Me and Bobby T on blue Tile Hill

[sniffleless]

So I get a call today from Bobby T. He says he wants to come down and skate. So I'm up for it and I tell him I even have a new hill to ride. So it's a done deal.

We drive out to my new hill. A little section of closed off road. Not the best surface but no traffic at all. It has a nice long downhill section and ends in an up hill run out. Someone had smashed blue tiles all over the bottom of the hill and had to swept. Thus I named it Blue Tile Hill.

We set up a nice 40 cone hybrid (bordering on GS). We ran the cones so to maximize the best road surfaces. That meant a real fun cross section going into the steepest section of the hill. The course ran fast and that crossover was tricky. Oh what fun we had.

The heat killed us. It was supposed to not be so hot today but they lied. A nice 44 oz Powerade slush from Sonic after the ride hit the spot and cooled us off.
I can't wait to hit this hill again. It's right by work and may become my new after work skate spot.

[dave Larson]

Looking good .Bobby what is you riding there ? Dave

[Nasty Nathan]

Thats a pretty sweet lookin hill. How fast is it it looks fun? And by fun I mean fast.

[Eddy Martinez]

sniffleless that is a KILLER looking hill. Or as we say in Texas " Heel ". That is an awesome way to spend the weekend. Stay Stoked bro. Your Amigo Eddy Texas Outlaws/Pavel Skates

[sniffleless]

It is a nice hill, thanks. It's a little rough in sections and down the center but better than most roads I ride around here. By time you hit that cross over from the orange to the white cones there you are going pretty quick. 20-25 mph tops. Bobby was going fast enough that I couldn't keep him in frame to get a good picture of him. I say I have the eye/hand coordination of a sloth and he says he's just that fast. He definitely beats me when we skate downhill. Which leads me to a story.

Today we were doing some downhill at a favorite spot of mine. Smooth roads and usually little traffic. We've been running around the 30-35 mph range on the slow hill. Anyway traffic was a bit more than usual today and on top of that there was this family that came riding through, the dad on a mini bike, the daughter on a motor scooter, another guy on another mini bike and two boys in an off road go-cart.

So I was having a particularly fast run down the slow hill and Bobby was coming up from behind. I had noticed a black car turning onto the road up ahead and was keeping an eye on that. The turn at the bottom is kind of blind due to a tree. I pump the last section of the hill and get a little more speed out of the run as I see the car has moved on. As I make that blind turn who should be right in the middle of the road but the scooter family. The father was slowly creeping across the road right in front of me. I couldn't go right without running into the rest of the family and he kept moving forward blocking more of the road making the carve to the left to avoid him a hard one. Scared the crap out of me. Bobby said the guy never stopped crossing the road and was just looking confused as I passed. I thought for sure I was going to have to hit this guy. No time to slide without hitting him. Dude is lucky I wasn't a car coming around that corner. A car would have taken out the whole clan.

But back to slalom. Today was the day I was trying out the changes I had made to the Red Baron in prep for some races coming up. It felt real good and handled great today. I also ran my Cherry board on the hill but those trucks got real twitchy at the higher speeds at the bottom. Not the set up for that hill as I had it but it still felt solid even with the twitches. I was running 21" and 22" wheelbases on that course today.

Bobby was running a Pavel Roadster with Splitfire rear and Radikal front with lime Zigs I think. I think that was the set up.

Fun day.