Ollie, Carleigh and I met up with John for an early session at Broomfield park. Yes, I said Ollie! So stoked he wanted to skate a little. We warmed up with some wallrides on top of the big bank. Then I skated the quartapotty with John and Carleigh. We tried to deck rock ‘n rolls and front rocks. John got pivot to fakie. I had some new shoes that had me feeling really weird. They are a little too small for me, but I gotta learn my lesson and skate them. They are some DC Wes Kremer shoes. Yeah yeah, DC’s I know. Not my first choice, but I wanted to get some shoes from one of my favorite shops out there, Motive, and this is what they had for me. Anyways, they were kind of slippery and feeling weird. While we skated the quartapotty Ollie was doing body varials on the steep bank. John laughed because he knew we would never do that. We played a game of SKATE. I recently remembered starting games of HORSE in basketball by shooting free throws until someone misses. First one to miss goes last, last one to miss goes first. So we started with kickflips. John missed after one and I out lasted Carleigh and we played a really long game of SKATE where tricks were rarely landed. One high point for me would be getting John a letter on a treflip. Ha! That never happens. I ended up winning it with f/s halfcab flip. I was struggling though. Struggled with front 50s on the ledge after that. It made me miss low trucks. Ugh. One of these days I’ll be happy with my setup again.

Rating: STYLE
Rating: COMFORT
Rating: BOARD FEEL
Rating: BREAK IN PERIOD (Good rating means quick break in period)
Rating: SOLE DURABILITY
Rating: UPPER DURABILITY
Rating: OVERALL

These shoes lasted 12 skate days

My first Sole Tech shoes in awhile. Man, they are comfy. That’s about all I have to say good about these shoes though. They took a long time to break in. The inside of the shoe on the heel tore out so my right achilles was rubbing on something hard. The tread pattern wore out quick. The soles still felt decent when I gave up on. They had a little hole starting in the sole. I would have kept skating them, but I didn’t feel like shoe goo’ing the toe area for the 4th time. The board feel wasn’t all that either. I think Emerica takes pride in making kind of bulkier shoes, so maybe they would be good for you.

Had a friday off work! Bernie came over around 11:30 on a nice day and we headed to little Arvada for a Square State BBQ / skate jam. After a brat and hotdog I met up with Bernie who was showing off for the kids skating the ledge pretty good. I was kinda feeling things out for awhile. Lazer and Jake showed. Brett showed. Jake, Bernie and I were skating the ledge. Bernie did a front smith kickflip out all steezy. Kick back tail. Jake leaned back 50s. I did a few crooks and some slow front 50s (I don’t get why this trick is so much harder with higher trucks). I went over the little spine thing and was coming back over it via smith transfer when disaster struck. I’m not really sure what happened, but I remember thinking “This is going to hurt really bad” and thinking my head was ok then BOOM. Hit the ground really hard. I thought it was just my right knee that was dead, but apparently I was out or something for a bit because everyone was standing around me in the park. I think what happened was the bill of my hat hit the ground luckily saving my face, but still resulting in a lot of pain and possibly a little concussion. Ouch. I sat out for a while and never really felt good at all after that. Jake and Lazer killed the tranny. Brian, Jake and Lazer did frontside slashes over the love seat. Jake then front 50’d over it. I got an ollie onto the manual pad and kickflip off. We played a game of SKATE that Jake won. Brett skated some of the best I’ve seen him skate.

Then Brett, Bernie and I met Carleigh and Jack here. It looks perfect in this screen grab, and well, it really is. It’s harder then a skatepark hip that’s for sure, but it’s still pretty much perfect. Bernie did ollie and back 180 lickety split. Jack went for 360 flip out of the gates. Carleigh did ollie then pop shove. Brett was trying front biggee and accidentally did it to wallride. I had a couple of kickflips that were so small they didn’t clear the hip. Then it was filming time. And it kept being filming time forever. I mostly just filmed dudes losing their minds, throwing temper tantrums, not having any fun and not landing tricks. Carleigh however, got some kickflips. She’s goofy (footed) so whether she will admit it or not, the term frontside kickflip is involved. Near the end I skated a bit. I got a better kickflip, no comply front shove, no comply 270 and boneless 270. All of which had lots of tic tacs and no air. Carleigh darn near learned backside flips. That spot is cool. There is a lot of stuff there. Oh, and the photo above of Bernie is a self portrait after he wiped blood on his face and started talking about riding a buffalo into battle. Like I said, “losing their minds”.

A super nice evening. Got home from work, crashed for a few minutes and then skated in front of the house until Ollie was ready to play basketball. I was pretty tired, but I always am anymore. I didn’t get too far in the trick list, but managed a treflip right as Ollie came out.

Left work a little early. Met Dave at Boulder ditch for a very brief session. The corner was dry. I almost got my front frock then bs flip line. Dave did a cool bs tailblock. He did a little front board and I did a little back board. That was about it. His wife was scheduled to have labor induced the next day. So crazy. Hope it goes well.

Then I bolted for Arvada to sell boards at Community then skate for a little bit. I started on the little qp at the top, then the mini ramp, then the bank to curb area. I didn’t do anything new really. I skated decent. The Pig wheels were slippery compared to superthanes, but it was fine. Highlight was a run with ollie behind the barrier into the bank, back 5-0 on the noping qp, pump around, axle stall the qp, pump around then front 5-0 over the hip and almost a kickflip to fakie on the bank. Did a couple front 50s on the pier 7 ledge. Ollied the marble flat bar. Twas fun.

Then I met Carleigh and Fuzz at Crisis and we hit the Broomfield park. I started off sucking and for the most part stayed there. Carleigh was ripping though. Back smiths the quartapotty, front tails the blue ledge, boardslides on the black ledge. So close to b/s flips on flat and noseslide back 270 shove out. Fuzz was slamming hard on flatground, but destroying the brick qp. Switch pivot favie first t, back blunt, blunt fakie, etc. Connor was there ripping. The fast plant over the brown ledge was sick as was the backside 43 shifty. I was not landing much and I think the main reason was still needing to get used to the taller trucks. It was really annoying though and made me wish I was still on the lows. I got a few 3 flips. A horrible kick back 50. Could barely ollie up the angled blue ledge. Couldn’t not land a nollie tre to save my life. Tried to get a line of front 50 front 180 out on the black ledge, fakie flip the bank then crooks the black ledge. Took me so long to get the 180 out. Ugh. Shove out is much easier. I had fun though. It was good to see Carleigh skating so well.

I never thought it would be Silas changing the rail game, but wow, this is a game changer to say the least.

Yeah ok, one more try to do every basic in one run at one of the most epic looking spots ever. Still my fav.

Had one of those days I woke up grouchy and stayed there all day. I probably had a beer too many for Deano’s birthday gathering the night before. After dinner I went out to Rampy. It was cold out. There is still lots of snow around. The first 30 minutes I was just passing the motions. Grind this, stall that, fall down, bail, flatground kickflip. I managed one b/s hurricane that was a struggle. I had Pissed Jeans on shuffle and was digging it. Next up was front tails then hopefully front tail 180. I got a few front tails, but couldn’t get the 180 out. I had started hucking some flip tricks between runs. Got a 360 flip or two, a heelflip. Then went for nollie tre, but there wasn’t enough room so I just ran into the wall and pushed back off it and hucked a switch 360 flip. To my amazement it was ridiculously close. I did this a few more times, get setup for nollie tre then push backwards. I got so close it was ridiculous. Never got both feet on it, but man, talk about exciting. I never thought that trick would be in my range, but maybe, just maybe, it is.

Seriously this dude rules at skateboarding.

Another cold Sunday. It was in the low 20s. Ugh. I went to Crisis to sell some stuff and hang for a bit. We skated the curb in the shop for a bit until the massage people next door complained. Jack did some crazy shiat. Back big fakie pivot bigspin out. First try fakie tre fakie nosegrind. Cab flip back tail. On a cruiser board. Killing it. Carleigh did a bunch of front hurricanes and a backside one or two too boot. Crisis new guy joined for long enough to do a no comply 270 to tail after seeing mine and having never thought of that trick before. I didn’t do much more then the no comply 270 to tail.

Then I went to Meta to sell some more and go skating with John. We started out at the St Julien garage (photo above). It was super dark in there, but pretty warm. We skated flat and a few parking blocks. Kinda early on I had a line with wallie front 180, halfcab flip then front board to fakie. Front boards are the scariest trick. John had some really good treflips (no surprise there). I had several no complies over one and wanted to follow it with a heelflip, but could not get the heelflip. My legs were pretty tired from the day before. We settled in on the curbs above for awhile. John did a crazy switch noseslide pop over to regs. He did it a few times and when I went to take a photo you can see that his back wheels landed in the “tranny” and he shot out so hard. It was sick though. I had a bunch of whatever tricks. Slappy lipslide transfer, sw boardslide transfer, halfcab boardslide, halfcab boardslide to fakie and an ultra slow, but super excited about switch front board.

Then we left for Steelyards. I was really tired/sore and didn’t really land anything. I was struggling so hard. John got a front shove off the curb. I landed on like 10 of them and would just collapse. Ugh. I tried a few treflips too, but couldn’t roll away. We settled in on the curb next to the wall and I tried another front 5-0 (stall) kickflip out and came even closer then the day before. So tried a few more and boom. Bolts! It honestly felt amazing. We each did some more goofing around before security came and gave us the boot.

Another weekend, another snow storm. So sick of it. We got about 8″ and it was still dumping. It was quite cold too so a warmer garage was needed. I went with Steelyards which was quite nice and warm. I had setup a new board with some new Venture Highs. Yes, I will be the first to admit my truck issues are pathetic. But hear me out. I don’t think Thunders are all that great. I hate Indys. I liked how the Venture lows skated, just not how low they were. So rather then putting my old Thunders on I picked up some Venture highs hoping that my truck problems will be solved. I did some kickflips on flat and was kinda bumming on how slow it flipped with the highs. Oh well, I hit the Steelyards parking garage solo. Right out the gate I felt great. It didn’t take long before I was trying real tricks. I was just skating flat because in my head I was telling myself if I ended up not liking the highs I could return them if I didn’t grind anything. I had told myself I had to do a treflip and a nollie treflip before I could grind. It didn’t take long. I was skating way better then the last couple times. I was landing fakie bigflips again. Tried a line of fakie bigflip, front shove off the curb then treflip. Came close, but the treflip eluded me. Tried another run with f/s halfcab flip, nose manual, nollie treflip. Didn’t get the nollie tre with those, but managed a great one in my favorite run of the session. Little front lip on the corner of the unwaxed curb, nollie tre then a high speed kickflip off the curb (first try). I was super hyped on that. I tried a lot of tricks. Came remotely close to a gleNBD of front 180 heel. I had my headphones on and was skating really hard, eventually I got kinda tired and just settled into kick back 50/5-0/tail going one way and front 5-0 kickflip out the other way. I would also huck flippers. Came close to varial heel and got way too close on a b/s bigflip. Got a couple more treflips. Struggled with b/s flips and heelflips though. Front 5-0 kickflip was on my to do list by 40 (before the arthritis flare up that ended hopes of that list) and I got insanely close. Like holy smokes I can do this close. Landed both feet on it and fell off close. I ended up trying it so many times and it eventually wore me out too much and I gave up. I really thought I would get it. Doh. I did get a few kickflip back 50s. One bail that landed with the board balanced sideways on the wheels (photo above) that made me laugh. All in all a great session and I’m glad to have moved on from the low trucks and hopefully I will like the highs and stop being a whiny bitch about my setup.