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8/2/04 this was the first real session we have had. To give some background both me and Jones got our first soap shoes 2 weeks ago. I’ve been a keen aggressive skater since last summer and Jones blades so when we first found out about soaps we just had to have some. we both ended up with the same style scabs after a freak accident where I ordered 2 pairs of them…so I sold one to Jones. Anyway back to the first session before it I have grinded a few small rails and curbs, mostly just a knee high rail near my house for practice. Jones now that’s a different story not really much practice for him so this was his first real go on rails. The rails we had in mind where the ones in Broadstone this is a small village with a Broadway with shops at one end there is a leisure centre and the car park of the centre and the subway link up and the whole of this area is covered in shin high rails and some larger ones… all smooth apart from 2 that have been used for years by skates the rest are untouched due to the grass approach. There is even a nice long curved rail. 3 down slopes and 3 long flat rails they all range in height from shin high to waist height. Now we got to the rails late about 6:30 so it was really dark we tried to get some footage and some photos but the light just wasn’t their we managed to get 2 good photos with one of me front sliding down a long sloped rail but the shutter was on real slow so I'm all blurry and ghost like it looks good though. Altogether about 3 clips of video came out ok.. mostly just the ones next to the subway as these where the most well lit. 9/2/04 today we decided to session the same location again but this time we went down midday around 1:00 when we go off collage this session was far more rewarding. We started off both front sliding the longest sloping rail this way you don’t have to do massive run-up and you can concentrate more on balance and locking on good…remember this was our 2nd time on rails and we only got 40mins in last time. After getting some real nice video footage from the sloping rails of both of us…Jones is a little worse but he never grinded on blades so I had a slight edge on him. Next I moved onto trying backslides we got a real nice one on video then to the rail I've dubbed the bush rail as half way down one side is covered in bushes so if you bail your going in it.. now this rail is seriously long. I don’t think we have made it all the way to the bottom yet…on my 3rd attempt I came off bad and bruised my shin bad..next Jones tried backslides and he wiped-out out we got that on camera luckily. We stopped after that as we had lots of footage and we where both hurtin. 12/2/04 its Thursday and school sucks….tomorrow I'm visiting my friend on his uni campus which should be fun I'm looking forward to session some of the rails near him may even get some pics to. 21/2/04 well this was one of our more fruitful sessions. mat my friend from uni came down for the weekend and he was put to good use as a camera man meaning me and Jones could get on the rails at the same time and it worked well we got about 7mins footage doesn't sound like much but then consider that most grinds last little over 3 or 4 seconds. I pulled some really nice backslide ufo's and some grind that I have no idea what it should be called I'm going with tourqued frontslide cos that's what it was a front slide with my leading foot tourqued so it was basically grinding the side, much further up than a normal ufo would go. we also tried the curved rail again this time being in the light we got some good shots. even a nice one of me making the whole curve then slamming into a bin that's mounted at the end. I even grinded the bush rail to about 3/4 of the way down that's a hell of a lot further than last time. Jones wasn't on form so he was sticking with backslides, frountslides and even a nice tourqued front slide at the end of the session. 26/2/04 its a strange day today its sunny and bloody cold we even had snow for a bit so no soaping this eve. but with all this free time on our hands we have set up a practice rail at Jones'. the rail was liberated/stolen from the industrial centre near us we then proceeded to mount it on my friends drive. its not to long about 15 foot or so but perfect for practicing different tricks and stances. though when it was first mounted it was a bit to springy and dangerous so we secured the middle to make it more stable. then added a bit of my home made butter wax (3/4 wax 1/4 Vaseline melted down) and then it was smooth gliding all the way. 1/3/04 Today me and Dave finished our lessons about lunchtime so we headed down to the practice rails in Broadstone. We where both practicing our backslides and UFO’s I took marts advice and bent more from the knees apart from looking a lot better the grind was much easier to keep stable as before I was bending my ankles to much making it a bit unstable. Next we moved over to something nether of us had tried yet GRABS. This was a new experience but a rewarding one, at first I thought going down that low was impossible and I'd just lose balance to quickly well I was wrong. Getting down for safety grabs is easy and soon I was trying every grab under the sun. I settled on a favourite which involved doing a torqued front slide or “Power Glide” as the NYCS while getting right down and extending my leading foot and grabbing the bottom of the plate with the same hand. After I managed to pull a backside UFO while doing a safety grab. Next we messed around on the bush rail I was determined to make it to the end this time. Well I didn’t but I got further than last time. There's a really bad join half way down that I may tape over or something before are next session. 5/3/04 today I had a great idea of going down to baiter skate park but there was a slight problem when we got there. NO RAILS !!! . yup that's right it turns out they took them in for the winter. so we thought well we'll go to another place I had heard of in a place called Lychett Minster. Though I had heard of it I couldn't find it and we went the wrong way. then turned round and went to the Broadstone rails....that's about 3 hours to get to Broadstone. well we soaped for a bit but by then we where knackered. 6/3/04 well today I tried something new cheesegraters well at first I thought it was gonna be really hard but half the problem was the weight distribution and locking on both plates at the same time. well I practiced the lock on the small practice rail (the one we set up on the drive way) then for the balance and getting a nice long grind so it was off to Broadstone to try out my new trick and it was plain sailing all the way not one bail I was defiantly on form that day. 11/3/04 its my birthday...wooooo....wooooo.....woooooo...ok nuff said 13/3/04 today was one failed soap session. we headed down to the Broadstone rails with smith are funny friend....not haha funny but still.... anyway we started off just trying to get some pics then shit happened I tried a backside chessegrater on a rail (note I haven't pulled a frontside cheesegrater on it before) and I lost my footing and SMASH...luckily smith got it on camera its one impressive bail shot...looks painful but I only got some scraped hands. then just after my fall guess what?.....Jones followed so we gave up for the rest of the day. the pics of the bail and real tricks will be up soon |