Haven’t skated with Brett in forever! I went out to Rampy before he showed to get warmed up a little and ended up skating Rampy harder then I have in awhile. Got lots of my tricks pretty quick. Brett showed and it’s always fun watching someone skate Rampy for the first time. He did pretty good actually. We had a pretty long/fun session. Lots of chatting catching up on things, but lots of skating too. He has a few of the b/s fakie pivot tricks like me. Tricks I was happy to get since it’s been awhile were fakie pivot fakie and hurricane. I tried halfcab to front feebles for awhile, but didn’t get very close. Near the end Brett hung up on a wall, took a step then dove into the other tranny hitting his head on the coping. It wasn’t bad, but whoa, sketchy.

I’m not sure what’s up or why, but I’ve been super motivated to skate lately. I’ve been watching more skate videos again, obsessing about it at work all day and planning my days better to feel less stiff and be ready to hit it. I love it when I’m in these type of zones. Skating is the best. Rather then hit Rampy to warm up I chose the “Watch Mark Suciu’s part in Sabotage 3 and do some jump rope” route. I had been thinking about this garage all day and even though it was only in the upper 20s I went there. As you can see the parking garage isn’t completely sheltered from the outside. It was above freezing though as there was some snow piles from cars that were melting kind of. Anyways, I wore my winter jacked and started off with more energy and speed then even I was expecting. After some parking block ollies and manuals my first line attempt was back 180 over a parking block, halfcab flip on flat then manual. Got it in a couple tries. Whoa. Was feeling so good the next line was switch front 180 a parking block, heelflip on flat, kick back tail the curb (top photo). Never quite got all three together, but did get all the tricks. Going back I would come close, but not land treflips or start posing a frontside halfcab flip front boards on the parking block in the middle photo. That is the main reason I was thinking about that garage. It’s a trick Jason told me to do years ago, but I’ve never tried it. It seemed doable. Another line I was trying was nose manny (middle photo), treflip, front tail shove. Never got the treflip. Ugh. It’s funny that part of my desire to switch to low trucks was to supposedly get better at treflips. Not the case so far, but everything else is going good. I posed the fs halfcab flip front boards a few more times then started committing to it (bottom photo). A few tries later I landed one. I giggled in stoke. It was incredibly slow and bad, but I don’t care. I wanted to try some more, but it added to the treflip crack in the middle of the board I already have going so I let it be. I went for some tricks over a parking block for awhile (top block in middle photo). Managed a few front shoves and one turned into a marathon line. Front shove, treflip, slappy front tail to fakie, halfcab flip, kickflip a parking block, bail something. I also got a fakie ollie over the parking block (although it was mostly at an angle), halfcab over, no comply over and technically a b/s flip, but it was more of a 90 flip, stop, turn the rest of the 180. By then I was getting kinda beat and just went over to the curb in the top photo and posed some weird tricks. Tried fakie bigspin front tail, but didn’t get very close. Front shove back 50. Kinda close to that one. Kickflip front tail. No where near that one. Back 180 nosegrind to forward. Not really. Fakie 50 b/s halfcab out. I’m not Connor. I posed some flip tricks too, but not much went down. It was getting really cold at this point and trying flippers in a bulky jacket isn’t all that fun. Either way though, incredible session. I should skate this hard every time I go out.

On a snowy night I went out to Rampy with the intention of skating about 20 minutes to warm up then go to a parking garage and skate flat. I struggled more then I thought I would and was reminded that Rampy is ridiculously quick. I didn’t really care though and went to leave, but Liz was said Ollie was really bummed out and wanted to watch the Nuggets game with me. I was pretty tired so fine with that. It was halftime though so I went out to Rampy and sessioned for another 20 minutes pretty hard. Didn’t land many more tranny tricks, but got a 3 flip on flat as Ollie opened the door to tell me the game had started again. Sweet.

After driving home from the mountains in some sketchy snow I took a brief break, watched Sabotage 3 then headed out to Valmont for a solo session in the night after such a warm day. I haven’t been here in awhile, but this spot is still amazing. I wanted to mostly skate the ledge and that’s what I did. Nothing came easy at all. I kept skating though. I only got a few tricks even though I skated almost 3 hours. Front 50, front 50 front 180 out, front 50 front shove out, front nose, front nose to fakie, halfcab back nose, back crooks, back nose, back nose fakie, crooks and back 50 (which was way too hard). Could not do front tail, came close to kick back 50. My favorite thing was going fast and ollieing up onto the ledge where the grate is then doing a front shove off about half way up. Although even that took a long time. I tried a bunch of flat ground. Nollie flips, nollie heels, nollie tres, none were even close. I got into a phase of trying fakie front 50 and when I would not land it I’d turn around and try varial heels. I landed on a couple of those that might count in a few months when I’m 40, but I’m not 40 yet. The fakie 50 took me forever, but when I got it I did f/s halfcab out, did a flatground heel then did the ollie up/front shove off thing. That made me feel good. I got a few 3 flips, b/s flips, fakie flips, heelflips, etc. I skated like crap, but I skated hard so I felt good when I went home.

Had to get out early to hit Community then off to the mountains to visit my mom. Went to Arvada park before Community and ended up skating for almost three hours and had a blast. When I got there Brian was still doing skate lessons. I cruised around for awhile just kind of hitting everything, but nothing serious. Brian joined after awhile. We didn’t land tricks on the tiny pool coping qp at the top of the park then moved down near the jersey barriers. We had some fun runs starting with the little noping qp, the pump bumps, the elevated qp, then back. Brian killed it with a b/s ollie, front rock, front tail. I tried to copy him, but couldn’t get the front tail. I was hyped to front rock that qp though. Brian had to leave for a Square State event, but was willing for a quick photo op for Instagram (above).

I skated solo for awhile and was having fun. I carved around the smaller of the two bowls at the top. At one point I went to get out and stepped right over the spine and flipped into the vert bowl. Ha. The other dudes at the top didn’t even seem to notice. Today was supposed to be more of a tranny day so I went over to the miniramp area. I felt pretty good and ended up landing quite a few of my tricks. The really surprising part to me was how good the ventures felt. I thought it would be awkward skating tranny with them, but to be honest they felt way better than Thunders. A big crew of tools with one wheel things mounted on their shoes came over to the miniramp section which was my queue to bail out of there. I was playing with the Pier 7 thing when Jake showed up. Whoa! The one wheeled dorks left and we skated the mini for awhile. Jake has a big bag. I was able to do runs with front d and fakie back smith to fakie in them so I felt ok. Then we hit the street section. We tried lines of frontside ollies on the mellow bank over the rail then boardslide the long concrete ledge. Neither of us got them together, but Jake was able to do the ollie really easy. It took me awhile and the one I got I bonked it hard. I decided to change up the line. Trick on the pool coping qp at the top of the park, 50 the marble ledge up top, come down and somehow turn enough to make the boardslide. I came close, but ended up just giving up and do the boardslide on it’s own. So fun. Then Jake made fun of me not being able to manual the pier 7 ledge for awhile. I did get into kick 50 on it though and manage a kickflip up the euro. I did quite a bit of flatground near the starting point too. I was like 5/7 on treflips so I started trying bigflips for the heck of it. I didn’t get close. Oh well, had to bail out quick and get off to the mountains. Super fun session.

Had an invite to Broomfield park, but the previous nights session had me craving street skating. On top of that I got my copy of Sabotage 3 in the mail (since no shops around here are ordering it???) and watched Mark Suciu’s part. Wow. That kid makes skateboarding look so easy and amazing with long lines in the streets. He is becoming one of my all time favorites. First spot was my favorite warm up spot. The mini granite ledge above. It’s kind of a ledge, kind of a bank to ledge. It’s perfect. I ended up skating it for like an hour and put down most of my ledge bag having the time of my life. I had my earphones on with Dinosaur Jr’s latest (I Bet On Sky) going. It’s pretty much a perfect album to skate to. Seeing as how this is my journal I’m gonna go ahead and list all the tricks I got. Most were stalls, some grinded or slid. Back 50, front 50, back crooks, back crooks to fakie, front crooks to fakie, front 5-0 back 180 out, front tail, front tail shove, back 50 front 180 out, kickflip back 50, kick back pivot, kick back tail and my favorite trick of the night – attempting a kick back tail and landed in kick back smith and recovered by doing front 180 out. I was seriously giggling after that one. I’ve never done a trick out of a flip in before (granted it’s just front 180 I know, but I was seriously hyped and it came by accident and so easy). One other trick I got close to was halfcab crook. I got into one really good one and grinded awhile before falling out. So close!

Then I went over to the yellow curb area for a bit. Ollied up the 2 stair a bunch, boardslide a little curb then try 3 flip. Never got the 3 flip. I was hyped how easy it was to get up the 2 stair. It’s just an awkward 2, but the smaller setup seems to pay off sometimes. Going the other way I wanted to ollie up onto the narrow and tall ledge, but never pulled the trigger. I almost front 180’d this kinda long gap, but the wind started kicking pretty hard so I seeked refuge in the yellow curb area. I did a few front/back 50s and posed some b/s flips up the curb. I wasn’t feeling that spot so much so I headed back to the original spot, but to hit the white ledge in the other side of the garage.

The new green paint is nice. The metal sign is kinda weird because I hit it with my hands a bunch. I got a back 50 somewhat quick. Not the whole thing like Jason used to. And the wind was still kicking so I didn’t line it out with the curb cut. Crooks took a bit, but I got a few of them. Two of which felt great. One of which was followed by a 3 flip. Went home stoked. Really digging my new setup.

On a gorgeous January day in the mid 60s I met Jack and Carleigh at the rainbow ledge. Jack and I got there first and warmed up with some slappy,cali dorking. Carleigh showed and her anxiety of skating in front of random people was put to the test with all the traffic driving by. She would end up almost getting noseslide 270 shove out though. Jack lipslide as far as he could several time sand would do different tricks out. He also cali grinded the whole thing and did probably 20 more tricks. I am scared of 50’ing that ledge because of the narrowness, but eventually got a few slow ones, back noseslides, boardslide pop outs, but could not crook to save my life.

We went and picked up birthday boy Jack and went to campus. We went to the Engineering area with the two mellow banks in a row to do trick into. I started off strong with kickflips, halfcab flip, 180s in. I thought I was gonna rattle off all my tricks, but I stalled out quick and went through a long streak of not landing anything. I eventually got a couple heelflips into the first one, bailed kickflips into the second one. Did b/s flip (with a good skid to stop) into the first then halfcab flip into the second. My trucks were feeling weird. Jack was content either landing sick tricks or eating shit hard. It was one or the other, no in between. He took soooo many hard slams. He also cracked his tail on a switch heel. Doh. Even on a badly cracked board though he almost did switch heel then switch bigspin. Carleigh’s anxiety was pushed even further at this spot since we were basically outside of her office. IF it wasn’t one of Jake’s favorite spots I probably would have pushed to move on. She did a line with nollie back 180 then f/s halfcab. Also nollie shove then front shove slam hard a couple times. Jake got some sick f/s flips, halfcab flips, nollie 180s. Ted joined us and did some amazing treflips and poppy kickflips.

We headed up to the double downhill manny pads and Jack shut it down with manual, drop to manual, up to manual, around the corner then gap to manual bonk. WTF. I did manage to manual it in the short time we were there. Then we hit the new double curb section by the stadium. Carleigh and I did wallie the first, ollie the second. Ted ollied both and tried to no comply the second too. Jack did wallie then no comply flip before finishing off his board. Jake went for ollie, ollie to manual for a long time. He got so close. Everyone was routing for him, but eventually he gave up after some good slams. Ted and I skated the little manny pad there. He got front 180 nose manny and halfcab manual back 180 out. I managed a kickflip manual and nose manny. Wanted to do nose manny shove, but it was too quick. Oh yeah, it was at this spot that I noticed why my trucks were being so weird. Every single hardware bolt was loose. My trucks were dancing around every crack they hit. Doh. We checked out the newly waxed 3 stair ledge for a bit. Jake mannied it. I ollied onto the second stair. That was about it. Then it was off to dinner and a beer. Happy times. I fell on my shoulder a ton and it didn’t hurt. Yeah! I didn’t skate too good, but this was the kind of session that fueled my fire and makes me want to skate more and harder. Street skating is the best. The grime on your hands, the dust on your shirt, watching for cops. All of that.

Carleigh and I both kinda wanted to go to the Erie park, but I didn’t want to push my shoulder that hard and wanted to just skate small stuff. So we went to Broomfield. It was in the low 60s during the day, but at 8pm it was in the mid 30s and felt cold. The super loud biker crew was there being as annoying as ever. We warmed up with some runs around the flow bowls. Carleigh hauls ass in that thing. I was still getting used to trucks that aren’t known for turning, but it actually seemed fine. Off to the street course where only a few people were skating. One of which was a Mark Suciu clone doing manual the black box to manual to the blue box up to manual to kickflip out. Insane. There was also an ultra hipster trying to front 50 everything, but would end up just riding less than an inch away from the edge of the ledge. It was bizarre to me. The session was mellow and really fun for me. I was loving how much pop my new setup had and how easy it is to maneuver. I saw Carleigh trying a bunch of flippers, some front tails and do some cool wallrides. She said she was “sucking”, but I didn’t think so. The things I did that I was hyped on were front 50 back 180 out (blue ledge), manual the blue ledge then ollie onto the downhill blue ledge then front feeble the quarterpotty, kick back 50 (blue ledge), 3 flip on flat. It was fun skating again and I managed to not hurt my shoulder at all. Whew!