heel, halfcab flip, backside flip and almost got rick flip from curb cut to parking lot. Man it was good to see Jack again.

(setup 8.25 null curby deck, venture 5.8 titanium, vemon 92a bushings with flat top washer, 53mm purple swirl orb wheels classic shape, 3 speed washers on the outside of each axle, new balance numeric 288s jack curtain size 11.5, no insoles, incrediwear knee sleeve)
(pain level 5/10 some good sharp knee pain)

On a nice morning I had gone for long walk then decided to skate flat. It was still pretty early, around 10am. I was armed with a list of 15 tricks. I wasn’t limiting myself to a certain amount of tries, but if I wasn’t close at all I would stop around 10 tries. I had warmed up with a few kickflips and was skating the 8.25.
Halfcab flip – came quick and felt good
Backside flip – took close to 10 tries
Fakie bigflip – around 12 tries
Heelflip – came quick
Halfcab heel – didn’t get it, but it was close and I committed.
Front heel – not close. Feels doable, but never committed
Treflip – got a really bad one 20th try.
Nollie varial flip – can’t land this to save my life anymore
Switch flip – not very close
Switch heel – they flipped really well, but never committed
Varial heel – committed, got close, but never landed on the grip
Switch tre – not even remotely close
Frontside flip – got a decent one for me, but it was really slow
Nollie bigflip – not as close as I hoped
Heelflip body varial – the last trick was originally rick flip, but I swapped it for this one to try and get Dave a trick. I was close before I turned on the camera, and not that close once it was on. Doh.

After lunch I went to Rocky Mountain to meet the Daves. Max and Will would come about 30 minutes after us. The parking lot was almost completely wet from the melting snow. The drains from the roof sounded like rivers. The sidewalk was mostly dry except the ledge area which now had a pretty water gap added to it. It would let up later on and sound more like a babbling brook. Max laughed at that and said I should crook over the babbling brook. Ha. I did a little line of kickflip up the curb then noseslide to fakie over the water gap. Dave L was doing some good manuals. He had a nose manual that bonked off a grate then back to nose manual. Dave F had the sickest boardslides to fakie over the water gap and skates the banks like they are doable. Max and Will are on another level. They were doing really hard tricks immediately. Max had b/s flip over a median on the bank, ollied the bank flat gap, slammed super hard on front heel over a median, did a lot of manuals/nose manual spins on the median that shouldn’t be possible, back tails over the water gap so much more. Will was a little more low key, but was killing it too. Front 3 over a median, back tail the water gap. I’m forgetting other tricks right now, which is a shame. I managed to cleanly ollie onto the narrow ledge by the entrance. It hyped me up. I failed at crooks over the water gap. I blame my new wheels, narrow trucks and lack of skill. Dave had a nice front 50 over it as we were leaving. I wish my legs didn’t lock up at the end so I could have tried too.

(setup 8.25 null curby deck, venture 5.6 v-hollow trucks, stock bushings with flat top washer, 53mm purple swirl orb wheels classic shape, new balance numeric 288s jack curtain size 11.5, no insoles, incrediwear knee sleeve)
(pain level 5/10 – it was fine playing skate early, but gradually more sore at the school)

After 35+ inches of  spring snow throughout the week I went out on a Saturday afternoon in search of something dry.  I found the front of one of the newer research areas.  There is a ledge/manny pad/4 stair and a taller ledge with limited runway.  There was some snow melting and falling from the roof which ended up becoming so much that it prevented lines between the ledges.  Initially at least it was fine though.  I did a couple warm up lines.  Slappy noseslide to fakie the low ledge, switch 180, noseslide the tall ledge.  Ollie off the tall ledge, no comply 180, switch nosesslide.  Switch front nose the little one, turn around, crook the tall one.  Front 180 off the tall one, halfcab flip on flat, front 50 the lower one.  Oh yeah, I was on mixing boards again.  8.25 with 5.6 trucks and 8.38 with 5.6 trucks.  This happened because of how hard flip tricks were yesterday.  Neither felt great.  I came close to a slow front disaster on the 8.3, couldn’t do it on the 8.25.  Got close to back 50s on the 8.3, but not the 8.25.  The approach backside was terrible, uphill with lots of cracks.  I did a few of the worst front tail jibs ever.  A bunch more snow came and kinda prevented the line aspect.  I got pretty down and depressed about my skating.  Even with the smaller trucks the 8.38 felt hard to flip other than straight kickflips. At one point I did a halfcab flip on the 8.3 and then on the 8.25. The 8.3 worked, but the 8.25 felt good. So I kind stuck to it after awhile, the 8.3 just felt kinda large and unnecessary. Then I tried nollie varial flip for awhile and got more depressed. Although capturing the snow falling right behind me was pretty cool.

(setup mixture of 8.25 & 8.38 setups with 5.6 trucks on both)
(pain level 3/10)