skate journal: CU with a fun crew ha (Dec 21, 2010)
Stayed up kinda late watching the lunar ecliplse so I ended up sleeping in real late. In a hurry I got up, did some pushups then some Christmas shopping. The plan had been to skate Denver, but once I got going I was hoping it didn’t go down, and it didn’t. Unfortunately Jack said his ankle was too wrecked, but on a dreary and chilly day Fuzz, Greg, Jake, Bernie, Ollie and I met at Meta and planned on skating campus. It ended up being a blast. One of the joke goals for 2011 is to not skate a skatepark for a year. As awesome as street skating is, I don’t think that would be too fun. Especially with how meeting at a skatepark is the norm. Anyways, back to today. I get hyped on cloudy days. They remind me of east coast skating and I always get the Mudhoney lyrics “Gray skies feel good today” stuck in my head. We dorked around the hill ledges for a minute before diving into campus. The first stop was right away at the Education building. I saw Greg and Bernie do drop down then manuals to drop. Jake may have dropped in from the top of the steep handicap ramp. Fuzz and I wallied up the curb to sidewalk gap. Fuzz did one followed by a 540 kickturn then maybe an ollie to front pivot on the curb. I got a run with wallie up the gap, dumb ass nose pivot on the curb, front pivot 180 on the curb. Jake almost ollied from a far crack into the curb tranny. Then we watched Greg and Bernie entertain some tall manny drops nearby. Bernie did a manual drop drop all easy that was pretty ridiculous.
Next up was one of the many highlights of the day. Greg ollied an 8 stair rail then we skated a sidewalk for about half an hour. Initially the goal was to do as many tricks as possible down this stretch of sidewalk. Greg probably did the most with a line that had something like fakie flip, halfcab flip, heelfip, kickflip, geez I don’t know. No one was that on point, but we were having fun. I had a line of something like kickflip, back 180, halfcab flip, varial flip, front shove, bailed tre. I landed all the tricks horrible and I was going slow. So what. Then it turned to manuals. Greg, Bernie and Fuzz were initially happy doing about a block, but they kept going farther until Bernie brought tears to all our eyes by manualling most of campus. He went around a building and if he would have come out the other side still manually I probably would have lost my mind. I got about half of the first section which I was still kinda hyped on. Bernie, Greg and Fuzz went up the hill and came manualling down trying to go even further. It was soooo funny. They weren’t going all that fast so it just looked like three dudes standing swinging their arms for no apparent reason. It ruled though. At this point Ollie finally started to loosen up and started ollie’ing every crack. I think Jake and I counted about 28 ollies over cracks. So funny.Next up we ended up behind the library. I took a bunch of tries to ollie off a dumb drop, Fuzz did a couple of the steeziest boneless combos ever, I landed a 360 flip on flat and then Fuzz ollie the long 7. Seeing that spot gives me new respect for Max’s line in the Meta video with the ollie down the 7 then front board the back part of a bench. So sick. We went and peeped Jack’s dropin ollie from Null and Void then ended up skating the area above it for at least an hour. It was epic. Everyone did something. Greg and Fuzz caveman’d a 4 stair rail. Jake ollied this cool sideways gap near a three stair. I boardslid the three stair ledge. Bernie manualled something I’m sure. Ollie back 180’d off a lower ledge and ollied the three stair. We hit the stage area for a bit. Greg wallied down the tall stage like it was nothing. Fuzz, Jake and I found any excuse possible to not ollie off it. Back to the stair area so much went down. Fuzz ollied a ledge and manualled the 3 stair ledge. Everyone ollied up the three stair. Well, except Ollie. That kid needs to work on his pop. Ha. Jake and I took a few tries, while people like Fuzz and Greg did it first try. Bernie almost kickflipped up it. This is the kinda skating I love though. Just go street skating and skate whatever you find. It rules. We had such a blast.We peeped a big handrail for a minute. Ollie back 180’d a crack ridden two stair. I love how kids don’t care about cracks. We ended up near the stadium for a bit. Some ollies and whatnot. Then we peeped game over at the ledge that Fuzz kickflip manualled in Cut Me Loose. Greg spotted a cool gap above it even and lined out an ollie over it then followed it up with a super nonchalant manual the ledge. Soooo sick. Across the street I had fun ollieing up a 3, turning around and ollieing down it. Bernie did a sick quick up to manual ollie a gap. We were gonna play a game of SKATE in front of the art building, but there was some dudes skating with a little box so we hit that for awhile instead. Jake learned back 5-0s and I did maybe my second back 50 front 180 out. Heading out we went by the UMC and I tried one attempt at my recent line there, but bailed the back 180. Last thing was the drop down ledge near the hill that I like to drop down to then front 180 off. Did it, but the 180 was horrible.Such a blast of a day. Everyone skated good and hard and had a blast. Thanks everyone for being cool about Ollie being around. It means a lot to me and it allows me to be able to skate more. He’s a quite kid, but he said he had a blast too.