New Deck: Almost Uber Light - Mullen

My new deck finally arrived yesterday (I swear UPS is slower than USPS) and I laid on the grippy, changed out my bearings, replaced my trucks' kingpins, and put it all together.

Before

After

I took it out skating last night, and was immediately impressed by how high this thing pops. It's like spaceman ollies!

The concave feels very deep, which I'm not quite used to. In fact, I fell a couple of times because my feet were so "glued" in place by it.

As advertised, it does seem to flip faster, and though I'm still having a hard time with kickflips in general, heelflips seem to be easier to initiate (though harder to control, as the board flips at least another half-flip from the same amount of effort).

New Trucks or Just Risers?

I'm currently riding some older Grind King trucks. This model is very light, and has what I thought at first was a very ingenious kingpin that has a hex bolt inserted the "wrong" way through the truck. But the problem for me is that I like my trucks very tight. I even bought some new Bones Hardcore bushings, which--though very cool indeed!--didn't prevent the problem I'd been having: when I tighten that kingpin on down, the kingpin bolt pushes into my deck, making a nasty little indentation/pit.

Even though I haven't seen it cause a crack on my current deck, I know this could compromise the integrity of my deck. And while my current deck's pretty well out of life, but I don't want this to cause issues with my new deck, so I'm thinking of either swapping out the kingpin or buying some new trucks. I could try getting some rises on there to increase the gap between the deck and the kingpin, but that seems lame.

All Hail the Ankle Brace!

I'd been having problem with my right ankle while skating. I kept spraining it in--usually pretty minor injuries, but the fact that I kept using it and kept doing it didn't help.

So one of my co-workers, who does a lot of martial arts, suggested I get a little ankle brace.

I picked one up at Target for a dozen dollars, and it fits like a glove. It does make my shoe fit a little tighter, but what's most important is that it has significantly reduced my ankle strain.

I highly recommend ankle braces for your pushing foot to all skaters over 30.

Skateshops in Utah County

I haven't found a skate shop that I've been impressed with in Utah County yet, though I'm starting to get my bearings.

Board of Provo has been around for quite a while (I stopped in there once when they were on Main Street about 18 years ago!), and they still have the best name of any skateshop ever. But they seem smaller than before, though they probably have the best selection of decks in town. Too bad they have a crappy web site.

I really like the Vans store in the University Parkway mall. I picked up some shoes their a couple weeks ago. They also sell Pro-Tec gear, which I hope to come back for in the near future.

I've been to Milosport a few times. The guys that work there seem really cool, and they have tons of boarding equipment for snow, skate, and even wave, it seems. The first time I was there they hooked me up with a few inches of free grip for my tail. Very nice. I later went shopping for shoes but found they didn't have my size in nearly anything. Plus they were blasting this obnoxious rap crap from the store speakers. Duh. I gave them another chance and stopped in
over the weekend, and they helped me find some new bushings and bearings. Very friendly guys, so I'm going to swing in this afternoon to consult them on the problem with my Grind King truck kingpins.

Blackhole Boards is an online store with an amazing selection of decks and parts. I ordered my new Almost Uber deck from Blackhole last week, and aside from some UPS-related shipping delay I've really enjoyed the shopping experience. They have a kick-ass Board Builder web app that helps you store all your components for a complete as you shop. You can save your boards and come back to them in the future. Cool.