Another day of “not skating until my shoulder is healed” that I skated. Ha. I went out to Rampy while the kids did their homework and did mostly just basics trying to ensure I didn’t fall and use my right arm to brace myself. For the most part it went fine. I almost died on the first grind though as I had kind forgotten that Rampy grinds now. I did a few basics and the Ventures seemed fine on tranny. I also did a few kickflips then 3 flip attempts on flat until I landed one. Can’t wait to skate for real again. Went swiwwing with the kids later and it really seemed to loosen my shoulder up and after lots of popping the shoulder felt better really good.

Of course now that I have to take some time off for my shoulder injury it’s super nice out. I haven’t set up a new board in a long time and needed something to do. If you know anything about me, you know that I obsess over really dumb stuff. Well lately I’ve been watching a lot of Westgate footage and read something where he said low trucks have better pop. When I had cleaned my garage last weekend I found an old pair of Venture Lows (8″) and I felt like giving them a try. They are probably at least 8 years old. Pretty funny. I put the Venom bushing in there for the heck of it. I also had some really old 50mm Null wheels that wouldn’t sell so I threw those on there too. I am now almost a 40 year old with Venture Lows and 50mm wheels. Aka I’m a dork. I went on a hike with Liz and got back kinda early in the afternoon and just couldn’t avoid skating anymore. I figured the safest thing to do was some slow flippers in front of the house so that’s what I did. I’m not sure if the lower trucks really help or not, but the new board felt awesome. I did some of the best feeling kickflips I’ve done in awhile. They board sure flipped around quick. I suppose the lighter wheels help too. I did a few more flippers too. Everything felt good with the exception of treflip which seemed a little harder since the trucks don’t turn the same. I got one kind of though and put my arm down and felt a tingle in the shoulder that reminded me I should probably stop while I’m ahead. I’m hyped my shoulder didn’t hurt at all while skating, but still gonna rest it so I don’t hurt it again next time I fall. Hyped on my new setup!

Our warmest day in a long time at 55! My shoulder seemed good enough to skate so I met Bernie at the new Street League park so we could start working out our contest tricks. It was way colder then either of us had anticipated. What happened to that 50 degree weather? I guess at 8pm it’s gone in January. It felt really cold. The park was way more crowded then I imagined it would be. Doh. The No Love dudes were there though which is always awesome. Andrew was ripping! Him and I easily had the most beat up boards at the park. So funny. Anyways, the warm up period sucked for me. All the pressure of the scoring system is rough. I felt like I couldn’t bail a trick so I would just not try tricks and instead just push around or get in some ones way. Bernie added to his point total in the line format pretty quick. Front smith 180 out on the bank to bench (above), front 50 off the ledge going down the 3, boardslide the flat bar, grind the bank to bank, etc. Andrew had some mean feebles and lipslides out across the whole flat bar, but those didn’t score as well as the feeble treflip out that TPuds had. The only tricks I got before being kicked out of the quarterfinals with the lowest point total in Street League history was a back 50 on the bank to bank, noseslide the bump to bench and ollie the rockish gap off the tiny kicker (with both feet coming way off the board). I tried a front 50 on one of the many ledges on the edge of the park, came up short and put all my weight on my right arm and threw out my shoulder again. Ugh. Rather then being smart and stop skating I just continued to fully embarrass myself. Doing dork tricks on the big kickers in the center of the park was fun. There are a million things I’d like to do at that park, but I’m gonna take some time off of skating to let my shoulder heal up. I’m pretty sure I tore the rotator cuff. Ugh. I kept thinking I should leave, but the park became less and less crowded until the point where it was just Bernie and I. Amazing. We did some Cali grinds off this one weird stair. Then I did it in a really fun line. Kickflip from one bank to another, cali grind, front rock the qp. Then Bernie and I both did back 50s in the middle qp/bank thing where you grind off the qp into the bank. NBDs for us. The judges went nuts. I did a couple cali grinds up and across some of the kicker things (photo above). I don’t think I even really landed it, but oh well, it’s a dork trick anyway. All in all I think I would have a blast skating that park a lot. Hopefully my shoulder heals up soon.

So I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it appears that I injured my right rotator cuff a bit. I would like to claim this happened skating, but it didn’t. It either happened while fixing up Rampy or even more embarrassing it was probably while playing Just Dance on the Wii with India. Either way it got worse throughout the day at work and I was going to bail on going to Sol, but I didn’t. Most people bailed on skating, but Bernie said he was down. I got there first and was taking a little cruise around run and slammed right onto my right shoulder. Great. It hurt bad now. I probably should have stopped skating, but I didn’t. I was having fun and within a few runs and did every trick I’ve done there recently in one run. Awesome. I started working on frontside beanplant to tail when Bernie showed up. He made some excuses about being scared of the ramp and then ripped it. Frontside 5-0s, front tails, front d, back 5-0, fakie pivots, and almost a first try kickflip pivot. Bernie rules. Nothing but fun. At the end I got one of the beanplant things. I’ve done a couple of these on Rampy, but this is the first time it felt real. I did it super slow though and Allan of course gave me a bunch of crap for how I did it. We did a couple flippers though and Allan said “Yeah will you got treflips so I’ll shut up.” Ha. It took a few tries, but I did get one and of course Allan had to make fun of how little pop it had. Geez, my shoulder wasn’t working dude. Ha. It was funny. Bernie landed a bunch of first try flippers. Then we left into the 4 degree cold (Fahrenheit).

Worked on Rampy for a bit, but got to a point where I could do no more without a better drill. So I cleaned and mopped a couple times in hopes of the dust being gone for good (It’s gonna take lots of more cleanings, but it’s way better!). Then Lazer called and asked if I wanted to go check out the grand opening of the Erie Street League park. The park looked really fun, but the 14 degree temperature was too cold for me to even try skating even though I had my thermals and a jacket on. Kudos to Trent for skating so hard, but wow, I couldn’t do it. Lazer slammed really hard on some ice on his first lap in the park. Ouch. We left in 5 minutes, went to Brian’s, hung out a bit, went to Crisis then had dinner. That wasn’t as cold. On the way home I stopped and got an impact drill so I could finish Rampy. Around 9 o’ clock I finished! So hyped! Skated it for about 10 minutes then went to sleep. Skating was fun. It felt great to grind on Rampy again even if it’s only for a couple feet. I made the coping a little smaller then it was originally so maybe I’ll land some new tricks for once.

On another super cold Saturday (12 degrees F) I went out to maybe skate Rampy, but the thought of inhaling all that dust again was too much. Instead I decided to tear out the pool coping and put the ol’ steel coping back on and have a ramp that doesn’t get me sick every time I skate it. That coping was so bad that one hit would break the whole thing up. It was surprisingly easy to tear it off. Not so easy to rebuild the decks/steel coping placement though. Before the losing football games started I got to a point where I put the coping on and gave it a trial run to make sure the spacing was good. It was so fun! I could grind again! And disgusting cement dust didn’t go flying! Cool.

After a busy day at work then some foosball with Allan I skated the Sol ramp with Dave. I got in a few runs before he showed which is good because when I first started I almost slammed dropping in then slammed a rock to fakie. I blame this on how much Rampy messes with me. I’m used to having to land a trick so quick and then you get on a big tranny and everything changes. Dave showed up and quickly killed it. Big fakie ollies on the vert wall and pretty much everything he wants to do. Another dude joined us for a bit, slammed really hard, got up and landed some tricks. I’m sure his brand new Null board helped out. Ha. Dave had a nice sweeper, front smith and several other tricks first try. I sucked. I had fun though and I feel like near the end I was almost getting the feel for it. The one new trick I did there I haven’t yet this year was front rock. Yippee. Gonna try and skate there once a week this winter. Oh yeah, I was 1-0 on 3 flips on flat which surprised me considering how sore my legs were from the night before.

Brought boards to Community then hit the park with Jake. Colby met us. We started up top on the tiny qp. Parris was there along with some Community rippers. Jake did a bunch of tricks. I did a couple. Next was the china bank where I took almost as long to do a back 50 as Jake did to land a pivot fakie. Geez. I had never tried to actually skate that before. Next we ended up at the new bank to curb. Again, Jake pulled lots of stunts. Colby was in on it too. At one point Jake did feeble to fakie. Gnar. We lined some stuff out. I did a crooks, kickflip on the bank then 1mph front 50 down the baby hubba. It hyped me up. I came really close to nose sliding the rainbow ledge, turned around and front 50’d it. Then we skated the flat bar area for a bit. Jake did a line with ollie into the blue bank then pivot 270 out. I kind of did a pivot to fakie on it. It was the lame Glen way where I turn in then revert instead of manning up straight to fakie. I slammed pretty good trying to back 180 into the blue bank. Had a fun line of back 50 the little bank then ollie up the gap to the blue pad and front 180 off. Also had a run that started the same and ended with a no comply pole jam. Whoa, I was having fun at Arvada park?!?! Jake and I played SKATE for awhile until he bashed his ankle pretty bad. It wasn’t going to good for me, but after Jake sat down I got a good heelflip and treflip. I don’t think I mentioned how cold it was yet. It was really cold! My phone said it was 39, but it felt really cold. Must have been humid or something. Last bit was me sucking on the Pier 7 pad while Jake sat in the cold and one of the Community dudes (on a Null board!) was rattling off first try tricks down the rail. I can’t seem to manual that thing to save my life so Jake decided to be a dick and do it first try then beam me. Thanks dude. I managed to get one I think. I might have dragged, but marble is so smooth who knows. I ended with front 50 front 180 out and front 50 front shove out and a few flipper like fakie bigflip and fakie varial flip. Fun time surprisingly.

I was feeling a little better and tried to rally some troops to Broomfield park. No one was interested so I was gonna roll out and skate something nearby, but Ollie asked me where I was going and said he might want to skate too. Whoa. So we agreed on Rampy and made the long walk to the garage. Ollie seemed more motivated then he has been lately. He went to work and did most of his tricks pretty quick. His fakie ollies are so sick.

He’s also got a mean body varial (above). We had fun. He also did rock ‘n roll and a little backside slash through the biggest hole in the coping. I skated surprisingly well for me and did most of my tricks first try and added a few fakie crook stalls that I rarely do. Also got a front tail.

After bailing we would do kickflips in flat. Well, I would and Ollie would try them. He got close on a few of them. I was super hyped because he said he was wanting to skate more again and wanted to learn kickflips. Sick! Skating with your kid is incredibly fun. Especially with a goofy smiling kid like Ollie.