Had the day off work. I met Hayden, Bo, Joe and Riley at Sping Canyon. Yes, Riley! I was wearing my 212s in hopes of better board feel, less knee pain, less frustration. They may have helped, I didn’t hate myself at least. But I was starting to try, starting to feel a little better when a kickflip primo’d and took out my elbow taking me down a few levels. Ugh. Hayden was shredding, lipslides down the pringle, mannies, tricks that may not sound that hard, but when you see the way he does them they are. Riley was doing lots of switch nose manual, fakie shove switch manual, smith and back tail the bench easy. Bo had his cruiser so wasn’t trying as hard as normal, but had some really nice ollies. Joe was skating an 8″ and trying hardflip manuals. And he was close. I came close to switch 180 manual and had a crooks on the bench first try, but other than that didn’t really do anything. I left unsatisfied once again, but at least not in a ton of pain.

(setup 8.5 null jack pro deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 cast baseplate titanium hanger no big washer, 52mm classic shape 99a f4, new balance. numeric 212 salmon size 12 nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

Made a wet drive to a somehow dry Frederick park after dinner to meet the Dave’s and Will. We started on the bank to curb area. Dave L and Will were going for slappies. I was trying kickflips to fakie. The key word there is “trying” because it took like 7 freakin’ tries to get a kickflip to fakie. i was about to lose it. Dave F showed and immediately did some long boardslides around the curb. The manny pad area was the only thing that was kind of crowded. Kids sitting on the rounded one was annoying. I never found any rhythm and the only thing of note was getting remotely close to a nollie inward heel over the hump. Dave F was doing amazing back tails on the curb. He would either land it or slam incredibly hard. It was brutal. He had front tails too. Dave L had front tail, slappy, kickflip the hump. Will had slappy feeble, 50’d the long narrow hubba. Dave L had to leave soon so he said “let’s play a quick game of SKATE”. Ha ha “quick”. Will joined us. It was a struggle for all of us. Will had rolled his ankle so can’t really kickflip which eliminated a lot of my tricks, but he subbed in heelflips. Dave was somehow the first one out. He stuck around to try and see Will and I finish, but we went so long he had to leave. Ha. I had gotten halfcab flip and heelflip, but didn’t really try much else. I somehow won with a f/s cab. I was hating the Lakai’s. After that I didn’t really skate, my legs had shut down and refused to ollie. Dave F had been ripping the whole time. Nose manuals, fakie ollies on the steep bank, kickflip on it, quick up to noseslide fakie, front 180 up the kicker. Dude is the best. Garrett showed at the end and did some pretty amazing stuff first try like smith the bump to ledge, bigflip the big hip, manual the tall pad, etc. I left feeling very depressed about skating.

(setup 8.5 null jack pro deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 cast baseplate titanium hanger no big washer, 52mm classic shape 99a f4, lakai carrol xlk grey size 12 no insoles)
(pain level 5/10)