Went back to the research center because I just couldn’t stop thinking about how fun it was to do tricks down the mellow hill. I’m gonna start referring to it as the Fiercely Fabulous Flatground Fun Facility for a joke about my PJ nerdness. No, it’s not the same, but it gets me hyped in the same way. It was late and cold (35). Even the first couple runs of 180s and ollies were fun. My legs didn’t feel as good as Sunday, but I still ended up having a decent time. After awhile I had a couple techer lines. 360 flip (both hands down it counts since it’s 35, I’m 40 and well, I’m by myself!), front 180 up the upper curb, halfcab flip on flat then crooks. Another one was heelflip then f/s flip (horribly done), halfcab flip, ollie up the curb, crooks. Gotta start doing more then crooks on this ledge! Fakie bigflip, pop shove, try to ollie at speed up the upper curb, back 50. Had several other flippers, but wasn’t feeling as good or consistent as Sunday. Did have an extra fun b/s flip. Tried front and back smiths on the ledge. Got into both. Kinda surprised I was able to get into back smith, but not sure I’d ever actually land it. Tried a bunch of switch varial flips when going up the hill and got kinda close. Wasn’t hyped at how much I struggled with fakie flip or fakie bigflips though. Either way it was fun and I like that the slight hill forces me at times to do a trick faster then I normally would.

On an absolutely gorgeous autumn day Rob and I met up with Neil, Blake and Dave at a new bank spot on Arapahoe. Upon arriving I wasn’t into the fact that it was right off of Arapahoe. I saw Dave do some long powerslides in the new concrete, but other then that I wandered around to see what else was around. This is when it got awesome. Blake and I did a few chinese nollies into a little downhill sidewalk and ollied off a bump. Then eventually everyone joined us and we were mostly skating the “hip” above on this photo of Blake flying 3 feet over his board. There was other stuff we played on too. Blake and I ollied off a narrow loading dock. I slammed trying to ollie a box that Neil one-footed over first try. It hurt my wrist pretty bad. I would eventually get the ollie. Adjusting to the smaller board again weird for ollies. Fuller did a rad back 270 (he’s goofy) over the hip. Neil lofted some one foots. Rob won MVP with kickflips, lofty no comply shoves, pop shove tail grabs and a lofty ollie to slam. Blake never got the heelflip. I took a long time to get a b/s flip and then out of nowhere did a treflip over the hip in a couple tries.

Then we went back to the ol’ research center. We gained Jake and Carleigh late in this session. Dave was ripping. He did the front board above as well as a back board 270 out that was slid so far he pivoted on the stair. That was nuts. Neil had front tails, front lips, crook shoves. Blake had front 50 shove. Rob had some steezy front noseslides and much more. I was feeling the best I’ve felt in a long time and decided to take advantage of that with flip tricks. So I kinda just stayed to myself and tried flip tricks down the mellow hill. It ended up being the funnest I’ve had in so long on my board. It took awhile to get heelflips going, but I eventually got a first run of kickflip, heelflip, treflip, b/s flip. Bailed a fakie flip after that? Argh. Ha. Then I had another one that was something like fakie flip, fakie big flip, pop shove, varial flip, kickflip, heelflip, landed on treflip but fell. I was so stoked. The varial flip felt extra fun. I just kept skating flat and it was a blast. I got a couple more 5+ trick lines with more treflips, fakie varial flips, halfcab flips, etc. Man it was fun. Oh little 8″ board I will never betray you again. I eventually skated the ledge with everyone again. Got some crooks. Couldn’t back 50 so I did a slow kick back 50 instead. Pretty tall ledge for me to try that. The session had cooled down quite a bit by then. Jake was doing crooks, Carleigh noseslides. We left, then had a super fun night hanging out.

Awesome people.

This was one of those days with lots of phone calls to start the saturday. Chad, Blaine, Will, Rob, Neil met at my house. We went by Boulder park where we picked up Lazer and Carleigh. First spot was called out as a school by Jack’s house that’s got some weird line options up/around/over 3 stairs. Everyone was kinda warming up. Lazer was dressed up for halloween as a log lady. He looked pretty funny wearing a skirt doing tricks on the ledge. There is a weird ledge there. Neil and I had warm up runs of boardslide, kickflip on flat, ollie the 3. Lazer back 180’d it all good. Chad ollied up the 3 and ollied the ledge to drop, but didn’t find anything film worthy. He disappeared for awhile. Will was killing front boards. Everyone else got in a wallride session. Rob did some crazy ones. I tried a line for way too long of noseslide to fakie, f/s halfcab flip on flat then ollie the 3. After that we went in search of Blaine and Chad.

We found them around the corner. We watched Chad try this crazy quick up gap to rock a bunch, but he never rode away. Doh. Then we went to the research center ledge. Well, Blaine, Will, Chad and I did. Everyone else went to the Boulder park. I was feeling pretty frustrated at this point. My legs weren’t behaving too well. I wanted to give up on the gluten-free diet as it wasn’t working. Or so I thought. Will got a cool line. Fun dude to skate with. Chad and I tried some downhill flatground lines. I struggled with kickflips. Can’t do much of a line if you can’t land the first trick. Chad almost got a super sick line, but touched on a fakie 5-0. Doh. I managed to get crooks and back 50. That’s about it. Doh.

On a super nice day I snuck out at lunch to hit the little park by IBM with Fullertron. We started out skating like 40+ year olds. Ugh. Oh I was on a new 8″ Little Dude board since I had cracked my tank of an 8.25 last night. I can’t say the 8″ felt amazing and it was actually kind of weird for ollies, but for flippers it was way funner. We mostly skated the bank shown above with some other stuff mixed in. I had to be back at work within an hour so we didn’t have much time. Fuller did switch shoves both ways on the bank, cab, fakie shoves, etc. Almost boardslide shove on the flatbar. I got fakie varial flip on the bank and kickflip to fakie as well as b/s flip. I really struggled ollieing the little flat bar. In fact I landed so bad I probably should have snapped the tail off. My legs were feeling very heavy. I don’t get it. Neither of us skated great, but it was nice to get out in the nice warm sunny weather. Dave ended the session with a fakie flip (above).

Man this spot ruled.

I’ve wanted to skate the post office by my house for about 10 years now and I decided this night was the night to make it happen. Rather then start right at the post office though I cruised across the street for a bit to get warmed up. I was feeling pretty rusty and ended up at this odd configuration of stairs. Going up them was really hard for me. There is not much runway and a slight uphill between the 2 and 1. I finally started getting up the two with enough speed to get up the one as well and first try got front 180 down a 3 stair in the background of the photo. It’s actually a pretty good 3 so a pretty fun run. I was breathing like crazy from jumping so much, but wanted to also do back 180 down the stairs. I got close, but ended up giving up.

Then I went back to the post office. It was quite a bit harder then I figured it would be. The goal was to do a trick into the handicap ramp then a trick on the bench. Well the ramp was way narrower then I thought and the bench comes up real quick with a nasty crack right in front of it. I did eventually get a couple kickflips into the bank with jibby front boards on the end of the bench. No front 50s like I wanted, but I think it would just stick anyway. I also had a line of switch front 180 into the ramp, ollie a little curb gap then a horrible ollie on this weird little hip. My legs were feeling weird. They had energy, but they were heavy. I think it’s pretty clear that the gluten free diet is having a positive effect on my arthritis/muscle pains. Hopefully it will keep getting even better. My board was finally starting to really bum me out. 8.25s are not the size for me. I added pop shove, nollie and halfcab into the ramp before moving on to skate flat in the lot next to the post office.

I tried a front lip on a parking block first though and crack! I was happier then a pig in mud! Going back to 8 inch!

I so much wish I could have gone to Slappy Seconds. Kevin Marks has a cool blog about the day at least. Click here to see it.

So many rippers up in Fort Collins.

I didn’t think I’d skate at all in Wisconsin, but Steve and I ended up heading to the little Wauanakee park. I didn’t have my board so we took turns with his. An old Null palm tree deck. 7 7/8. He had tight Tracker trucks on there and some 95a Pigs that were pretty big. I didn’t have my skate shoes either, but I took some Emerica Laced shoes that I have given my brother. They skated great so I took them back for good. Ha. Anyways, the photos pretty much show it all. We weren’t there for too long, it was really cold. Seeing my brother skate was awesome. The boneless really surprised me, he did it first try and many more tries. The only trick he did that I didn’t get a photo of was a rock ‘n roll on the halfpipe. This park is actually really fun. A good bank, good flat bar, good ledge and a good miniramp. I had fun and was just stoked to skate. I didn’t let the change in setup mess with me too much and I didn’t try to do a whole lot. I was happy to get a few b/s flips on the bank and a kickflip to fakie. Also a boneless or two, front d in the halfpipe, front 50 on the ledge, noseslides, etc. Doing a trick on the halfpipe then coming out and boardsliding the flat bar was fun too.

After brunch with my mom and Liz I got out for a bit to skate flat in front of the house. The snow had melted, the sun was out and it was quite nice out. I didn’t feel so good initially. This switch to no gluten has made me feel weird. Not much (if any) muscle pain, but I still feel kind of heavy and slow. The first few kickflips weren’t easy, but I got to a point when things started to feel ok. Halfcab flips and treflip had gone down. Jake was biking by and went to grab his board. He got back and we had a cute nooner flat ground session. Both of us seemed to be having fun. I came close to nollie tres and put down a few tres. At the end Jake got a line of fs flip, fakie flip and fs hc big spin. Also a halfcab flip. I got a line that hyped me up. Halfcab flip, treflip then heelflip. Hyped! The treflip felt great. It was like I should have fallen, but for some reason instead I rode away fine. Then it was off to the airport to Wisconsin with my mom.