skate journal: dog park marathon with dave then weird new bank spot (aug 7, 2021)
Went to dog park on a very smoky day. The Evergreen dudes were having a private session on their new park. I was bumming watching them. Dave was running late. Luckily Dennis and some of the other younger CU crowd showed up and brought some hype. I gave Dennis some kickflip tips and he landed one. He gave me some nollie heel tips and I didn’t land one. Situation normal. I had tried my old 212s for a bit to see if they reduce achilles pain. They did. But they were also so thin I couldn’t commit to anything with them. So I went back to the Swifts and they were fine for awhile. Dog park sessions are the hardest to blog as they all blend in together. I had no confidence, skated mostly terrible. One line that was okay was boardslide the new bench, crooks the tall bench, slappy crooks to fakie a curb, halfcab flip (then bail a front 50). Also did switch front nose then halfcab nose/crooks (I think there was a brief crooks and that’s what I was trying but I definitely didn’t lock in like I want to). I was almost getting a crooks then treflip line when Skelly showed up and we chatted. After that I was dead tired and too sore to skate. Dave had some good stuff. I forget one line, but it was a long one. Front 50, front nose, boardslide around the beam then something else. He is getting switch front noses down too, they are so fun. We hucked a few flippers, switch tres, switch heels, all kinds of stuff. Not much was landed. I got close to a nollie varial flip.
Eventually we left for a new spot. It’s a weird bank and the curb/flat/bank is so much harder to ollie up than it looks. When we first got there we were both so stiff and sore it’s amazing we didn’t get hurt. I just remember thinking “oh great this is probably the only time this is skateable and we can’t do anything”. My achilles was very painful. Luckily we’re called The Stubborns for a reason and we stuck to it and got a few things. Dave nollied into it and front tailslid into it. I took a few tries to do a little ride on back tail to fakie on it. Riding down the bank switch was fun except the one time my foot came off and I slammed. I tried front shove to fakie, but got a weird front shove 180. Dave had front pivot to fakie. I got no comply shove and no comply bigspin. But I was dying and couldn’t ollie up the curb anymore. Dave was hurting too. We were bummed, no one was kicking us out and the spot will probably be changed or no longer skateable. Oh well, we tried, it was fun.
(setup null spanbauer night skate deck 8.3, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 cast baseplate titanium hanger venture bushings no big washer, spitfire 52mm 99a f4 classic shape, es swift 1.5 cream size 12 footprint 3mm insoles)
(pain level 6/10 achilles)