Headed to Lafayette by noon. Ollie and I were gonna skate for awhile then head to 303 to sell some boards. It was warm out, but there were thunder clouds moving in. Steve V was there as was Sam from 303 and Ollie and I joined them on the bank to curb section. That area is a blast. Doing the line on the waxed bank then going through the pumps at the start of the snakerun is fun. Warming up went ok. I could tell I had skated a lot of days in a row. Nothing really stood out for me until later. Ollie and I were skating the same area again. He got the little front slash that’s hard for him. I almost had a line of hurricane, pump and turn, scratch grind on the tight corner qp then front tailslide, but someone got in my way. We skated the pier 7 ledge are for awhile. Jake had shown up and did a bunch of front tails on the double sided ledge. Squeeks was there and back tail and back lipped it. Kia and I did back to back boardslides. I took a bunch of tries to back 50 the granite ledge. Treflips on flat were going good. Then we went over to the blue bank area and Ollie started a trend of bouncing his board off the rubber section to start his line. It was hilarious. Parris had joined us too and there were 5 grown men trying to bounce their boards and land on them. Ollie was pretty hyped. Jake and Squeeks ollied up the 3 stair easy. I couldn’t. Parris had some rad back tails and boneless combos on the banks. We tried a bunch of flippers on the blue bank at the end. I had halfcab flip and bigflip. Tried treflip to fakie and fell on my board and rode down it on my butt backwards. So funny and the end of the day. Ollie finished with a sick ride up the bank to manual the blue manny pad. So good!

Another hot morning. I met up with Jack, Bernie and Garret at Meta, avoided a parking ticket and we rolled to Bear Creek Elementary. The railing thing I was thinking would be cool to do tricks over wasn’t really skateable so we just dorked around on a 2 block in the back. My legs were feeling very stiff and sore. Jack did a bunch of no complies and boneless tricks. I was barely able to ollie up one of them. Bernie and Garret just kinda lurked and talked about how they skated in the heat the day before too. I did do a drop down manual that was so stiff and awkward.

After looking at another spot we came to this which I’ve drove by a million times picking up India from ballet at the rec center. It ended up being pretty rad. I skated horribly and did a 2mph front 180 onto it and switch 90 off. Luckily I went to filmer duty and Jack came through with a good clip and Bernie got another manual with a kickflip out. Ha ha, it was sick though.

Next we ended up at Basemar where I immediately shot my new board into the creek. Doh. Luckily it was hot so it dried out quick and seemed fine. Jack did a wallie back 5-0 and Garret tried a million front noseslides. I skated after Jack got his trick. I was having fun doing some kickflips on the bank and some powerslides down the hill. Jack wanted to film it and on the first try hung up on a rock and slammed so hard. Doh! Then we started skating the kicker while Garret tried front noses. Jack did some impossibles. Connor and Blaine showed and Connor did every variation of 180. Carleigh got kickflip. I got a couple backside flips where I landed 90 degrees then turned it. I tried to get a clean one, but it didn’t happen. Garret eventually got rained out after several close tries on the front nose. Doh.

After some pizza we ended up at the ledge spot on the edge of campus. Before turning into filmer Glen I was skating pretty good for me. I’ve tried lines of crooks then kick back 50 several times when I’ve been there in the past, but this time it worked out and I got it a couple times. Stoked. Was also hyped to front 50 the tallest waxed ledge and front 50 shove out the regular one. I filmed Connor get a good line as thunder was looming then minutes later chaos ensued and we watched the hail storm from the covered area. So gnarly.

One of these days where I should have rested and taken the day off, but instead I forced a session when I was tired and it was really hot. Like really hot, 97 hot. I couldn’t skate flat on the street because it was all soggy and melted. I didn’t have much time or I would have gone somewhere like Wilville. Instead I tried to find something redeemable at the school with the roughest driveway ever. I found a section of yellow curb that hadn’t been totally destroyed by school busses and was able to do some 50s on it. Then tried a couple lines. Back 180 off the curb, fakie flip then fakie 50. The fakie flip never happened because I would lose my balance in the roughness everytime. Going the other way I tried front 5-0 front 180 out, switch 180 up the curb, treflip. Didn’t get that either. Kind of a wasted session, sometimes I should just not skate. Oh yeah I had tried putting the thick lunarlon insole in the Nikes, but those things are ridiculously thick and dumb so about mid session I switched back to some thinner Lakai insoles. Lakai!

Another really hot and sunny day approaching triple digits. Got home from work and watched Men In Black with the kids and had popcorn for dinner. So awesome. Then it was sunset and I felt like skating and Ollie wanted in. He wanted to go back to Lafayette park. I was pretty sore and tired and that park is fun to just cruise so it seemed perfect. We got in about an hour before the lights shut off. I spent the first half of it literally bailing everything and being amazed how little juice my legs had. By the end I felt decent though. I was doing some frontside ollies on the manhole hump that felt great. Rolled-in in a new spot above the mid sized bowl. Had a few flip tricks. Ollied the 3 stair. Noseslid the little hubba. Front lip and front 50 around some of the corner in the little bowl. My new 10 Year deck felt good. Mostly just had fun and enjoyed being able to skate with Ollie again. He got really close to kickflips. Did a fakie pop shove on a bank. Frontside ollie on the bank, took a run into the snake run and looked comfortable rolling at the speed. Got heckled by a dork for not wearing a helmet. Got a super clean manual in the longer flat section in the upper part of the snake run. This took him a bunch of tries and he kept saying he really wanted to land it clean. Awesome. Skating with him is so fun.

Woke up feeling the best I’ve felt in a while. Worked at home on a hot day. Was planning on rolling to Lafayette park with Jake to meet Rob, Dave and Fuzz. Right before leaving Ollie expressed some interest and after some deliberating finally decided on joining us. We arrived to a pretty crowded park as tuesday nights are old man night. There were a couple others there with kids, but they mostly stuck to the big bowl. I kind of stuck with Ollie initially as his shyness was weirded out by the crowded park. We hit the middle of the park. Shortly a session on the tight qp at the entrance started up. Fullertron and Salmon were going off. Fuller did long front 5-0s, boardslides and front lip. Ridiculous. Jake was banging out tricks too. Front d and front blunt! Rob was steezing out back smiths. I got a back hurricane which I’ve never done there before and way hyped on. Couldn’t get the front feeble though. Ollie was cruising the little section and then doing some frontside ollies on the little curb cut rock thing by all of us. Ollie and I started skating the “street” area a bit as no one else was skating it. I hung up getting into a noseslide down the small hubba and dove to flat. That wasn’t so fun. Ollie was trying lots of fly out pop shoves and back 180’s. He didn’t get the pop shove. I was breaking in the Nikes with flip tricks still, halfcab flips worked, kickflips worked, treflips not so much. Fuzz showed. We skated a steep bank for a bit. He crushed it pretty quick with rock’s both ways and an axle stall. The best part of that park is that there are endless ways to skate it. I got a kickflip to fakie on a bank that felt great. After awhile I saw Dave doing this sick bluntslide out of a little quarter pipe to bank and joined him. He got a couple ridiculous bluntslides. I got a sketchy front tail and an ok front tail. Fuzz worked on front noseblunts. Rob did some rad crail airs. Ric destroyed the middle bowl and lipslid the bank all in one run. He kills it so hard! Jake apparently redid Jason’s noseblunt trick from Off The Couch, but without the Sammy Davis Jr clip after. Rob and I skated the mid sized bowl for awhile. It’s a fun one. I was happy that I got most (if not all) of the back 50s I tried. Need to get some more tricks in there though. The best part of the night for me was that Ollie was skating for real. He wasn’t glued to my side. He was skating all over the park, finding his own lines and loosening up with my friends. At one point Ollie did a back 180 off the manual pad and Rob said “Nice Ollie” so Ollie bowed. It was hilarious. Also if Ollie and I crossed paths through the park he would give me a salute like a soldier. Man it was funny. He did have some really good back 180s and he almost had some ollies up onto the manual pad. He did several ollies up to rock then pull up which is a good start. The rest of the crew was sessioning the smaller narrow white qp while Ollie and I just cruised around doing whatever. Other then a 3 flip with a bit of speed nothing stands out so much for me. I was just cruising and landing a few tricks. Almost noseslide the tall bump to ledge. Failed miserably at a few carves in the vert bowl. Fuller was killing it. Got a doubles line with Ollie where I did a frontside wallride on the bank to rock and he did a b/s wallride on it. Wallies off the corner of the rock into the hip are the funnest thing ever and Ollie did it first try. Geez. Fuzz and Dave did some crazy switch pivots/feebles on the narrow white qp. All in all one of my favorite nights because Ollie skated hard and seemed to be flowing at the park and not needing to be right by my side allowing me to hang with my friends a little more. Thanks dudes for being cool to Ollie. Summer rules. We hung out after the lights shut off for awhile and I kept saying we had to leave to get Ollie to bed. But Fuzz came through with a quote that made me laugh. Fuzz, “Ollie do you have school tomorrow?” Ollie, “No”. Fuzz, “Then tell your dad to chill out”. Ha ha awesome. Oh yeah, I cracked my board really bad on a 3 flip so I’ll be setting up a new one and at the gas station on the way home they were giving away donuts so lucky Ollie took 4 of them. That’s one stoked kid!

Feeling even better which was surprising considering how much I skated the day before. Jake and I went to Broomfield around noon on a warm and sunny day. The park was empty except for the occasional baseball family walking right though the middle of the park to get to the batting cages or beginner scooter/bike kids (what kind of parent things a skatepark is a good place to learn how to bike?). But yeah, Jake started off killing it and killed it all session. He had a front 50 on the sad ledge, front blunt on the quartapotty and then back blunt the blue ledge. Geez. I was happy to try tricks involving ollies again and other then some soreness wasn’t limited too much by arthritis. I manualled the sad ledge. Then we skated the black ledge for quite awhile. I did most tricks I’ve done there before. All took several tries though. We would do tricks on the little flat bank to turn around on. Jake had some rad boneless plant things over the rail and fakie flips. The front tails on the ledge were sick too. I almost had treflip to fakie on the bank. My grip got wax on it somehow and in the sun and dust from the park it made for a really slippery setup. We hit the pool for a bit. Jake dropped in on the deep end and did some good lines with front slash in the deep and back rock in the shallow. I started from inside and managed one carve with tile. Yippee. We each did fronside flips on the little mound then front 50 the pier 7 ledge. Then a game of SKATE that I won, but slammed on front shove and 3 flip super hard. I also sore through the sole of my Vox shoes. We called it a day.

After some lunch and a break I met up with Bernie, Scotty, Garret and Teagan at Wilville. I wasn’t really planning on skating much, but just wanted to hang out and maybe even film if it came to it. Everyone was feeling pretty chill. Oh yeah, I had my new shoes on. Get ready for this. Nike Koston 2s. What started as a dare became reality as I scored them for free. Basically I’ve talked so much shit on Nike that I was dared to try a pair. I agreed if I could get them for free. Well, it became reality thanks to Jaimie their rep and here we are. They were super bright red when I got them, I immediately painted them black though so the swoosh is hardly even visible. They felt decent, but I didn’t really skate much. I did a few kickflips and it seems like I’ll need to wear some of that paint off before they flick right. Bernie manualed it first try. Teagan slammed super hard trying to nose manual it. He basically put the nose into the last kink and dove over the whole bottom section. It was gnarly. He kept skating though after a brief break. Wow. I started playing with early grabs since I was so sore/tired and ended up getting a really fun dork trick. Early grab up the curb and hold on all the way to the end. It was really fun until Bernie asked me to do it again for the camera and I pulled up to get over the curb and something popped in my middle finger. Argh, it hurt so bad. I left after that as I was going to the outdoor ballet with the family.

Happy to say my arthritis felt better. Not street skating better, but better. I think what learned with this most recent flare up is that I am allergic to Penicillin and it causes the numb tingles which are the worst. They are going away, but the normal arthritis pains I had that made me think I need to start taking Penicillin again are still there. But as long as the pain isn’t intense, I’ll take that over the bizarre numb tingles any day. My knees/quads having it the worst. They don’t want to squat then jump.

Oh well, enough about my arthritis. Ollie wanted to go skating again. In the afternoon we went to Lafayette park. Hardly anyone was there and it was fun just cruising around and doing whatever we wanted. I did a lot of little ollies on things like what Ollie is doing the rock ‘n roll on above. I took quite a few runs in the middle sized bowl. Had a few back 50s, felt really odd trying front disasters though. Pumping around felt good. I still felt pretty out of it and not in good skate health. Ollie was skating good and having a blast. He finally is starting to get that he shouldn’t push mongo so there was some regular pushing mixed in there. Stoked! Near the end he said he wanted to do a pop shove flyout before we left and then did it first try. The smile on his face said it all.

Then we went to Crisis for awhile and after dinner at Subway we headed to Westminster park. There was only a couple people there. Mainly because that park pretty much blows unless you want to skate a monster bowl. But we had fun. I started to get some of my confidence back. The only things that stand out for me were boardsliding the long flat bar and some frontside ollies out of the little quarterpipe onto the flatbank. Ollie though, kid was shredding. The manuals across the pyramid at full speed were super good. Especially the ones where he ollied out and flew halfway down the bank. The bank flyout to grassride was epic too. He boardslid the last few inches of the flatbar. And lots of ollies into all of the banks. One run that had a f/s ollie on a bank then a back 180 over the hip. Crazy!

Rating: STYLE
Rating: COMFORT
Rating: BOARD FEEL
Rating: BREAK IN PERIOD (Good rating means it doesn’t take long to break in)
Rating: SOLE DURABILITY
Rating: UPPER DURABILITY
Rating: OVERALL

These shoes lasted 10 skate days

On the cupsole tip again these days. These shoes have kind of a weird fit. The collar is a bit puffy for me and I wanted to lace one more eyelet, but it would make the shoe too tight in the collar. The board feel wasn’t great. They skated decent before the sole went flat, but once the tread was gone they skated pretty bad.

Rating: STYLE
Rating: COMFORT
Rating: BOARD FEEL
Rating: BREAK IN PERIOD (Good rating means it doesn’t take long to break in)
Rating: SOLE DURABILITY
Rating: UPPER DURABILITY
Rating: OVERALL

These shoes lasted 11 skate days

My first regular cupsoles in a long time. The pain in my quads had me wanting to see if cupsoles would help. They did. These were the only shoes I could find for me. Surprisingly they seemed broke in within a couple days of wearing them to work. The bright yellow sole was a bit annoying, but whatevs. They skated great. The surprising thing to me was how much they skated like vulcs. Excellent board feel, but with a little more support which my aching legs appreciated. The biggest negagive is how quickly the tread wore out. It was only a couple days before the sole was flat. They still gripped, but not quite as well. Overall this shoe was excellent. If only the sole would have lasted longer I would list this as one of my favorite shoes.

Rating: STYLE
Rating: COMFORT
Rating: BOARD FEEL
Rating: BREAK IN PERIOD (Good rating means it doesn’t take long to break in)
Rating: SOLE DURABILITY
Rating: UPPER DURABILITY
Rating: OVERALL

These shoes suck so bad I couldn’t keep skating them

These are some of the worst skate shoes I’ve ever had. They are some type of hybrid fake vulcanized cupsole. The results are some of the worst skate shoes ever. The gum soles slip off the grip. They don’t flick. They are so floppy they should have just been vulcanized shoes. The back of the shoe blew out. Granted I had worn them to work for about a year before skating in them. Still though, horrible shoes.