Mayday at the parking lot

Instead of heading to the skate park I decided to ride over to that empty parking lot this morning. It's part of an office building that seems to be completely empty on weekends.

It's nice.

The parking lot turns into a multi-functional space. Kids learning to ride bikes, teenagers learning to drive, I learning to skate.

There's not much there, except for that crusty curb that I hit the other day, but it was a fun morning. I tried to practice backside 180s. They're a pain. There's so much to pay attention to. And if you miss one part of the whole motion, everything falls apart. There's no wiggle room, no way to improvise.

At the end of the session I realized I need to get better at:

• trying it with more speed
• keep my back upright
• shift weight to nose and then back again right after the landing

It's hard.

To mix things up I also practiced powerslides. I never really did them when I was younger, and in the park they to don't work for me. Maybe I'm not fast enough, or maybe it's just a question of the right surface. I found the parking lot asphalt to be sliding a lot easier than basketball fields or the concrete in parks.