Had some new shoes. Lakai – Picos. They are vulcs. I wanted to try vulcs again and see if I truly am sold on cupsoles or not. Well, I made the idiotic mistake of getting 10.5s again. Right out of the gate I didn’t like them and felt like I was swimming in my shoe. We got to the spot and after a couple bad ollies and failed manuals I wanted to quit and get new shoes. But John was already ripping and Rob showed so I had to skate. Rob was totally ripping. Manny and nose manny the long way no problems. Almost with back 180 out of the nose manny. He also had some good flatground no comply moves and a back 360. So jealous of that trick! I took a long time to do the long manny, but came remotely close to doing one with a front shove out. I want that trick! I did a fun line of ollie onto the manny pad, quick back 180 off, fakie flip on flat, switch front 180 up the curb then ollie a gap into the parking lot. John came super close to halfcab manny back 180 out. Did treflips, but struggled at kickflips (so weird!). Had some good flatground as well. Some lady came by and told us the noise was amazing and John sat down. Kinda ending the session.

So we went to Valmont and skated a pretty dry ledge. We ended up doing some tricks though. I got noseslide, halfcab noseslide, halfcab noseslide to fakie, front tail stall, almost front tail shove, back board pop out, bad crooks, bad back 50, horrible nosestall 270 pivot out. I was hating swimming in the shoes and new I couldn’t even skate them another day so I was pretty lazy. John got front 50s right away, killed his patented switch front noses and much more I can’t remember. Rob did a few front noseslides. All with epic extra reverts on accident.

Oh yeah, this was the first time I’ve skated in glasses in awhile. It was fine. Gotta get some different shoes for skating though.

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 14 skate days

This is the closest I’ve experienced to the perfect skate shoe in awhile. For a cupsole the board feel is really good. They broke in quick, they look good (can’t go wrong with black suede, white sole, and a skater owned logo). My only complaints are that the sole wore out sooner then I wanted it to. 14 skate days is still pretty high for me though. The other issue I have with them is the weird cracking noises they make. Kind of like the sound of snow packing under your feet. I never noticed it actually skating though, just standing. So whatever, this shoe is about as good as it gets.

Ollie and I went to the Arvada park on a hot Saturday afternoon. There was a gathering to remember Dave Tuck. A skater I barely met, but clearly a positive influence on the Colorado skate scene. We were going to meet Neil and Fullertron there. The park was really crowded, but most people were in the bowls. Makes sense. Before we even got into the park I had said hello to about 10 people and it was awesome seeing so many people out. I had watched a few (ok more like 10) PJ clips before leaving so I was thinking I’d get tech and skate the Pier 7 replica. I ended up being extremely lazy though (I blame Liz) and taking a long time to warm up. I made a goal of 10 tricks on the Pier 7 thing and it took me a long time. Ollie managed to ollie up onto it a few times and did front and back 180 off. He was also doing fakie shoves and trying fakie 3 shoves on flat. I ended up getting back board, front 50, front 50 front 180 out, crooks (hyped on that one), manual (finally – never did that there before for some stupid reason – ok, well it’s because you land in the slightest of banks), back 50, slappy noseslide, slappy front tailslide, front 50 front shove out and front 5-0. Then we went over to the blue pad area. Ollie did his ride on to drop down manual first try, ollied the gap off the blue pad several times and front 180’d off a taller part. Mike was there wallie’ing up the ledge like it was nothing. I tried a bunch of times and failed. Like a bunch a bunch. I would do flatground and crooks on the tiny qp. I managed to ollie up the gap second try though. Dave joined and treated us all to “nollie 360 eggplants” off the blue pad. What the heck? Put your foot in nollie position, grab indy, put your left foot on the edge and turn back 360 while dropping. He did it so good. Ollie and I tried them. Watching Ollie try a trick so foreign to his was awesome. He ended up doing mute grabbed back 180 with his right hand on the edge. Not sure what that’s called, but he was hyped. I eventually got the eggplant 360 too. It was clearly an over 40 make, but man it seemed cool. Then the four of us headed out to the nearby foundation spot.

This spot rules. Notice Neil sitting in the background in both? Ha. He skated though. Long enough to do some rad nose mannies, but he was beat quick. Ollie did those rad little gap to wobble manual a bunch of times. He also had 180s off the drops and slammed super hard riding up the plastic launch ramp that has a hole in it. I got a couple lines that made me really happy. Kickflip up, front 5-0 then ollie the taller gray part behind Ollie in the photo above. Then the one that really really hyped me up, pop shove over one of those little 2 foot flat gaps, kickflip off a ledge, boardslide down the metal hubba, ollie the gray thing again (seemed scarier then the photo shows) and landed on a backside flip off the next ledge. Also did a front 180 the little flat gap and a f/s halfcab flip off the ledge. It was so slow and bad, but only a few tries in so I took it. Dave did back board, back board to fakie and front board down the metal hubba. He also had a line of something like back 180 a flat gap, switch front 180 off the ledge then boardslide. Another line that resulted in a switch back 180 off the ledge. Probably a lot more that I’m not remembering right now. Super fun session. I put a hole in the sole of my shoes though so I’m gonna have to skate something else. Doh.