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 have now skated roughly 10 pairs of this shoe and consider it an all time favorite. The review below was from the first pair I got, although I updated it a little.

It isn’t a mystery that I’m one of the biggest PJ Ladd nerds out there so when the opportunity came to wear a shoe that he rocks I didn’t hesitate. This contradicts pretty much any anti-corporate shoe policy I’ve had in the past and completely makes me a hypocrite. To my credit I did get them at one of the raddest shops in Colorado history (303) and these shoes are only available in skate shops. I guess the line is getting fuzzy as to who to support anymore. Do you support skater owned brands that are available at Ross? Or mega corporations that don’t really care about skateboarding, but are only available at skateshops? I don’t know anymore, it’s up to you. I can tell you that PJ Ladd has been my favorite skater ever since PJLWHL so supporting a brand that’s supporting him felt ok to me. It’s a little weird though. When I go to the gym at work every old retired man is wearing New Balance. I’m not that old yet. Ha. Okay, back to the review. These shoes are really good. They are very comfortable. Extremely comfortable. The sole probably would have lasted forever although it does go bald somewhat quickly. I gave up on this pair because I got sick of shoe goo’ing the top and it was starting to form a weird bubble. The top wasn’t so durable. Probably about what an average shoe looks like after a few weeks with me. The board feel is decent, the grip a little sub par. They felt great in the streets, but on tranny there was some board feel to be desired. As far as style it’s kind of a weird one. I guess the fact that PJ Ladd wears them trumps the fact that they look like old man retired gym clothes. Maybe? With all that said I would consider wearing the Stratford again in the future, it’s a good shoe. I hope to see an actual PJ pro model soon though!

Ollie had some friends sleep over the night before and they wanted to go swimming. In my head I was thinking I would go skate Lafayette park while they went swimming at the louisville rec center. But Neil had some plans going on with a fun crew in Louisville and things worked out perfectly. I dropped the boys off at the pool then met up with Jake, Neil, Lazer and Blake at the little mini park by Neil’s house. Street Lazer was in effect when I showed. Kickflip, back 180 and nollie back 180 the gap. So sick! Blake surprised me with nollie front 180 down it. Jake was trying halfcab front 50, but almost landing halfcab front 5-0s. It was mostly a warm up session there. I was just starting to get into the groove when it was called out that we should move on to a new spot. I ollied the low part of the flat bar on the way out. Lazer and Neil ollied the tall part.

Somehow carless Neil saw a new spot in the Louisville Tech Center. He didn’t even know there was a perfect angle iron ledge sitting there propped up against a fence. Seriously? What’s the purpose of that thing other then to skate? We put it out of the bump to skate like a bump to ledge. It was great frontside. Well, it took me awhile to even get it a front 50 and I was a little drama bitch about it for a few minutes, but it worked out and I got into it. Street Lazer was killing it. Front 50 first try, front tail, a lot of tries for a front nosegrind and even ollied the whole thing the long way. Jake got front 50, front 5-0, front tail and front 50 to front board. Blake is goofy footed which is a problem in itself, and it was hard for him to hit the ledge. Ha, but it didn’t stop him from doing back nosegrind, back crooks front 50s and more. Neil struggled with front tails for awhile and let it be known that he was frustrated. He did front 50s easy and more. After a slow start I ended up having a great session. Front 50 in a line where I went behind the ledge, kickflipped up a curb and ollied a tiny, but really weird gap and then came back for crooks into the bank which I landed, but not in the line. Also got front 5-0, front 50 shove and front 5-0 shove.

Then we turned the ledge so the long size was parallel with the bank and skated it like a bank to ledge. Street Lazer did front 50 first try and front 5-0 super good. Blake did a bunch of willy grinds and crooks or two. Neil found a good line to front 50 stalls and had the sickest half-assed no comply to tail ever. Followed by a legit one. The half-assed one was seriously so awesome in an old guy skater kind of way. He put his foot back on as he was riding down the bank all steezy. Jake was the second to last man standing with front 50, almost back blunt and a sick front nosepick. I slammed on a front 50 stall, got a front 50 stall, front rock, back crook grind, noseslide, front smith stall. I started trying kick back 50 stalls and after accidentally getting into kick back smith I got the back 50. It was sloppy and I went for another and instead got kick back smith. Tight! It must have not been very good though because no one seemed to care. I probably Bachinsky’d the lunch break or something, but either way I was really hyped. Then I had to go pick up the kids. What an awesome session considering I was just supposed to be giving the kids a ride to the pool and back.

Null day! First in awhile. Carleigh, Jack, Max, Blaine and I met Chad at this new manny pad spot in Denver. It’s still under construction and will soon have a handrail around it we’re certain. But on this day the only obstacle was human crap on the far side right where you’d want to land/ollie. It sucked. Jack found a car floor mat we put over most of it to at least by us some comfort. Jack and Max were pulling some moves quick. Carleigh and I were doing accidental wallies up. Chad was struggling for reasons unknown to him. I was trying nose mannies at one point, slammed and looked up to see if Jack was laughing at me, but he was nowhere to be found. Turned out he had rolled his ankle yet again wallieing off an orange cone. He’s been on a bad streak lately and it’s tough to see. He went Tommy Gunz though and kept skating. It was crazy. Unfortunately he got pretty bummed and ended up tweaking it again. Argh mang. I never ended up getting a nose manual, but got a few manuals. One of which was right after Jack got up from rolling his ankle and casually manualed it like it was nothing. I also got kickflip up back 180 off, kickflip up no comply 180 off, front 180 up f/s halfcab off, a few things that kept me from being too bummed. Carleigh was hucking nollie back 3s off (aka helipops aka Romars) and getting pretty close in my book. Blaine killed it filming. Max got a sick line and a funny clip where his board shot out into traffic and got run over. That spot gave off all kinds of weird vibes. Between the hipsters and homeless people walking by it was non-stop weirdness. The homeless guy ranting about the rebar being dangerous got old the after the fifth time he walked by.

Then we ended up at the Church of Scientology. There was a fun downhill alley with a few little bumps and a tall backside ledge for regular footers. Blaine was doing some rad lines with tricks into the hills. Halfcabs, back 180s, no comply 180’s etc. Carleigh too. Chad was trying front 180 nosegrind and got close. I was doing some nollies that felt taller then my normal nose scrapes then noseslides, but a car parked in the way. I ended up getting a couple fun feeling lines. Kickflip into a mini bump, noseslide the ledge, back 180 off a curb cut. Pop shove the little bump, noseslide to fakie, switch front 180 off the curb cut. I was hyped. At that point some obnoxious car pulled up and said we were on private property and asked us to leave. I didn’t actually hear it, but it sounded really annoying and I’m sure I would have been a smart ass. Pretty weird day. My legs felt pretty numb and arthritic.

We hung at Crisis again drinking some beers and watching skate videos. John showed up and after awhile called out the Broomfield park so we did it. It was only open for 30 more minutes. John, Fuzz and I played a game of O-L-D on the quartapotty. John is super good at tranny, but somehow was the first out. He can’t do front disasters? So funny. He can do pivots to fakie, but not a front D. Crazy! Fuzz did a sex change disaster which I’ve maybe done on a qp once like 10 years ago. Maybe longer. First one was close. We were playing loose rules and I was able to get it a few tries later. Pretty hyped actually. Then the lights shut off. There was a little light in the corner and John and I tried some switch noseslide variations. The John Brandow patent tricks. They are basically slappies, but man they are fun. Fun session. I haven’t skated with a few beers in me in a long long time and it was honestly pretty fun. Felt great to see my friends so much this weekend.

My NB+ shoes were in need of repairs and when I took the ol’ glue gun there was some weird reaction to the tech layer and it kinda mutated into some weird bubble that I didn’t want to skate. So I showed up at SOL on a rainy friday afternoon in my new Lakai Guys. I’ve had these shoes before and loved them. After today I think I’m sold on Lakai XLKs from here on out. When I got to SOL there was a few people playing foosball and I joined in for a bit then we skated. My new shoes felt much better on tranny right out of the gate. Much better board feel. I didn’t rip by any means, but I didn’t skate as bad as I normally do there. Lots of Longmont locals came in and out of there. Chad, Uriel, a few younger kids that were ripping, a dude that just moved to Longmont that was destroying it. Dude was seriously slaying it. Front 180 fakie 5-0 to fakie, back smith over the extension, back 5-0 to fakie over it, hurricanes to fakie, etc. All fast and powerful. I got to the point where I would land more then one trick besides axle stalls in a run so I was happy. Had one with front rock, front d and fakie back smith to fakie in it. I left feeling really happy and went to Crisis for the Fallen premiere.

After the Fallen premiere we were hanging out and Blaine starts messing around with some slappies. Before long it turned into a full on session. The crew was Fuzz, Blaine, Carleigh (in a skirt!), Jack and I and we skated for a pretty long time. I was skating Fuzz’s board. Jack was doing lots of fast grinds which aren’t easy on that waxless curb. As you can see from the videos there were a lot of boneless style tricks, slappies and a front pivot kickflip out. I had tried that on Fuzz’s board a few times and he said I should land it. So I did. Whoa. Not even that many tries. It kicked off an hour long frenzy for Fuzz to get one too. Which he did perfect. Not the funny one above, he got one bolts. Carleigh was getting into legit backside slappies which is pretty hard on that square curb. If it was waxed I’d be willing to bet some would have been landed. Blaine was kinda all over too trying a bunch of random tricks. Jack had a pretty epic slam sliding out and shooting his board breaking a table leg, but somehow not breaking the window. Whew. He had another one with the board getting caught in his feet and he almost hit his head on the Lowcard toilet. Ha ha. There were a lot of silly boneless tricks and powerslide noseslides. So fun. A couple of my favorites were the f/s 270 slide to tail and boneless 270 to tail. What a fun night. I drove home late feeling some of the best physically and mentally I’ve felt in awhile. The rain had stopped and driving down the hill into Boulder I could see patches of fog hovering over the city. It was beautiful. Pissed Jeans was cranked on the stereo. Awesome.

Alright so I’ve been good at stretching and moving around and all the things that normally have me feeling pretty good physically. But the last couple days I have felt so bad. Dizzy, tired, lack of motivation, sore as hell. I tried to play football with Ollie and running was so hard. Just finding the will to take the first steps sometimes is hard enough. So it hit me, shit, my arthritis is raging. Guess it’s crept up slowly or it’s due to the weather/season change or something. Ugh. It’s really hard to describe how it effects me, but basically it makes everything harder then it is normally. It’s not all that painful, it’s more just feeling very stiff, sore having no confidence. So perfect time to go skate and prove how dumb and stubborn I am. I had been thinking about Arvada park all day and went with it. No one else was able to make it, but that park is fun enough anyway and there is always someone there I know (Cameron was there this time). The park was pretty crowded when I got there around 8pm. Lots of bikers, quite a few lurkers, dudes with shirts off and Monster tattoos, etc. I started out at the top tiny qp and took several tries to do basics. Moved down the blue banks area where I bummed out people by trying tricks on the bank rather then standing on it. Got sick of that so went over to the bank to curb, struggled for a hurricane grind. Skated the little bowl for awhile doing only axle stalls and carves bumming out the flyout kings. The snake run was empty so I hit that for awhile. Carving that big ass wall is fun and scary. I got no where near the top, but I could have touched the coping with my hand if I wanted to. I took a long time to do an axle stall on the qp by the doorway coming out of the snakerun, but I did and bugged out of that area to the Pier 7 marble pad. Over there I bailed back 50s and flip tricks. I never really landed anything there, but it was kinda fun because when I did I would go down to the step up and manual that and do a kickflip to fakie on the blue bank. I skated the miniramp for awhile. Started slow, but ended up having some ok runs for me that included front ds, fakie back smith fakies and front rocks in them. Then I went above and was trying a flip trick, a tiny qp trick then front 50 the marble ledge into the bank. Which is scary. I had a few ok lines going in, but it took me awhile to commit to landing the front 50 in the bank. Last area I skated was the little area by the smaller pole jam. I got a run of crooks on the tiny qp, no comply pole jam, ollie into the wide hubba then bail ollieing up the 3 stair. There was no way my legs could do that in my condition. Argh. Frustrating day, but realizing that it hasn’t been just in my head and that my arthritis is messing with me made me relax and enjoy that I can at least somewhat skate (unlike two years ago when I couldn’t get out of bed).

On a very nice afternoon I met up with Dave at the rollerblade park. He was skating the hockey rink when I arrived and we warmed up trying to manual from one side to the other. We eventually did so. I had new wheels so that kinda helped although kinda threw me off too. My old wheels had gotten down well under 50mm so it was time for some new ones. Since I had cracked my board trying to ollie over a small cone I setup a new board too. This one was 8.125. An entire 1/8 of an inch larger. It didn’t feel much different, but the new wheels did. In the skatepark things were mellow. Dave did a rad layback boardslide down the hubba. I didn’t see the start of it so I asked a kid that was there “Did he ollie into it?” and he replied with “Yeah I can do it” then went up and ollied into the bank. Ha that was pretty funny. I was feeling tired and run down yet again and my legs were sore as ever. I’m so sick of that. As far as other tricks I don’t remember much. Dave did boardslide and boardslide fakie on the wavy rail. I struggled with ollies over the little flat bar. Pathetic. Dave left and I tried a few more things. Got a line of front 5-0 on the ledge, kickflip to fakie on the bank, halfcab noseslide on the ledge. As impressive as that sounds slow it down and imagine me doing it. I flailed at some flip tricks for awhile after that. I thought having a wider board would make the trucks feel looser, but everything felt tighter. Weird. Maybe it was having new wheels that felt bigger.

Love how low I squat to not ollie.

After a long and frustrating day with the family I went out skating with Ollie around 4pm. He wanted to go to campus which stoked me out because that’s where I wanted to go as well. As soon as we got there we felt a few rain drops. But we pushed on, ollied a 3 stair, dropped in on the curved long hubba, rode down the 4 stairs and kinda settled in on a rock ollie. I was trying to line it out rolling off a drop, kickflip, ollie the rock. Never got the ollie because it started pouring. Ollie had gotten close to ollieing onto it and riding over it. What the heck CO why you rain so much?

Then we went to the parking garage above. We had tried to go to the one next to it, but it was closed off due to flood damaage and the lights weren’t working. Ollie was pretty bored with this one. He did manage to wallie over a parking block though and do a bunch of fakie shoves and 180’s off the little curb. He almost did a gap to front board too. It was funny. I tried a couple lines. First was kickflip over a parking block (which was hard for some reason), b/s flip (which I only landed once), fakie ollie up a curb, sw front 180 off, no comply 180 then f/s halfcab flip to front board. Believe it or not the one time I got the b/s flip I got insanely close to the whole line. I put the fshcffb down and slid it a little and everything. I gave up on that eventually and went with manual, 360 flip, kick back lip on the little curb, then ollie the cone. Never got the kick back lip obviously (although it was close). Only ollied the cone once or twice and on one of them I landed on the tail and cracked the crap out of my board. Oh well, that one was kinda dieing anyway. Ollie was bored so taking photos. He never got one with me over the cone, but this failed attempt is a way better photo anyway. I love how the cone is knocked down so clearly I wasn’t even close.

The level of skateboarding that goes down at Northside in Fort Collins on any given day is insane. Stoked to see Taylor documenting it!

Had the day off work and after sleeping in late after old man night at Launch Jake showed up at my house ready to go skate. We went to little arvada on a super nice and sunny day, not very hot. I thought I would be more sore then I was, but I came out ok. Jake was hitting the ledge, but I kind of avoided it for awhile as I was still pretty stiff. He was on front 50s quick and added back 50, crooks, front 50 to front board and noseslide shove which I’ve never seen him do before. We were all over the place though. Jake had some good lines with back blunt on the qp, front tail on the steep bank, front blunts on the top qp, ollies over the twinkie hip. I had a few crooks and front 50s on the ledge, but mostly just had fun skating the tranny stuff. Did some stuff I haven’t done there before like front slash the really tight opposite corner, back 50 on the tall qp that went down the escalator and around the corner. Actually yeah, that was one of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done. I tried it again and slammed so hard with my hip landing on the coping. Ouch. Had a fun line of front tail on the top qp, tiny ollie on the twinkie hip, crooks the ledge. I also got a backside kickflip on the quarter pipe near the spine. That hyped me up too. That was pretty much it. Fun time. I finally had a session that was fun the whole time through.