After a lazy snowy saturday I went out to Rampy to break a bunch of new stuff in. I had liked my “test” big board enough that I wanted to keep with it. Which meant I wanted to get off those Ace trucks as quickly as possible. Thanks to Emage for having Venture Wides in stock. Another 8.4 board (I can’t do 8.25 with the big trucks because I hate seeing the wheels past the board), new Venture wides, same 51mm STFs I had with my last setup. I also put in the original thick insoles that come with the Stratfords to try and help soreness. I skated in them, but decided after they are too thick.

Ok eh, enough talking about my setup and on to the show. I mean the bad skating. I was really tired. Probably still from the marathon old man/lady night. Anyways the board felt good on Rampy. I like how Ventures turn so much more the Ace. I didn’t do anything new on trannie, but I had some alright runs. Did a few tiny f/s ollies. Flatground went pretty good. Took a bit for kickflips, but most of the awkwardness I felt was due to the thick insoles, not the setup. I did manage f/s and b/s flips first try which really surprised me. Got a couple 3 flips and hucked a few tricks. Then went in and watched MIB 2 with the kids and ate tons of popcorn. Man I love popcorn.

Today was over 30 day at Launch. I had the early shift from work and got out at 3:30. I had some boards to bring MRKT so I figured I’d be going up solo early and skating Fossil Creek on the way. Miraculously through ghat and texting a full car was established and we were meeting at SOL. Carleigh was super late (ha joking) so we started skating the curbs in front of the recently closed down 7-11 next to SOL while we waited. We ended up doing this for awhile. Carleigh front boarded the “hubba”. Fuzz and I got boardslides from the narrow top part. Dave boardslid and 50’d it. “It” being the “Hubba”. Hubba hubba. We had fun calling it a hubba even though it’s just a parking block off a curb. Kickflips up the curb felt great. Some slappy crooks did too. Rob was back! He was ripping all kinds of steezy pivots and stalls on the curb.

Then we drove to Fort Collins and stopped at Fossil Creek. I wasn’t sure how the rest of the crew would like this park, but man, everyone had a blast (except me at times ha). Right out of the gate I saw Carleigh noseslide a ledge down a curb. Rob got a second try kickflip. Dave front 50’d the ledge off the 3 stair. Then did it with a cool grab/plant out. Lots of manuals were done on the curb section. Fuzz manualled the curb then came around and ollied up the 3 stair to manual. Dave tried a nose manual and fell. Fuzz said “I’m in on trying that one with you” and did it first try. Not sure why Dave didn’t focus his board. Ha. Carleigh wallied up the 3 stair high ledge. Dave, Rob and Fuzz skated the ledge down below for awhile. It was during this time I got really frustrated. I struggled with everything. Tried a line of noseslide the ledge off the 3, ollie up the curb, ride off it, ollie up the 3 stair tall ledge, kickflip off the 3 stair. Came close, but no cigar. Front shoves were giving me problems. I started trying to start the line with either front shove or kickflip down the 3 and could not land either. I was fully committing and my food was sliding off the grip or something in the landing. It was weird. Then came a really good feeling kickflip down the 3 followed by a commit down the 6 stair (that I splatted on, but was still hyped I actually tried) and I felt better. I should realize that my setup is very different then it’s been in awhile so there is going to be frustrations. Plus the grip is two year old Jessup. Anyways, everyone was back up top now. Carleigh was doing wallie after wallie mixed it with a slam or two. Alfred the Fossil Creek local was there ripping. Fuzz got front 50 and front smith on the 3stair tall ledge. That front smith! Wow. I got a front 50 on it and have to admit the stability of the bigger board made it seem more doable. Dave had some rad runs like no comply or ollie up the 3 stair, shove on flat, layback boardslide the 9 stair hubba. So good! He also had a bunch of various street plantish tricks off the 3 stair ledge. So good. Since this journal is all about me me me, I will finish this section with a few more tricks that I did. (It’s only because I don’t remember what else everyone was doing). I got a front 50 shove off the ledge that goes off the curb. Kickflip up the curb, b/s flip off. Alfred did a treflip off the 3 stair ledge and I got his back with kickflip up the curb, treflip off the curb. So hyped on that! Then we left. Ate food. Missed MRKT being open and went to Launch.

Launch was surprisingly mellow. Chase was there, Wade, Squeeks and an assortment of Fort heads. All ripping. You can tell Squeeks isn’t 30 yet because his runs are really long. Ha. I was so insanely sore at this point I could barely walk up the quarterpipe. It took awhile to get moving. Then I went on the ramp and quickly realized I didn’t have the energy to skate the ramp. So I mostly just skated the bank to curb. Dave joined me for awhile. Carleigh was on the ramp the whole time. I didn’t see much until the end when she was trying back disasters over and over and taking the term “disaster” to heart. Ouch. Rob bowed out early. Fuzz was having a heart palpitation and it got scary at times. Argh. So not much skating for him. There was another dude skating the bank to curb area. He did tricks switch and regular, rode his board backwards half the time. I didn’t understand which way he skated. I struggled with a few lines, but got them. Front d on the qp, b/s flip on the bank. Front tail on the qp (took way, way too long and I almost took out Fuzz’s ankle on a bail) then kickflip to fakie. Back slash to fakie then fakie flip. I also got a halfcab flip on the bank. Dave would have six trick lines on the bank and qp. Some of my favorites were the blunt grab in, blunt to plant in (there must be a better name then this), back tail, back tail to fakie, fakie tail stall shove out. He didn’t quite get a f/s halfcab nosebash. My last trick was a kick back smith stall on the parking block. Hyped. Was going for axle stall, but I’ll take it! Super fun day minus Fuzz’s heart issues.

I’ve been away from home in the evening too much lately. After bringing stuff to Meta I only had about 20 minutes to skate and I randomly chose the area behind Ihop. It ended up being pretty fun even though my legs were so sore (not from skating, but from insole issues I think). I started with some really bad ollies, and then had some not as bad ollies. I still am not decided on the big setup, but I do like how it fits me for the basics. I ollied in/out of some curb cuts, over some curbs, did a couple flip tricks. Cursed at the Ace trucks. Tried to ollie a curb then up the loading dock, but that was too quick for me. Went home and the kids were busy with homework anyway. Doh.

I just started getting into this band and they have a lot of potential for me so I was hyped for this show. On top of that I won free tickets through the Larimer Lounge email list. Cool! Zach and Fuzz joined and we got there near the end of the Disco Doom set. Doh, they sounded like they might be pretty good. The next band was AAN. I have nothing good to say about them other then the singer had a decent voice. Creative Adult played relatively early on a very uncrowded Tuesday night. They killed it! Sonically they were amazing. The songs sounded perfect and they rattled off songs quickly. Visually there wasn’t a whole lot to look at for such a heavy band, but whatevs, they played great.

Lastly, Fuzz poured an entire beer on my shoe. Just because they are corporate scum shoes. What a jerk.

On a cloudy, cold and windy day I headed to Crisis to sell some goods then go see Creative Adult. I left early in hopes of skating the Safeway ledges for awhile. My legs have been having some weird pain lately. I think it’s due to insoles/orthotics. Anyways I struggled on the big board, but I mostly blame the weather and my body. I came close to a line of halfcab flip, front tail, 360 flip, but basically ended up struggling on halfcab flip too much. Argh. Had a line of crook jib, front 50, noseslide. Struggled with back 50 for some dumb reason. Maybe it’s the Ace trucks? I don’t like them. Managed a slow kick back 50 though. That trick was a test to see if I would even consider the bigger setup again. Gotta admit I really like how it looks/feels when cruising. We’ll see if I can get some flippers down. I posed a lot of flippers and most felt similar. There was a surprise first try f/s flip in there though and a really bad 360 flip.

Max skates so much it’s ridiculous. And it shows. Buy the DVD if you haven’t already!

Everyone here knows I’m constantly obsessing about something in my setup that I can blame for not landing tricks. Lately the obsession hasn’t been an excuse, but more of an observation. Watching my 360 flip to fakie in Fullers video I couldn’t help but notice that my foot looks like it wants more board to dig into. Then it was seeing this wallie that Neil grammed and my trucks look so small compared to my feet. But rather then run to the store and waste money as I have in the past I grabbed an old setup (with Ace trucks instead of Thunders) and went in front of the house to see if I could flip it. The point is to skate this board for a week and if I like it still I can get Venture wides and maybe setup a new board that hasn’t been sitting around for over a year. Oh, and per my last post I had no desire to even put those Lakais on again. Instead I went with a pair of the Stratfords I had initially wanted to keep as chill/tennis/comfy shoes. Those shoes are so good. Grip better, feel the board better, are actually comfy, etc. Argh. Anyways, I had woke up with a really stiff and painful neck and didn’t have much intention of actually skating. But I am too stubborn not to. Kickflips felt great. I did a few more flippers and even landed on a 3 flip before deciding I was content with the setup and set off for Denver to hit 303 and maybe skate a little with Chad. After 303 I met Chad at his house and we skated over to the trio of sick spots within throwing distance from his place. We started with the 3 up 3 down. But I didn’t have that much energy. We dorked around on the parking blocks behind the building for awhile. I got a slappy crooks and Chad did slappy front slash. Next we went to the 2 up 4 down area and just kinda messed around. Chad manualed around it. I almost no complied up the 2. Then I tried to front board this little ledge, hung up and slammed hard, somehow not hurting my neck. I felt pretty sick after that so we called it a day. Chad rules.

Woke up motivated to skate after seeing Jack’s video the night before. Motivated to film too. Neil was in. Blake and Ollie joined. But first I skated flatground in front of my house. Started off slow, but got to the point where I was trying treflips. Then we went to campus and started at the stone manny pad spot before I quickly went around the corner to this and had Ollie film me practice some break dance manuevers. Ok I did a few early grab cali grinds off it. Believe it that was a trick on my list. Blake ollied off the dock into the little bank.

Then we went to head into campus and ended up stopping at this spot. Neil did a kickflip into it, Ollie manualled the sidewalk, Blake ollied the rock into the path and I tried for a long time to do front tail 270 shove out on the rock and land into the path. I got really close and giving up on it was really frustrating. Next I battled a stupid b/s ollie onto a stair and then ollied a somewhat long 4 stair which felt good to land. Then we went to go to the car to get water and put away my camera bag, but by the time we got there it was snowing super hard. Ugh.

We dropped off Ollie then went to this spot. It was a short drive. When we got out of the car I was so sore I could not believe it. So insanely sore. Before moving the bike rack we all skated it where we ollied up the two stair then ollie the gap off it. I had a run with kickflip a manhole to start. Then we put the bike rack up. I tried the same line as Neil, but a bailed attempt over hurt way too much and I lost motivation. I did get a similar line with a kickfilp off the side by the 2 stair instead.

We moved the bike rack to try and boardslide the end of it. I couldn’t commit, but Neil did.

I forced the legs to keep working and took way too many tries to do this wallie. Then we went to the little DIY spot on Moorhead. Neil and I were so sore. I forced my legs to try and work. Did a couple crappy lines, hit a lot of rocks. Blake back 5-0d the box that was setup kind of over a gap of gravel mess. He almost crooked it too. I struggled so hard at front 50s, but made myself keep skating. Ended up getting front 50, front 50 180 out, front 50 shove and a front 5-0 that didn’t quite go the distance. Have I mentioned how much I hate my shoes? Probably not even going to put them on again.

Got out of work on a pretty nice friday afternoon and met up with others at Rock Creek. Neil and I arrived at the same time. We took a few runs on the ramp to get the legs going which was fun. Then Blake showed and after a little more ramp skating we played a game of SKATE. I wasn’t landing much and Neil ended up winning. He got me with fakie f/s bigspin, 43 shifty, a couple others and halfcab one foot was the last trick. I was close. Then Jack and Carleigh arrived and we skated the ramp some more which was fun. Neil and Blake mostly chilled. Carleigh was landing lots of front d’s and got a line with a back d in it too. Hell yeah Carleigh! I had quite a few tricks for me. I did some tiny fs ollies and maybe my first real fs smith grind. Jack said it was a real one so it counts! Then we skated flat again. Everyone working on their own tricks. Blake has heelflips good and got one. Maybe a back heel too. Neil kind of got bs flip and maybe a heelflip. Carleigh battled heelflip for awhile, but stomped a mean one. Also came close to clean b/s flips. I got a lot of my tricks. B/s flip, fakie bigflip, a not so good treflip and ended with a nollie tre that resembled my Off The Couch nollie tre with some toe drag and phone calls from Busenitz. Then it was off to Crisis for the premiere of Dork Vid #1 and Parque 2. So much fun. Jack, it’s an honor to be in your video. You are the best.

Plans didn’t work out earlier in the day so after some basketball with Ollie and then dinner I set out for Louisville park. I had changed out insoles from the Remind ones to my old carbon fiber orthotics hoping that it would help with leg pain. The board feel is no where near as good, but I wanted to see if they helped with the pain. It was apparently from the first push that my old insoles were better for my legs. Wow. The lack of board feel was hard to adjust to initially, but I felt like I was rehabing my legs so I was hyped. Since no one else was there I cruised around for awhile doing nothing but carves and cali grinds. It was fun. Then I settled into a line that took me at least an hour to get. It kind of varied initially with cali front 50 or reguular front 50 or front 5-0 on the ledge in the background, kickflip on flat, roll into the qp by the flat bar, kickflip to fakie over the slight hip in the banks (where the coping ends on the right). The roll in stoked me out, but the kickflip took forever. On the way back I would do crooks or try back 50s, some other stuff. Landed a back 5-0 that was supposed to be a 50. I’ll take it! I eventually got the line. Front 50 front 180 out, halfcab flip on flat, roll in, kickflip to fakie over the slight hip. It felt super good. I was most hyped because I did a ton of front 50s on the ledge. Lately that much jumping would have wrecked me. I dorked around a little after that then took too many tries to noseslide the hubba and called it a night.