skate journal: old man fun at longmont high then launch (july 25, 2013)
I feel like I’ve been doing alright at life lately. Been spending lots of time with the family, keeping null going, not having many beers and getting to skate a lot. The one thing I’ve been blowing it at though is hanging with my friends. Luckily Andy at Launch has “Over 30 night” once a month and I was invited to roll with an awesome crew of people I need to hang out with more. I got off work a couple hours before the Square State Bus was supposed to head out and Dave could get out early too so we went to Longmont High. I felt better then normal, a little numb in the legs, but good. We skated for about an hour. Dave ollied up onto the blocks easy and started trying front 180 nose manuals. He got really close. He struggled with kickflips, but had some nice back 50s on the long ledge. I could not ollie onto the block. I blame going back to high trucks! Ha, I think I have a couple more days of adjustment that I can list as an excuse. I had better front 50s then last time on the long ledge, switch noseslides both ways, ollied some flowers, didn’t land many flip tricks. Then we were off.
Then Dave and I got picked up at SOL in the Square State bus. It was a fun ride. Lots of old dudes watching old OJ skate videos. We got to Launch around 8pm. No dinner stops. I ate gummi bears and a cliff bar from 7-11. The ramp wasn’t crowded so I got on it right away to get my initial bails on axle stalls out of the way. It got crowded quick though and I retreated to the little ledge and skated it with Mike and Skelly (Skelly is back!!!). Mike was killing back 180 nosegrinds and fakie nosegrinds both ways. Skelly did a front nosegrind 180 that I swear he never touched anything, but the kingpin. It was rad. He had lots of 5-0s and stuff too. I did a few basics. Had some kick back 50s, one bad kick back tail, switch noseslide shove, a few back hurricanes that I was hyped on. There was a lot of yelling going on the ramp. I normally missed what the tricks were, but it seemed like everyone was ripping and having a good time. I would skate the ramp when the deck cleared out a little. I didn’t get anything new, but didn’t bail my basics too many times. I saw Brian do a rock to fakie on an extension and ride fakie through the lower level. Unreal. Fuzz did sugarcane easy. Orlando destroys. Fuller looked good on a new Null board! Oh, and he ripped too. Mike has a rad line with a switch carve through the corner to Hewitt grind to forward. Man there is too much to list. I wish I had skated the ramp more, but I just didn’t feel like waiting and I suck in snake sessions. When it got crowded again I joined Rob, Dave and Andy and skated flatground. Dave got a couple over 45 makes on switch front 3 and a steezy f/s fakie bigspin. Andy rattled off tricks that looked really good and were gnarly. 3 flip, varial heel, hardflip. Geez. Squeeks would join us too, but he’s only 20 something so we’ll ignore what he did. Rob did some rad no comply and fastplant variations. Skating flatground is the best! I had fun even though tricks took longer then normal. My favs were treflip (took a long time), nollie treflip and f/s halfcab heel. At the end I did b/s flip and kickflip to fakie on the little roll-in in the street course. The kickflip fakie was super hard because of how the roll in is rounded. But that was really fun and my favorite trick of the night.
We eventually stopped skating. Everyone had grins on their face. Ric even gave out some prizes and just made the night more special by being so into it. Seriously fun night. The kind of night that we keep doing this for. Awesome.