INTRODUCTION // 11.2

That Feeling

It’s that feeling of relief after landing a trick you’ve been trying for ages. It’s that feeling of surprise when you land a hard trick with ease. It’s bombing a hill on a cold day, when your fingers are numb and your eyes are watering. It’s walking back up that hill for one more ride. It’s smooth carves and sketchy saves. It’s the smack of griptape meeting sole when you catch it perfectly, and it’s the stinging ache of a shinner. It’s the feeling of powering through a chunky ledge, and it’s the never-ending grind of a marble ledge. It’s the perfect middle road of a granite ledge. It’s crowded garage ramp sessions, and it’s solo curb sessions. It’s the feeling of floating and the feeling of falling. It’s the clicks of bricks and the hum of smooth asphalt. It’s wide-open vision while you push through busy streets, and it’s tunnel vision when you’re thinking of nothing but the trick at hand. It’s scaring the shit out of yourself and then realizing it wasn’t so bad. It’s scaring the shit out of yourself and deciding not to do that ever again—until you do it again. It’s those days when it all just feels so right, and it’s those days when nothing works, but you keep plugging away in the hopes that it’ll make the next day another one of those days that just feels so right. It’s skateboarding. —Jeff Thorburn

Above: It’s Tyler Warren torquing a Frontside Hurricane along a chunky concrete couch, on a board shaped like a water cooler.

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