It was so nice out. I normally go to the gym around 10am at work for about 45 minutes, but it was just too nice out. I went to the nearby “rollerblade park” and skated for about 45 minutes. It was hot out. I had a new board after my idiocy last night. 8.1 this time. Felt good. I kept it pretty mellow. Mostly just skated slow trying flip tricks and the occasional ledge trick. At one point I had a halfcab flip, 360 flip (over 40 make) and then a nollie 360 flip (over 80 make). Ha. Was hyped. Was really missing vulc shoes though. They are just so much better for skating. Gotta do this instead of the gym more often, it was quite fun.

After work, a nap, laundry, I went to Crisis to meet up with our old guy crew for Denver Tuesdays. I was first so Fuzz and I sat and watched a video while disagreeing over everything except how rad Ty Bealls part is in the A-Street video. Ha. Dave and Rob showed and we drove to Cherry Creek to a parking garage called “Cherry Curbs”. Money. And it exceeded all expectations. We mostly skated this crazy manny pad with all kinds of weird angles that you can go into/out of grinds. I was the last on the manual to front 50 train. Actually, I’m not sure if I even did it without tilting. Rob did it with no comply and one foot as well. Fuzz got tech with heelflips up, switch back 180s, noseslides pop ups. Dave did front 5-0 to nose manual and manual body varial. Rob had such a steezy nose manual front 180 out. I was trying a quick foot combo of manual then nose manual to grind. Unfortunately we got the boot. At least we got awhile on it.

@corpoglenny

A photo posted by Rob Helmstetter (@43shifty) on Oct 10, 2014 at 9:41pm PDT

After some spot lurking we ended up here for a fun brief session under Fuzz’s headlights. Well, Fuzz’s truck’s headlights. Fuzz and Dave did some soft rocks/pivots. I did the standard kickflip to fakie and fakie flip. Then we all did early grabs off it and Fuzz and I did bonelesses.

Epic skate night. Old dudes skating past last call. Work is gonna suck in a few hours. @crisis_skateboards @43shifty @fullertrron

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Oct 10, 2014 at 1:42am PDT

Then we ended up at this gem of a spot. It had this little slappy ledge, then a short long ledge after, then down the street a little another ledge with a gnar option. Dave did some ultra smooth switch slappies. Rob had slappy then nollie lipslide. I had slappy, bad crooks, then almost boardslide on the further ledge. Fuzz almost got to the gnar option with a front 50, but we got kicked out. Doh.

We ended up at the newish college spot downtown with the long marble manny pads. Everyone got manuals except me (nothing new there). It seemed like really fun place to skate. As I was just getting warmed up again it started raining.

A photo posted by Rob Helmstetter (@43shifty) on Oct 10, 2014 at 12:09am PDT

So we went to the RTD garage. Fuzz and I didn’t think we would skate at all, but I guess Rob and Dave were shredding hard enough to get us off our tired butts. Rob was seriously ripping. Manuals at high speed, nose mannies, lots of energy hopping up/off the ledges. Back 50 around the corner to shove out. Whoa! Fuzz was on the high speed tip too with a long manual that opened a little emergency phone case. Pretty funny. He also had good fakie 50s with and without halfcabs out. I just did crooks. But I did a lot of them. Some long ones on the main ledge and a few through the corner which felt really neat. As usual Dave was the last man standing. He did all kinds of moves. Front 5-0 through the corner, boardslide to fakie then switch front noseslide. Front board to fakie. Crooks and ended it with a really good switch crooks.

Got home around 2:30 am stoked and feeling very alive. Thanks for the good time dudes.

Jake came over to my house and we left to bring India to ballet, then met up with Rob and Matt at Meta. Well, we parked on top of a hill and foot dragged our way down it as it was faster then either of us thought. My trucks felt incredibly loose and everything immediately felt off. We left Meta and Jake lead the charge to Wells Fargo. On the way there I bailed several ollies over cracks and even Matt bailed ollie’ing up a curb. Not a good sign. I did have one front tail on a parking block that was maybe my favorite thing I did all night. We went down to the red ledge where we got the boot before I landed a back 50, but after Matt had done front 50, back 50 and back 5-0. Jake got into front tail and Rob was in crooks. We pushed off, ended at the parking garage with the white ledge. Rob wanted to wallride the wall and as Jake predicted the parking attendant went nuts. I still did a back 50 on the white ledge. Ok actually that was the funnest thing I did all night. Then we headed towards a ledge spot, but were pleasantly surprised to find many new ledges that had just been put in. We quickly destroyed them as multiple concerned citizens would imply. But the reality is we put a few minor marks on some polished stones that aren’t gonna be destroyed by skateboarding you clueless idiots. I was happy to land a front noseslide to forward. Rob had a nice boardslide. Jake got into front tails. Matt started skating a curb cut all fast and blasting ollies. It was sick. Rob was in too popping all steezy. Jake joined with front 180 over a brick flat gap then f/s cab off the curb cut. Never quite got the curb cut, but got close. I was trying switch front 180 the brick flat gap then backside flip off the curb cut. At first it was possible then I forgot how to push switch and kept bailing while pushing. I snapped. So did my board. I felt like an idiot. I am. Will and Bob had joined us. Those kids rip. Then it was mostly wallrides for awhile on some barriers. Rob almost did wallride push. Bob did no comply jam over a barrier. Matt mostly did flip tricks and had a treflip ratio that more resembled my stats instead of his. Jake darn near boardslid the top of a jersey barrier. Street skating is hard.

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Extras in a hip hop video. Just a typical Saturday for us old dudes.

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Rob, Dave, Simon and I went to this DIY spot in Denver. We had skated for awhile and were getting warmed up when some dudes came over and asked if we could skate in their video they were filming on the other side of the slab. Heck yeah! Ha. We skated in front of them while the remote controlled helicopter cam filmed us rolling by. It was funny. I had a good slam on a kickflip that I exaggerated and got some laughs. We skated a little wallride for a bit. Everyone got it but me. Rob hit a rock right before it though and slammed his shoulder bad. Doh. Back to the main area. Dave was doing cool no complies over a weird block. I got one on the side. Simon ollied it, nose bonked it, no complied it and did all the same (except the no comply) off the drop. Rob did his first no comply manual back 180 out. He would later get his second. Dave had a sick feeble transfer, front 5-0s on a curb, feeble fakie, switch 50. Simon rips. Manual pop shove out, switch manuals, manual front 180 then switch blunt the qp. Much more. I had a fun flip trick session on the tiny manny pad. Kickflip up, var flip down. Fakie bigspin up, horrible front shove off. Couldn’t get b/s flip or treflip off. Had a really fun front board revert transfer.

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#fullertron style for days

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After quite a bit of driving we ended up here. I was fine with not skating it, but Fuller started ripping immediately with a nice boardslide. He added back tail, tail block and a few others. I took awhile to get a front tail. Then we all got tricks back to back. Dave back tail, me front pivot, Rob back smith. Stoked!

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Fun bank spot ender for an awesome day. @43shifty @fullertrron

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Then we walked over a building to this mellow bank spot which ended up being a really fun ender. I got kickflip fakie, bigflip, f/s halfcab flip (over 40 make) and no comply shove fakie. Rob had some lofty f/s ollies, f/s flip, b/s flip, one foots, more. Dave did fakie flip, nollie 360 (seriously), and more tricks I can’t remember.

Epic day.

JP edited together some footage of us at Burnide from the epic Portrandia trip. And yeap that’s me skating a parking block.

Easily one of the best bands out. They just reissued their first album and made this amazing video for the incredible song Boring Girls. Love it.

thornton park

Had the day off work. Left my house by 9am solo looking forward to a day of no schedules or anything. Drove to this Thornton park sipping on a smoothie listening to the new J Mascis album loudly. It was awesome. Arrived at the park and there was only a couple dudes there. Had a tougher time warming up then I would have thought, but finally settled into some lines until I got them. Fakie flip on flat, tiny f/s halfcab over a hip, front slash the tight qp. Halfcab flip, kickflip over the hip, feeble stall the qp, bean plant the hip. Switch front 180 into a mellow bank, ollie up the euro, front 50 down the ledge on the back of the qp, f/s flip the hip (only landed one with my hand down). Tried to ollie the three stair then b/s flip the hip, but never got the b/s flip. Another older dude had shown up and was killing some ledges which was rad. He was rocking headphones on a solo tip. I really struggled at ollies again. Couldn’t front 50 a regular ledge to save my life. Struggled on the qp, got a front d. Rolled into the 4 foot section pretty easily.

Went to Lafayette for a short session after work. It was super nice out. When I got there Blake was there. Super hyped to see him. Matt met up too. I had new shoes. Another pair of the NB+ Startfords. They skated pretty good out of the gate. I haven’t seen Blake skate in awhile and he was ripping. Long slappy willy grind on the bank curb. You can tell he skates there a lot. Matt treflipped up the euro pretty quick. My legs were feeling beyond horrible. Basically the only thing I did the whole time that felt worth a crap was a flatground treflip slightly before Matt did a switch treflip. Matt had some good lines with like front lips on the marble flat bar, back tail the back of the toilet bowl ledge. Blake has moves. Good seeing him again.

There are multiple old man nights on Tuesday. The bowl dudes go to Lafayette. We were going to Broomfield for awhile. But Fuzz is fed up with skateparks and wanted to get a downtown Denver mission going. This is why I love Fuzz. I had to leave a little later then everyone because of India’s ballet schedule and me needing to watch Ollie. I parked for free several blocks away from Tabor where I was to meet them. I pushed pretty fast to meet them and kind of hurt my achilles. Well, not it’s above my achilles in my calf which is probably from all the exercises I have been doing to heal the achilles. Ha, it’s a never ending circle when you’re old. I had also put my smaller Venture hangers back on. They felt great. Happy to be back.

Okay so yeah, skating. When I met up with them this was happening.

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Bolts.

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Pretty darn awesome. He was telling us about how he used to go down hills while doing hand stands. We messed around a little. Ended up in a parking lot where Blaine and I dropped in on a bank for awhile trying to get up the courage to ollie in, but we didn’t. Then we hit a fun little garage with a curb cut gap in to manny pad. It was pretty fun. We were starting to get things going when we got the boot. Doh.

We remembered to hit this spot and were blown away by how amazing it is. We skated it for a long time in different waves of sessions. I was feeling like crap on my skateboard. Hurt achilles, my shoes had no board feel, etc. Rob, Darin and I skated ledges on the far side for awhile. Rob had a nice back 50 through a corner. I was really struggling. Then we skated the hill into the spot for awhile which was super fun. Powerslides, ollies, etc. Fuzz and I ollied onto a round bench in the middle. Can’t believe Max ollied the gap. Well, my ollies up were dumb. I like the Bones wheels a lot how they slide so easy. Maybe I’ll experiment with some Spitfire 4s next. Rob had a super sick manual down the sidewalk. Blaine killed some back 180s and the best no comply 180 I’ve ever seen with one foot on for like 5 feet. Fuzz missed a manual for a beer. Unbelievable. Guess he doesn’t like beer anymore. Then we skated the main ledge you see in the photo for awhile. Darin did front, back tails, 50s, looked good. Rob did nose manual front 180 out. Fuzz had some nice back 50s, fakie front 50 with pop out or halfcab out and nose mannies. Blaine darn did a nice manual. I had some of the better crooks I’ve done in awhile. Tried a line of back 50, kickflip a puddle, then crooks. Almost had it, but instead basically rolled my ankle on the crooks. Luckily my past ankle rolls have made my ankle pretty flexible and it was ok. But I am officially done with the Romeros. They are crap. Then we hit a little spot with a cali grind then quick noseslide. Fuzz and I got it. Then we did back 50 on the middle ledge. So fun. That was basically it and we walked back to our cars. Street skating is the best.

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’m super hyped that Es is back. I’m hoping they put together a small team and keep at it. Anyways I had a few pairs of these. They run big. I normally wear a size 11, I wore a size 10 in these. They are very thin vulcs, so the break in period is almost non-existent. The sole durability is average for a vulc shoe. The top is below average, if I didn’t shoe goo them they would have had a hole in a couple days. The black ones with the patent leather are a bit much, but other then that they are a good looking shoe. I wore these on a road trip and my achilles was super sore by the end from pushing. I’m old though and should probably stick with the added support of cupsoles. All in all a decent vulc shoe.

Worked all morning. Was finally free to go skate a little and it was raining. Ugh. Kicked a soccer ball with Ollie for awhile in a covered section at the school until the rain stopped. Then went to research center feeling pretty tired. Just a couple days after saying my arthritis has benefitted from my new diet it flared up something fierce. It was pretty chilly out. Hoodie weather. I am as stubborn as it gets and tried to skate through it. Had a couple fun boardslides to start the session. A noseslide or two, one to fakie. Couldn’t get halfcab noseslide, but at least I was getting some poorly popped fakie flips before hand. Crookie grinds went pretty good. Got one back 50 that was kind of an accident. I tried to bail at the last second, but it turned out I was already grinding. I took that as a sign that I did not belong on my skateboard and left very bummed. Arthritis truly sucks.