The World's Smallest Skateboard Manual Pad (Probably?)

The World's Smallest Manual Pad
(well lowest anyway... probably?)

After trying backside 50-50 grinds on my board slider I got to thinking of other tricks that I should be able to try without too much fear of falling over. Tricks that I used to do but have lost.

What came to mind was ollie manuals, where you ollie onto a 'manual pad' (any kind of raised flat surface higher than the one you're ollieing from) and roll along on your back wheels a.k.a. a manual.

I've struggled in the past with ollieing up anything but I had a large piece of plywood that I used to use as a ramp for my dogs to get into my van, thus, the world's smallest manual pad (probably?) came into being. Well, when I say 'smallest' I actually mean 'lowest' because the surface area of the plywood is actually quite a good size.

You can see me skate my makeshift 'manny' pad in my latest Driveway Skate Session video below. Of course I first had to spend some time trying kickflips (which I'm still trying to learn), and then I had a few attempts at my backside 50-50 grinds on my board slider that I started tinkering with in my previous session.

As you can see in the video it took me a little while just to get used to ollieing onto the pad even though I could probably ollie over a milk crate (something I did achieve back in the day).

I'm thinking at some point I may build a frame to go underneath my piece of plywood so it will be a proper manual pad with some actual height. For now, though I was quite happy to at least have successfully landed an ollie manual. It was a bit of a win in terms of relearning tricks I used to know.

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