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.

Ollie was super hyped for Go Skate Day. He wanted to go skate campus, but I didn’t think I was up for that because of my arthritis. Which wasn’t feeling as bad luckily. I stopped taking penicillin because I think I may have grown allergic to it and it’s causing the joint pain. Seems to be accurate considering how much better I feel not taking it. We went to Arvada park. As one would think on GSD it was very crowded. Ollie and I tried to find some non crowded areas as, he’s about the shyest kid ever in skateparks. We ended up in the far corner skating the little noping qp. I had a few hurricanes on it. Ollie had some rock ‘n rolls. Things opened up a little and we skated the bank to curb too. Ollie did frock ‘n roll on it, rock fakie and eventually a first try front rock. Sick! I did rocks, axle stall, feeble and a front 50 that took a few tries. The wind had kicked in pretty intense and weeded out a few more people so we started to line out the back area. Trick on the noping, pump, trick on the elevated qp, noping. Ollie had a run with some decent carves, mongo pushes and a f/s flash on the noping followed by a front 180 off the bank. Rad. I had one with a back 50 on the noping, pumps, axle stall on the elevated qp, pumps, front lipslide over the hip of the noping. Hyped on that. Ollie was trying a bunch of kickflips on flat too and got really close. Then we went over the the blue angled circle thing pictured above. Ollie had a run with rock ‘n roll on the bank, then front 180 off the blue wedge onto the level below then halfcab off. He also did front 180 from the flat one into the banked one. I was doing front tailslides on the bank then no comply bigspins on the blue bank. Then I did kickflip to fakie. Then b/s flip. Then a first try bigflip on the bank. Hyped. My arthritis hurt, but wasn’t numb. I’ll take pain over numbness any day. Hopefully it keeps getting better as the penicillin leaves my system.

My arthritis has gotten bad again. It makes my whole legs numb. I tried to skate with Ollie on campus, but basically I couldn’t. Ollie was hyped and skating hard. Had a nice front board transfer on a parking block. Showed me up with the tall ledge drop to shorter ledge near the tunnel to the hill. I was going to do it until some kook stopped and watched and said “Oh the little guy did it, you can do it!” I tried to ollie a weird gap for awhile over a tiny ledge while Ollie ollied a 3 stair behind the theater. That was about the extent of the session. I went home and cried. I was really hoping this would never happen again.

Went to the Girl demo at Arvada park. It was incredible. Tons of people. Tons of ripping. Especially from Cory Kennedy. That dude straight slayed everything in the park. It’s funny that the only clip I could find on youtube was this one of Koston. I didn’t even know he landed a trick. Ha. Anyways, it was near the end of the demo and the lights were gonna shut off shortly so I skated he little cement coping qp at the top of the park. Got most of my basics quick except front d which took awhile for some reason. I pumped around the medium bowl for a bit and got stuck in the spin cycle just carving in circles. Dropped into the shallow of the big pool and kickturned in the shallow a little and got a little scratch grind. That waterfall looks like a cliff in that thing.

Super nice night. Carleigh and I arrived at a mostly vacant park and Fuzz showed up shortly after. My legs weren’t feeling very good and it showed quickly. Ollies were hard. I mostly just skated the quarta potty and did slappy noseslides, some with 270’s out which felt pretty neat. After a bit the three of us settled into a quarta-potty and blue ledges session. Carleigh was trying back disasters on the qp and front tails on the ledge. Then she did her second front board ever on the downhill blue ledge. Then her 3rd. 4th, 5th, etc until it basically looked like she had it on lock. Rad. Fuzz looked pretty rusty initially and had some sketchy looking slams. He was doing different tricks on the qp then doing back 180 fakie back 50 on the ledge. Sometimes to fakie, sometimes with a 180. I was skating the qp decent, but couldn’t land a ledge trick to save my life. I guess I had a couple crooks on the up/down blue ledge and some front 5-0s down it. Oh and I got a few switch back noseslides down the blue ledge too. I was hyped on that! I started hucking and managed a kickflip back noseslide. This is where it gets awesome. Fuzz said I can call it a “slide” because it slid off the ledge and I’m 40 years old so everything counts. Yes! I must admit a bit of pleasure in calling “I’m 40 that’s a make”. I should add a “with shitty arthritis” in there too unfortunately. It was almost lights out already and everyone kind of broke up and skated other stuff. I almost rolled my ankle on a crooks on the black ledge. Argh. I saw Carleigh trying back tailslides on the hump above the flowbowl and get a first try front d on the brick qp. And some surfer style frontside ollies too. I wanted to get to the qp with a f/s halfcab flip then a kickflip into the bank, but I couldn’t commit to the kickflip. Doh. Fuzz did some crazy tricks on the brick qp. Then the lights shut off. Doh. But since the softball players are allowed to have their lights on the park had some light. We all skated the quarta-potty. Fuzz and Carleigh were trying to learn backside hurricanes. They both had a couple spills. Fuzz got his first. Carleigh got one after getting in a sour mood because of some tool in a jeep playing dumb music. I did a bunch of tricks I’ve done before, but would try a 3 flip or f/s flip after every trick. Had 4 treflips in a row at one point. Felt great. Fuzz went on to learn frontside hurricanes too and did a bunch of them proclaiming it as his favorite new trick. Rad!

This spot has been in the back of my head for awhile. Ollie and I had drove down from the mountains and we had a family picnic then were lounging around (okay I was taking my old man nap) when Rob said he wanted to skate for a bit. I mentioned this spot and it was on. Ollie wanted in. Ollie and I got there first. After I went down it a couple times I wasn’t sure if Ollie should cause it’s kinda fast. But he thought it looked find and it didn’t even look like it concerned him at all the first time. Nice. Warming up took awhile for me. About the time Rob showed up I was finally feeling good and had a fun line of nose manual to the downhill, turn around ollie on and do a kickflip to fakie. Ollie was having fun. He had one or two legit manuals across the top. From the bottom he would ollie to rock, then lift up, take a push, shove his board halfway up the bank, let it come down, jump on it then back 180 off the curb. So awesome. He also had a really good slam trying a 360 body varial and Wilson’d hard. He laughed it off quickly. Rob seemed to warm up pretty quick. We skated from the bottom for awhile. He had ollie up, back 180 one foot, back 180 off. Ollie up, bs flip. Ollie up, boneless, no comply, etc. And the nice smith grind above through both stoppers and the totally dry concrete. Or maybe it was a stall. I had kickflip to fakie, b/s flip, no comply bigspin, no comply shove to fakie, boneless. A good feeling treflip on flat. From the top front 180 up the curb then halfcab flip into the downhill. Slammed pretty hard trying to roll into it switch. Then the wind kicked in hardcore. I nose mannied across the bottom and we were out. That spot is really fun.

Wasn’t planning on stopping by the Fairplay park on the way to my Mom’s, but Ollie requested it so I couldn’t say no. We arrived to Zeke cranked up on a boombox and only a few people at the park. One pool only dude, two mongo pushers (besides Ollie) and one dude that had a good ollie. The perimeter of that park has some fun stuff. It’s not perfect, but perfection is boring. Just ask PRod. Ha. The sun was blinding in spots and I definitely didn’t want to skate the bowl until the sun factor was eliminated. Ollie was doing 180’s off the kicker pretty quick, pushing mongo around the park, frontside kickturn over the rock qp, roll into the little brick qp, front board transfer the bank to curb, manual the top of the hip, fakie shoves on flat, firecracker the 3 stair and would not let us leave when we were supposed to go. My legs were feeling really arthritic so I mostly kept it mellow. Had fun on the brick coping qp which is the weirdest coping ever because you have to ollie into it. Did front tail, front smith and almost a kick back pivot. On the bank to curb when for kick back pivot and got kick back smith. I’ll take it! Ha. Tried a few front smith stalls to kickflip out. Kinda wish I would have tried that more. Took quite a few runs in the bowl. I can only drop in on the mellowest spot there. I’m such a pansy. Almost got a grind on the 7 section though. Last thing I did that felt good was a front lip on the bank to curb. Then it was back to driving.

Ollie and I sweated it out on Rampy after a thunderstorm hit. No new tricks from either of us. He had some really good front slashes for him. I had a first try front feeble and maybe the best crooked grind I’ve done on ramp. After awhile I went out for a short flatground session. My legs were feeling pretty arthritic and it’s harder to skate flat then rampy. But I did ok. Couldn’t get b/s flip, but got treflip. Failed at a varial flip then fakie varial flip line because varial flips are impossible to land when you actually want to land them.

After lots of basketball with Ollie I went for a late and quick session at this ledge. I was pretty sore from sore from all the basketball, but wanted to get out in the nice weather anyway. I ended up skating better then I thought I would. Had some fun crooked grinds and would try to line them out by manualling the long pad around the corner. Tried some switch bs noseslide shoves and got really close. Hyped I was getting on a ledge that tall switch even though I was kind of John Brandow’ing it. Started trying crooks front 180 out and got close. Then some dude who clearly saw me skating the ledge walked up, said hi, sat down on the ledge and lit up a cigarette. WTF. I just threw my board to the parking lot and left pissed off. Probably a good thing because it got me to actually leave quickly, but man, how weird.

And he can kickflip crooks. Wowsers