Had a early morning ‘old man session’ at the Thornton park. Nate, Carleigh, Jake and I got there around 9:15 where Sam and Neil were sitting in their cars waiting. When we arrived there was a person with a remote control car and about 7 scooter kids. Great. This sort of crowd bums out Fuzz a ton. Luckily the remote control car was put away before Fuzz got there. Neil and Jake were killing it out of the gate. It was crazy. I felt like a zombie. I hate skating early in the day. I took several tries to do a simple wallie then could not commit to the 3 stair so I gave up, pouted for a second then went and skated the tiny manny pad for awhile. Sam joined me. We did some manuals, nose manuals, wallrides, etc. That thing is super fun. I also got a back 5-0 and came close to back nosegrind. Sam had to go open his shop so I went and joined the crowd again. Everyone was ripping. Some of the tricks I saw were Carleigh boardslide the little trail then noseslide back shove out the bump to ledge. Jake had a marathon run that started with a boardslide, polejam/wallie, front smith the deep end and then a frontside flip on the bank. So good. Fuzz mannied the top of the ledge above the 3 stair, gapped over the step up to blunt slide on the flat bar, sick front ds everywhere, low to high rock fakie, front noseblunt on the qp to kinked bank. Nate wasn’t supposed to be skating, but was rolling around on my cruiser board and did some manuals, kickturns and wallrides. Even popped an ollie once before we yelled at him. I finally ollied down the tiny 3 stair that everyone else ollied first try and then was turning around and trying to fakie bigflip over the hip. Unfortunately my feet would kill me on every bail as the blisters were getting really intense. Neil and Fuzz had to go. The rest of us skated the little manny pad/wallride thing. It was fun. We all did some different wallrides, manuals and you could grind it too. I technically landed a back nosegrind, but it was like a nosegrind turned to willy and since it’s curb high and I just rode off. Still, it was the first back nosegrind I’ve landed in a long long time. Then it was off to lunch and hang with Jason for awhile as my toes burned in these god awful Slash’s. Look for them in my trash can tonight.

Ollie and I went to Southern Hills on a cloudy, but pretty warm Saturday afternoon. We were just cruising around mostly and he was following me. I tried a kickflip at one point and he tried one too. He got surprisingly close. So I gave him a few pointers and he seemed to be able to follow my suggestions. Crazy, I can never get my body to do what people suggest so he must have lots of Liz in him. Neil, Blake and Alec showed up. Neil had been stressing over how long I was taking to go skating, but then didn’t skate at all and just complained about the 60 degree weather. He seemed to rub off on Blake and Alec. Bernie showed up and Carleigh soon after. I did a line I was pretty proud of. Noseslide to fakie on the picnic table, fakie flip, halfcab noseslide on a bench. Oh and earlier on I had done the backside basics line of boardslide, noseslide then crooks. I also got noseslide 270 out first try. Hyped on that. Bernie manny and nose mannyd the picnic table (above). I tried to ollie up onto it, but my ollies are total crap as of late. I got a front 50 shove out at one point and tried to follow it up with a halfcab flip, but my feet were really starting to hurt. Every bail hurts so bad. Trying to flip the board hurts. These Slash shoes give me blisters and make skateboarding way more painful then it already is. Ollie was doing lots of hippy jumps/run over the table. Bernie did a marathon run of kickflip into the bank, 3 flip on the super good flatground, front board a bench, front 50 the bottom of a picnic table, front lip a bench. So sick. Carleigh was doing fire crackers down the two stair then trying noseslide 270 shove out. We got in the Off The Couch mode for a bit and Carleigh got firecracker then noseslide shove. Bernie did almost all of his line, but couldn’t get the lipslide again and wasn’t really hyped on his line anyway. Then Bernie filmed Ollie and I try to get a doubles line (above). Ollie would do his run over hippy jump on the picnic table then I would try a heelflip then a noseslide 270 out on the ledge. I am not good at skateboarding. I got remotely close once, but Ollie decided he didn’t want to keep trying it and then we called it a day. I haven’t been skating too well lately. I partly blame the shoes as they hurt my feet a lot.

From last weekend. From left to right. Me, Bernie, Brian, Lazer, Jason, Neil, Carleigh and Dave Fuller with the coffin.

This is the dumb part of me. It was 70 degrees out and I got out of work early so I felt obligated to go skating. I chose a session on campus. Oh yeah, I had worn a hole through the ollie area and the sole on my Lakai’s the night before so I had new shoes.

Fallen Slashs. These shoes felt ok in the shop and I had a pair in the past I was happy with, but I’ve been wearing them for about a month and they are super uncomfortable. I was hoping breaking them in skating would help, but they didn’t seem to. I felt like I was wearing moon boots. I fell a lot, didn’t have any motivation, etc. I went to the flatground area and things changed for a bit as I got 6 flippers in a row. Kickflip, heelflip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, varial flip, fakie bigflip. Whoa! I went to try and get 10 flip tricks and added a couple more before getting stuck on treflip or f/s halfcab flip and I could not land anything. The sole on these sucks so bad, I would just slide right off the board. If I could have focused the shoes I would have. I tried several halfcab double flips and got pretty close, just couldn’t get the flick. I looked at some other new spots, but ended up just walking back to the car and then hitting Meta where Sam stoked me out so much by being such a nice guy.

It was a late start for us, everyone but Skelly (who’s coming from foco) left Crisis a little before 9pm. We parked by the pedestrian bridge near the Denver ice rink (skatepark) and walked over it to get things started. Fuzz was winded from the stairs. Ha. We played around that area for awhile. There was some stairs, kind of manny pads, little banked ledge, etc. I don’t remember much from that part of it other than Carleigh did a feeble on the banked ledge. We got the boot and went a half block to the next spot with the angled granite ledges (up/down). We were there for a bit and security told us we could skate for a bit longer. I haven’t really street skated with Fuller much, but he killed it. Boardslides to fakie going up the ledge, switch ollie over a sandbag. Carleigh and I did some boardslides. She almost got noseslides too. The ledges are kinda weird because the edges are good, but they have some jaggedness to them. Fuzz was able to 50 through them all tough though. I could not. I could also not crook them. I was feeling a little odd on my board though. Like my legs were too tired or something. Oh well, we moved on to some jersey barriers to meet up with Skelly. We did a bunch of wallrides on them. We tried to do them as smooth as PJ does in his Cruisin’ NYC clip. We couldn’t, but we got a few wallrides regardless. Dave and I added some frontside ones to it too. His sick, mine not so sick. Skelly joined us and we moved on. Ended up at a ledge going into a downhill entrance to a parking lot where we each lasted about one attempt. Luckily I went for a little front board pop out and managed to land it, do a fun powerslide and ollie over a little speed bump going way faster then I normally do an ollie. Perhaps my favorite moment of the night. Some investigating at the RTD station and pissing in the alley later we found a tall loading dock to ollie onto and off. Fuzz got up it first try. I got it a few tries later and managed one with a decent (for me) ollie off the taller side. Fuzz did an ollie up to board stall shove out to the top. Sean went the back 180 route. Next we went around the corner into a parking garage and found some amazing painted curbs. Maybe the best curb I’ve ever grinded. There must be 20 layers of paint on it. You could slappy up the curb cut parts or ollie in. We all did a 50 that we ollied into then the curb cut went down and we rode back into grinds when the curb cut when back up. So fun. Skelly was all over the place doing little manuals, tailslides, etc. Dave almost did a switch slappy. He’s the oldest one of all of us and skates switch the most. Awesome. Fuzz almost did a front 180 off a curb cut to nose slide. Hard to describe, but he couldn’t quite get it. I had a bunch of slappys and was skating this one you could go over the top and go straight across. Got a back 5-0 across it! Then started going for back nosegrind and got surprisingly close, but we got the boot. Doh, I haven’t tried back nosegrinds in a long time! Pretty sure we ended up at Tabor center after that where we posted up for a really long time. Skelly, Fuzz and Dave skated the little bank you have to ollie into. I was trying ollie down the 3 to ollie up the 3 which I would eventually get with my signature of the night – hand down. Dave did a super sick frontside wallride/hold onto the rail around the six stair. It was so steezy. Carleigh went buck and ollied the gap which amazed me because it was really dark. I tried downhill flatground for awhile and struggled big time. Managed halfcab flip then treflip signature of the night. Then a mostly old school session ensued on the bottom of the stairs. Stall tricks for days. Impossible to remember all of them. It was really fun though. I felt like I was in junior high again. Fullerton showed us some super sick boneless wall bonk variations. I kind of learned a switch 360 version that he did with so much style that the rest of us were left with our jaws on the ground. Then we headed back to the car, but got interrupted trying cali grinds down the bike groove part of the stairs. It was so fun. The first few were really scary, but we all grinded down it. The marks left on the trucks are so awesome. Dave did a super gnarly dropin on a higher set up stairs to grind down the main set. Fullerton for MVP! Super fun night as they almost always are in Denver. Oh yeah, so we skated way past midnight. I was beat!

Sam did such a ridiculously good job on this. Can’t wait to see the finished product on DVD this time!

Totally gonna send in the rough version of my Off The Couch part I had to In A Jar for this.

Felt like getting out early and not having to deal with a bunch of phone calls. So instead just hit up Carleigh and we left for Denver with no spots in mind. On the way Skelly called and said him and Mike wanted to just cruise downtown spots too. Bolts! We were about an hour ahead of them and I randomly remembered a school I’ve had fun at before off of Speer. It’s got a bunch of ledges, cracks and bigger cracks. Neither of us skated very well. Carleigh started with front tails, but they ended up being mean so she struggled with it for awhile. She did have some good front 50s on the lower ledge and almost got a shove out. I struggled to relearn back 50s as apparently I need to train with that trick every day or something if I’m not to lose it. I eventually got some though. I even lined one out with a fakie nosegrind on the lower ledge which I was stoked on. Other then some fun chinese nollies to tailslide I struggled on everything and neither of us seemed to into it.

Then we met up with Sean and Mike at “The only spot in Denver”. Just Carleigh and I were there for awhile waiting though. We had joked about how we shouldn’t go there because Carleigh would get stuck trying tailslides. Doh! We mostly did lines down the hill though. My arthritis was bugging me a little. Making my knees sore and my balance feel off. I tried my dream line of a manual from the curb to the first two stair, powerslide then boardslide pop out. Never got the manual, but did get boardslide a couple times. Carleigh tried a cool line of some ollies on the two stair, cali grind, then front nose. Mike is recovering from a rolled ankle and was taking it easy, mostly just rolling down the hill. Skelly killed it olliing the two stairs and even filmed a line with two hippy jumps, two ollies and some powerslides. Sick!

We stopped by this spot for about two wallrides each before we got the boot then ended up at the bank with all the marble a block away. We were riding into the banks next to the double set and stuff and surprised we weren’t getting kicked out. We kept skating. I got an ollie to fakie on the top one. Carleigh ollied the 4 then the next 4. Skelly and I ollied a little gap into a bank and tried 180s off a taller drop. We eventually got the boot. Some lurking, refreshing and walking later we ended up above the RTD station with the good ledge and the circle benches. It was fun. Carleigh was trying noseslide front shoves out and almost accidentally did noseslide to front 180 nosegrind to shove out. That would have been sick! Skelly and I did some basic noseslides. I got a rare noseslide to frontside 270 out. I could not ollie onto one of those circle benches to save my life though. Skelly closed with a sick front 180 up the ledge to halfcab off and then the same with a fakie ollie off. Ripping! Fun day.

Looking like another warm Saturday. A million phone calls were made and three cars of TFers migrated to Longmont to meet at Fullers ramp. The crew was Carleigh, Neil, Lazer, Jake, Jason, Bernie, Brian, Dave, Alec, Brandon and Jason. Jake got the session going with a marathon run with tons of good tricks. Remembering what everyone did two days ago is going to be impossible but I’ll try to remember at least a few from each. Neil, took a really long time to do a boardslide on the parking block side, has super good front disasters, did his best not to snake people too much. Brian, his white shirt was brown by the first run, love the fakie feeble 270 trick that I don’t really understand, did a beanplant to fakie I think (?) and a million more tricks. Jake was trying noseblunts on the parking block side, that pretty much says it all right there. He’s getting really good and landed almost every trick I’ve seen him do. Carleigh had some of the best back 50s I’ve seen her do. All fast. I don’t think she likes that ramp very much though. Alec and Brandon are the skate camp kids that Neil pays to be his friend (ha). They seemed sketched at first, but eventually were lining out the basics. Everyone knows Dave has the best style ever. Add a big bag of tricks and you have solid gold. Super good backside boneless and a ton more. Lazer was hyped and ripping. No stand out tricks I can remember, but that’s probably because he did too many. I skated it pretty good for me after a slow warm up period. Got some boardslides on the block side, front ds, can’t do smith grinds. Bernie took like 2 runs total. One where he slammed immediately and one where he was flailing around then did a perfect front tailslide on the parking block side.

Then we went to this bank and manny pad spot. We got the boot pretty quick. Not before Brian did a f/s wallride though! Neil and maybe Lazer got regular wallrides? I posed kickflip wallrides. Bernie did a cool manual.

Then we hit this bank spot. Everyone was playing on it initially. Brian almost got his back 540 on comply. That trick rules. Lazer did a proper kickflip with a backside rotation. Bernie did hardflip to fakie, f/s 360 kickflip and a few more flippers. Dave killed it! Cab bigspin! Boneless to tail, switch nose stall, steez. Carleigh was kind enough to film for awhile. During that time period I happened to get a bigflip and a noseslide on the low bar. Thanks Carleigh! I also got a fakie flip, but my switch mongo pushing was bad enough for Jason to laugh. Maybe I wont be giving up on that switch pushing after all Jack. Neil got pissed, got pissed, then landed a halfcab heel which as Brian pointed out is a trick we’ve never seen him do so why get upset? It was sick regardless though. Branden went buck trying to front 50 the low bar and landed a couple after holding on to the top bar and coming to a halt. Carleigh had a few ollies and was getting remotely close to 180 nosegrinds on the low bar. Then we took a group photo and called it a day. Super fun.

Had a little time after work before dinner time so hit campus for a quick solo session. I kind of walked around initially feeling pretty tired. I ended up near the banked flagstone thing and tried a manual then ollie a curb to dirt ride. I was feeling really awkward though and figured if I actually tried to ollie the curb into the dirt that I would just stop and slam. So I moved on to this kind of weird ledge off a 4 stair that you cali grind off of, but it was too dark and I didn’t commit to it. Went over to the new curved ledge area. Did b/s noseslide, b/s boardslide, b/s crooks, f/s noseslide fakie, f/s noseslide forward, front board (barely) and ollied onto the ledge. Lined out a couple things with kickflips or back 180s over a manhole. Might have even got a halfcab noseslide which is really tall for me. I went over to the good flatground area by the art building, but there was a couple of dudes working on flatground ollies and they seemed really bummed on me so I went around the corner. Tried a few kickflip noseslides, a few front tails, a few flatground tricks, blah, blah got tired started going to the car. But then I noticed the three stair in the bottom left of the picture above, a manhole, then a little flat gap which were saying “Hey Glen do a bunch of slow little ollies and maybe a kickflip!” So I did. I started on the far left, ollied onto the top of the 3 stair, rolled off, kickflipped a manhole kind of (it was super dark) then ollied a little flat gap over a curb too. That was of course the hardest part for me. Ollieing with any speed is my enemy it seems. Oh well, landing it hyped me up and I went home feeling I earned a nice seasonal ale.