The Trouble with Frontside Flips

January 14, 2008 @ 3:10 PM

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Like I would know. these things have been absolute torture to learn, but as best I can tell: the trouble with frontside flips is that the board is rotating the same direction as the ollie, so the bugger is how to get your foot to flip it cleanly without snagging the nose as it folds over. You can, of course, cheat and ‘do a muska’ (not pretend to be skating when you’re not), we mean glance the edge of the rail far enough down the board that it just wibbles over clumsily, but the superfl y ones are those where the board spins fl at. If you get that far you are left with a second cheaters dilemma: to turn the last 90 degrees on the front wheels, or to try and come correct with an Andrew Reynolds set down (dangers: wheelbite, coming up short on the 180). What makes the Reynolds option a pain is that you need to get your balance perfect over the board again after having done that funky little sideways disco kick, which is why most of us take the cheat and pivot through the last 90 degrees on the front wheels, which won’t help you when you try and do them down stairs. not like I’ll be trying that anytime soon.