skate journal: Downtown Denver with Neil and Carleigh (Sept 12, 2010)
Posted in Skate Journal on September 13th, 2010 by corpoHad a totally awesome morning. Watched PJ Ladd own it in SKATE, spent some quality time with India and even snuck in a nap. In the late afternoon Carleigh showed up, we picked up Neil in Broomfield then hit downtown Denver. Traffic was horrible and we ended up kinda on the far side of downtown on the outskirts of where we’ve skated before. We tried to hit a manny pad initially, but an upset tenant wasn’t feeling it. We dorked around at this narrow manny pad and two stair. Well, Neil actually skated it, I posed at it (too narrow for me) and Carleigh tried some flippers on the sidewalk. I was feeling rusty as I haven’t skated for real in awhile. Next up we ended up at chain to ollie. My first few chain ollies were horrible. They felt so out of control and bad. We all ollied it and then started working on more. Carleigh and I tried kickflips, Neil pop shoves. It took a bit, but the men got their moves. Neil backed his up with a 100 foot long manny. Sick. Carleigh came real close to the kickflip. I did it a couple times, but the first one was super slow and sketchy. Second one felt great, but I didn’t have anything on that manny pad. My new trucks felt weird. Neil put down some sick no complies over it too while I got some weak 180s both ways. We left to the weird round brick plaza area. At first Neil and I ollied in the f/s one which I haven’t done before. It’s a little ledge drop into a little bank. Then we turned around and ollied onto the ledge. I got one with ollie up then ollie into the b/s bank. That felt awesome. Carleigh ollied in both b/s and f/s. Neil was trying to ollie out of the bank over the tall ledge. I started trying to ollie over the f/s ledge into the bank. Neil saw it and got it first try and eventually backed it up with a four wheel bonk over the tall ledge which was so sick. I also got the ollie over the ledge into the bank. Hyped on that.A quick kick out of the Wells Fargo C ledge we ended up at a parking garage with crappy gritty concrete that somehow ended up being a blast. I got a couple lines that I was very hyped on. Ollie a curb cut, kickflip up a curb, nose slide a brick planter off a stair. Which was hard because it was sooooo sticky. Also got a kickflip over a curb, 360 flip on flat, manual then front 180 down the 2 stair that came up real quick. So fun! Carleigh put down a bunch of kickflips and tried to manual the long pad. Neil did some good nose manuals and got a good run of pop shove over a curb, 360 no comply (backside), nose manual, one foot off the two stair. We checked out this kinda bank to ledge and rail spot, but Carleigh and Neil left to get some drink while I tried to ollie a little retainer wall. When I finally got it I almost backed it up with a front nose to fakie on the bank to ledge. On the way to meet Neil and Carleigh at Wahoos I hit this little manny pad then ollie over a curb to drop onto a super mellow bank. That took more tries then it should.Those guys ate and we all stocked up on water for the last few minutes of daylight. We hit this weird mellow hip that was soooo hard to skate. It was almost too small to skate it as a hip, but it was good for it. Neil sat it out. Carleigh did some good f/s ollies then spent a long time on kickflips. She eventually landed a good one with a rad surfy ride out. I had given up on ollieing big out of the hip and was trying flippers over it. I came close to b/s flips, but never got a good one. I hucked f/s flips for awhile and never came close. Then I tried a f/s halfcab flip over the hip and was surprised to get it in three tries. After that I started trying 3 flips and after Carleigh put down a pop shove I got her back with the tre bomb. Ha. It felt great though. That was basically the end of the day. Such a great session.I shot the photo above after we were done and got back to the car. Gotta at least try and shoot a photo everyday or I’m never gonna learn this stuff.