It was really cold outside.  I felt like skating, but no one was feeling a Circuit City session.  I skated for awhile before dinner and did a few basic tricks in between hucking switch flips.  It’s been awhile since I’ve really attempted that trick and yes I still hate it, but want to land it.After the kids went to sleep I skated again.  Skating in my garage totally sucks since it’s soooo small.  I eventually started hucking 360 flips and wanted to do at least 5.  I ended up landing 8 of them horribly.  But when you can only take one slow push that’s how it is I guess.  I tried a bunch of nollie flips and came somewhat close.  Skating is fun.  Going to start on the ramp this weekend.  That’ll be more fun, but I’ll miss just skating flatground.

I’m going to miss Riley.

Went to the Longmont park after work on a nice day.  Warming up sucked and it took me about 5 tries to land a slow kickflip.  Ugh!  I eventually settled in to trying a run on the long ledge.  Manual it one way, turn around on the bank and frontside nosegrind it.  I never got the nosegrind.  I was hyped on how many times I manualed it though.  I ollied the stepup a bunch of times and did a few flyouts over cones.  Yippee!  I got a first try no comply tailslide on the bank and failed at noseblunt attempts.  My flatground was sucking and I got frustrated and attempted 360 flips until I landed one.  Somehow I backed it up with three more in a row.  Never done 4 in a row before.  Rad.  I landed one more and called it a night.

I predict and hope it will be Silas Baxter-Neal.  That dude has been killing it.The only other ones I could see Thrasher picking are Busenitz and Sheckler.  Trust me, I think it would be lame as hell if they picked Sheckler, but he wrecked shop at Bust Or Bail and it got Phelps all wet.  I don’t think Busenitz put out enough footage to earn it this year although he pretty much is the best skater ever.  My longshot would go to Jake Duncombe for basically last year.Yippee gossip queen.

This park has it all.  Riley and I headed there on his last day of skating in Colorado before moving to Sioux Falls.  It was November 17 and it was almost 70 degrees.  Sick!  These photos were all taken right after we got there before it got crowded.CLICK ANY PHOTO TO SEE A LARGER VERSION OF THE PHOTO!!!This little mini bowl is sick.  It’s perfect for beginners and even fun for people like Riley.  The tranny is really mellow.This little manual pad is the bomb!  And yes it’s as low as it looks in the photo.Pier 7 replica.  Although it’s taller and narrower then the original it’s still sick.Riley modeling the bank to ledge with a back tail.  It’s a bit weirder to hit then I would have thought, but still really good.Riley fell in love with that rail.  It’s a long 5 stair.  Riley says the rail is perfect.  I’ll take his word for it.At the top of the park is a fun little volcano thing.  I found it hard to get speed for, but it’s a good way to make something skateable in the middle of the park that takes up little space.No one skated this all day.  The rail looks pretty low.There is a little 3 foot quarterpipe that just plain rules.No one really skated this hip all day either.  It’s pretty steep and the crash up factor with people skating the three foot quarterpipe is pretty high.  Riley ollied the bench into it though.Practice your Zero lines here kiddies.This park has so many options to skate it’s ridiculous.  On the very left there is a flat bar too.Panorama attempt number 1 of the bowl.Attempt number 2.  No idea why the colors are different on every picture when I just stood there and took all three within seconds.  Oh well.  The bowl is fun, a bit gnarly, but fun.  The steep bank wall is gnarls.More bowl.A horrible photo of a sick idea.  A Colorado flag quarterpipe.  Every team that comes though CO is going to try and get a photo on that.Trick number 1 out of 20 for Riley on his new favorite rail.Driving directions:I-25 to Lincoln Ave (Exit 193)Go East on LincolnRight on Twenty Mile RoadThe skatepark is up on the right after Plaza DrGoogle Map it.Report any problems at the skatepark by calling Parker Parks & Recreation at 303-841-0353.

Got up pretty early and picked up Riley to hit the new skatepark we’ve heard so many good things about.  In some ways I was disappointed when I first arrived, but in others I was more impressed then I would have thought.  It’s a great park.  Look for photos here soon.  I skated like crap all day.  I was not confident on my skateboard and survived a few close calls with death on the stupidist stuff.  Riley on the other hand destroyed that place.  He skated the big 3 and did back bigspin, switch flip, switch heel (first try), switch front bigspin and something else I’m forgetting.  It was so sick.  About the only thing I did that was new for me was grind around a corner the hard way, when the curb is convex.  Pretty fun.  That park rules.  I’d like to skate it again when I have more energy.

Ended up having to work pretty much all day and it sucked.  I got out for a bit and skated in front of the house and somehow was doing the best halfcab flips of my life.  Pretty fast, popped a bit and landed at full 180 with no pivot.  Hyped.  I tried a run of halfcab flip, 360 flip and heelflip.  Never got all three, but I did put down a decent treflip for me as well.

Another suprisingly nice day in the 50s.  Headed out with Neil with no spots in mind and a video camera.  We ended up at Fairview High struggling at the tricks we wanted to do.  I ended up attempting to gap over a small flat gap to front 50 and after about 100 tries I landed one.  Neil was kind enough to film it and I struggled trying to switch 180 up a curb to start the run.  It eventually went down though and I thank Neil for filming it.  I’m actually pretty hyped on it.  Next up we ended up at a building in north Boulder that had a little manny pad, bike rack and gap where Neil put together a nice line consisting of a halfcab manny, ollie the bike rack then one foot the gap.  Tight!Later that night I skated in my garage for a few minutes attempting the first 10 tricks on my list of tricks to do.  I made this list a couple of years ago when I would skate flat in my garage in the winter.  I had some new shoes so it made things slightly more difficult then they should be.  They were however, shoes from the living legend Tyler Price so if you see me frontside flipping double sets, you’ll know it was the shoes.

Click here or the image of me for an interview by Dan “heelflip” Moran

Dinosaur Jr – MickRiley said “pick a good Dinosaur Jr song for the Longmont Montage”.  Hmmm.