After a night of not sleeping well I forced myself up and to the skatepark. On the way there I biked quite fast so I thought it might translate to a good session. Nope. As soon as I set my board down it felt wrong. I’m not sure how much of it is to blame on the new setup, but I’d say the Aces are 80% responsible. That stupid clicking noise! Also I could not skate the transition very well at all. Add in more ghost pop over the hip and I was ready to walk away. I did have some fun noseslides across the bump to ledge at least. I tried several noseslide 270 shoves on the ledge and got remotely close, but never both feet on it. The whole session made me want my old favorite setup. 8.25 with venture lows. But don’t worry, I know better. I guess the good news is my ankle felt pretty decent.

(setup 8.5 null smoke valley, jessup pj ultragrip, ace af1 55, spitfire f4 53mm classic shape 99a, new balance numeric 212 cream size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

After work I had changed my 8.3 setup to have some Thunder 148s. It had rained but there was still a decent patch of dry. I had Nate give me a 10×10 list and got to it after some warming up.

kickflip – did a few, the lower Thunders felt good.
fakie flip – struggled, got a couple bad ones.
heelflip – took 20 tries to get a terrible one.
fakie heelflip – got one hands down in a few tries.
fakie bigflip – got a bad one first try then couldn’t get another.
halfcabflip – Had a couple
treflip – really wanted one and was so close so often, but ended up giving up after about 30 tries and went home. I was happy I managed not to focus my board.
bigflip –
fakie varial flip
backside bigspin

(setup 8.3 jack night deck, jessup ultragrip, thunder 148 hollow light, spitfire f4 53mm classic shape 99a, new balance numeric 212 cream size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

After work I met Rob and then Gordon and Brian. I haven’t seen Gordo in years and it was immediately awesome. But before that Rob and I had done some warming up. There was a cool crew of somewhat older dudes doing flippers and some good ledge tricks. My ankle wasn’t really holding me back anymore. I was still cautious, but it ended up being fine except later on when I tried a nollie tre. The Aces felt alright for crooks, noseslides, halfcab noseslides but I didn’t try more than that. Gordo started by taking some photos of the obstacles for his trivia game then went on to shred the place. It was cool how much he liked it. He was doing a lot of the standard ledge tricks first or second try. But what’s really funny is he cannot slappy crook! Ha ha. We both did some front slappies though which were fun. He tried to hype up the treflips too, but I wasn’t ready to commit to one of those with my ankle. I did get a few kickflips. The first one felt great, then each subsequent one felt much worst. Strike one against the Aces. Gordon was doing these casual front and back boardslides up the edge of the steeper kicker which peaked the interest of the rest of us. Rob and I were eventually able to get some regular boardslides. Gordon fs grinded up it too. I did some weird no comply grind up it like a pole jam which was fun. Brian started the double boardslide routine with Gordon then somehow it turned into Rob and I doubling up and Gordon going after. And somehow it happened first try. And it was crazy how Rob and my board bonk and we still landed our tricks. Gordo’s powerslide lipslide was amazing. Brian battled the boardslide, but couldn’t get it. He did get the incredible rock fakie and feeble fakie though. Skelly was kind of on his own program, but I saw him almost get a nollie lip shove on the flat bar.

(setup 8.5 null smoke valley, jessup pj ultragrip, ace af1 55, spitfire f4 53mm classic shape 99a, new balance numeric 212 cream size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 4/10)