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.

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

I skated these shoes for 11 skate days, but they had more life in them

I had these shoes recently and they blew out way too quick. But Meta Sam told me that Lakai had a new manufacture and the soles were better. Since this shoe has one of the best uppers ever I was willing to give it a try. Much to my surprise the sole was much better this time around. The tread pattern still wore off quick, but was still grippy and showed no signs of a hole. This is one of my favorite vulcanized shoes. Glad to see Lakai getting it together.