The Mighty LZA and I were in Montreal to celebrate our 15th anniversary. We looked into concerts while we were there and were hyped to see that Woods was playing. We got tickets ahead of time and everything. We both like their latest album Bend Beyond quite a bit, although we hadn’t actually purchased it yet. Rather then rent bikes, take a cab, take the metro or anything reasonable, Liz decided we should walk there. Of course. Ugh. By the time we finally got near the venue lets just say we deserved a little sangria!

We got to the venue pretty early and found some seats that we claimed as ours the whole night. Il Motore seemed rad. The crowd (and it seems all of Montreal?) was really young. The first band was a two piece called The Nymphets. Lady drummer and a dude that played the guitar fast. It was good, decent, basic rock ‘n roll. Parquet Courts were along that line too. It seemed they had two types of songs. Black Lips inspired songs or Pavement inspired songs. We laughed. They are good though. The faster songs went off live and the crowd was really into them. Last up was Woods. They were incredible. The thing we liked the most about them is they are original. The setlist was full of their hits and songs from Habitat videos (ha). Really though, they were great and I’m now an official fan.

Chadman showed up at my house before Liz and India got home so we convinced Ollie to join us on campus. I had put some old Thunder trucks on (Titanium Lights son!) so was prepared to deal with having taller trucks again. We cruised around a bit before hitting the UMC area. Man my legs were feeling weird and my trucks felt really tight. I have to admit the Ventures turn nice, but only for a tiny bit. Ollie was in full on skate mode. Trying tricks non stop. Chadman’s warm ups were pretty impressive. Kickflip up the 3, back 180 down it. It would probably take him longer to kickflip down it. Ha. I had fun with manualling down the wheelchair ramp then riding off the 2 then 3. Also ollied onto the far ledge and rolled off the drop. Felt fun. Ollie ollied (ha!) off a ledge and so I had to show him up with a front 180. He was popping his ollies higher and trying lots of kickflips and shoves too. We went up a little further on campus.

Hit the slappy curb for a bit, but it wasn’t very waxed anymore. Fuzz and Blaine joined us. Chadman kindly got me a gatorade. Dude rules. We had a fun downhill cruise back to the UMC so Chad could do some stuff up the 3 then 5, but it turns out Sean had already basically done it in the latest Meta video. The downhill was fun though weaving through people and for me watching Ollie cruising fast and weaving through people. He even went out of his way to say it was fun. Down at the UMC everyone was kind of just dorking around doing some weird crail tailslides on flat. Rob joined us. Everyone was swearing a bunch and seemed to not care that I had my son with me so Ollie and I moved on and rolled down stairs:

We were having a good time with it. Eventually the others joined us. It’s harder then it looks. Ollie is smaller though and it was super easy for him to ride down them all and he almost got back 180 off the last one. I would try pivots on the stair above then come into the stair set, but it rarely worked. I did manage some faster rides down though that were fun. Everyone did it at least once or twice.

Then we ended up at this area for quite awhile. Ollie beat me to ride down all the stairs to front 180 off the last one. When I finally got mine I followed it with a fakie flip though. Take that Ollie! Max joined us. Everyone either sat or skated flat for awhile. Fuzz clamied he can’t do no comply 180s, but did two perfect ones. I tried for a long time to get kickflip off the last stair. So hard with the quick setup. Liz came and picked up Ollie as it was getting late and I resumed tries to kickflip off the last stair and eventually got it. Felt great. We hit some other nearby spots. Ollied a little gap, Fuzz and I slammed trying to manual after a little gap and hung up in a big crack. Max tried to film a line at Poser Atlas, but was too tired. Or too much of a poser! Ha ha. I sat there trying to ollie up the ledge in the dark over and over. So stupid. I need to learn how to ollie. My legs were finally feeling warmed up though. This whole protein thing Brett was talking about might be right.

After a very long hike with the Mighty LZA I still managed to get out and skate with Ollie later on. We went to what I think is Ollie’s favorite spot. Someone had waxed up the really low curb and immediately I was like, ok Ollie, lets see your first front 50! Several tries later he scraped a little one or two. So awesome! While he was trying them I surprised myself with a switch front 50. Couldn’t do it backside though. Ollie did a bunch more of his patented quick feet ollies on the little flagstone steps. I tried over and over to ollie up the second tallest ledge and eventually got it. Whew. Got a few back 50s. Came super close to back hurricane. Did a line of manual through the first couple ledges then front nose 270 the next ledge and bailed a 3 flip. Back 180 up the little ledge, fakie ollie off the next one, halfcab flip on flat. Heelflip on flat, front tail the second lowest ledge (one even slid!). I guess I was skating ok. I was really tired from the hike though. Ollie was rusty and didn’t land many of his 180s. He was getting cleaner and poppier ollies up the low curb though. At the end I struggled with switch front 180 up the 2nd lowest curb then front shove off a later one. I was struggling so hard, tic tacs, wheel bite. At that point I knew the Venture lows were done. I ended up getting the line, but went home and put some old Thunders on. I can’t win. Ha. I nerded out on truck heights for a bit. The axle of Venture Lows sits about 1 3/4″ off the ground. Thunder Highs (but with the thinner baseplate) site 2″. Venture highs 2 1/4″. Yes, me a nerd. 2″ seems good. What else is there at 2″?

After running some boards to SOL and Firestone I met Brett and Dave and Longmont High. The spot was my idea, I guess I was just craving something other then Rocky Mountain Elementary. At first we all seemed a bit skeptical, but it ended up being a blast. Brett slammed hard out of the gates on the little metal beams on the ground (not in the photos). Ouch. Dude slams so hard early in the session, but man he really got it going. We were mostly doing lines connecting the taller ledges and the lower long one. He did noseslide then noseslide shove super proper. He also manualled one of the ledge blocks. So gnarly. Also kickflip into the mellow bank next to the ledge and a bunch more I can’t remember right now. I took the photos after Brett left unfortunately. Dave killed it. He manualled a ledge while holding onto a trash can. So sick, look for the footage in his youtube video coming sometime in the distant future. He also had noseslides both ways on the square ledge, little back 50 on the long ledge, boardslides, a bunch of front 5-0s (even though the photo is a pose) and a completely amazing front 5-0 to switch crooks. Yes folks! 45 year old Fullertron got mad tech! front 180 up onto the square ledge (photo) was sick too. I felt good, but didn’t skate all that great. I started to realize how much the low trucks are messing with my flow. I was tic tac’ing a lot and even getting some good wheelbite. I love how they work for flip tricks, but have been in denial about how much they mess with normal skating. Anyways, skating was fun though. I had one run of 360 flip on flat, front 5-0 down the long ledge (although I didn’t grind long) and then bailed something on the ledge. Had some other lines. Didn’t commit to kick back 50. Barely ollied onto the square ledge. Dave was making that look so easy. I did have fun with slappy switch noseslides both ways. Came kind of close to back hurricane grind on the long ledge. At the end got a front 50 front shove out on the long ledge that took way too long. It was fun times though. So glad we weren’t stuck in a crowded park.