Can I learn 45 tricks, in 45 day, for my 45th birthday on a (4’ or) 5’ mini-ramp? Welcome to the 45 | 45 | 45 | 4’-5’ Challenge.
Last April I did the “Birthday Challenge” for my 44th birthday (on your birthday, film one trick for every year your age). 90% of it was street tricks. The rest was on a micro ¼ pipe. My friend Joe did the filming. That day Joe joked that for next year’s challenge I should do it "entirely on transition.” Man, did we both laugh hard at that. While I had started skating a lot more mini ramp a few months before, I was still very much a street skater—so much so that the idea of doing 45 tricks on a mini ramp was, well, laughable to both of us (which is why were both laughing at it). Almost a year has gone by. A lot has changed.
There is a local 4’ high mini ramp that I often skate. I know for a fact that I can now do at least 45 different tricks on it. That alone is a huge accomplishment, esp. for someone who didn’t really start skating transition until late 2017/early 2018. So, I’m bumping it up a notch. There is a bigger 5’ tall ramp in the area. I know for a fact that I can NOT do 45 tricks on that ramp (you’d be amazed how much of difference a mere 12” can make), my guess is that right now I can only do about 25 tricks on that ramp, so I’ve got to learn about twenty more. I was too scared to drop-in on it the first time we skated it in the summer of 2017. To this day I hardly ever skate there.
So, as of March 1st I am starting the 45 | 45 | 45 | 4’-5’ Challenge. Can I learn to do 45 tricks, within 45 days, for my 45th birthday, on a the 5’ ramp? (If I fall short of 45 tricks on the 5’ ramp, I’ll do the remainder on the 4’ ramp, but the goal is to get all 45 tricks on the on the bigger 5’ ramp).
 | |
| F/S 5-0 grind on the 5' ramp, fall 2018. |
IF I can manage this, I will consider it the biggest accomplishment in my skateboard “career.” Why? There are four main reasons.
(1) I am a relatively “new” transition skater.
(2) I am old as fuck.
(3) That 5’ ramp has scared the shit out of me for awhile.
(4) How laughable the idea was a year ago.
This is also the same ramp that bit my forehead the third time I skated it. There is history between us, ugly, gruesome, antagonistic, history. That incident prompted me to thereafter always wear a helmet when skating any ramp 5' and taller.
I’ll post some video updates as this whole thing “progresses,” which I am sure will provided for some good wrecks and slams. Wish me luck. I am going to need it.
