I haven’t done a 360 shove-it in nearly three years. I believe I have mentioned that before, recently, in this series of posts, in the podcast post. Likewise, I may have mentioned My desire to throw and stomp some 360 shove-its while in Tucson. This is factoring greatly into the complex calculus of what two board setups to take with me.

One might think “take a freestyle board.” Well, I’ve not been riding a FS board for a long time now.

Let me relate a story.

In January of 1988 I was 22 years old. Powell-Peralta’s Public Domain video was released, in that video there was a part referred to as the “Incredible Rubber Boys." Four up-and-coming street skaters, including the great Ray Barbee. This video part end up overshadowing the skating of all Powell-Peralta’s pros. I mean, no one really cared at all what the pro vert skaters were doing. But the Rubber Boys? Holy smokes! That was stuff you could go out and try, and maybe even do!

Now, as it turns out, Ray Barbee had some background in freestyle. The whole Rubber Boys part was mind-blowing, but Ray really stood out.

So here’s the thing. Besides his incredibly smooth no-comply variations, Ray was doing 360 shove-its, 540 Gazelle Shove-its, and other freestyle stuff on a typical 10x30 street board with a short nose. When I saw this, the first thought generated in my noggin was “freestyle is dead.” I had always done freestyle on a big board, but this guy was doing bigger freestyle tricks on one.

Within a week I was doing 360 shove-its on my 10.5x30 Andy Howell model, at speed. It was there all the time, I just needed Ray Barbee to show me it was possible.

Now freestyle wasn’t dead. There are freestyle tricks you simply can’t do well on a big board, and throwing a 360 shove-it on a street board while you are rolling down the sidewalk isn’t “doing freestyle.”

All that being said, the parts of freestyle that I’m currently interested in can all be done quite well on a larger board, including 360 shove-its. I don’t need to take a freestyle board with me. I need to have a board (or boards) that I’ll enjoy riding and doing what I’m currently doing.

So I’ll be taking my 8.25” Mode popsicle board that is set up for “big board freestyle” and the new Heroin deck, set up with Indy 159s and probably some 53mm wheels and some risers. And I’ll be ready to flow and have some fun.