Since my last post on longboarding, I've become a lot more comfortable with push-up and coleman slides, and now I aim to learn toeside pendulum slide. I have had limited success so far, and one bad high-side attempting it (fall down-hill direction, as opposed to low-side falling in the uphill direction). Luckily my helmet did it's job, I'll be trying again in the future.
I have also bought a second board, an original apex diamond drop 37", obtained second hand from facebook marketplace. It differs from the Lush Freebyrd in a couple of ways:
It has usable kick-tails, which opens up some freestyle skating opportunities (manuals, pivots, ollies, etc)
As a result, it's a drop-deck rather than a drop-through, to retain the low & stable ride height and remain strong enough for freestyle.
Here is a review from Axel Serrat (weirdly, NSFW). It should be noted this guy can probably skate a plank of wood with rocks on the bottom better than I can skate this nice board.
This particular board has caliber II (reverse king pin) trucks. I've swapped the 90a bushings for very soft 85/87a since I don't weigh very much. This is really carvy and I quite like how it rides as a result. I've also swapped my powell-peralta snakes to this board and returned the cultrons to my freebyrd. I really didn't like the rad glides which the previous owner had fitted, they seemed very hard for my terrain. I might give them another go as they should be very slidey, but for now they are shelved.
Much more importantly, I've found a fellow longboarder to skate with, and a couple of new spots nearby. Videos to follow!
