Took like 5 runs on Rampy and did two kickflips. Off to Portland tomorrow!
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
It was rather nice out after work. I stopped by research center on the way and was hyped to see some dry. I started at the top dorking around down the stairs. Tried a line of ollie the snow pile then front 180 into the first stair and ride switch down them. Only managed a stair or two switch. It was scary. And as you can see I had trouble ollie’ing that little snow pile. In my defense there was very little runway and very many cracks. After that I did front 180 the snow pile, switch front 180 onto the first step, ride down them and back 180 off the last one. It took a long time, but it was indeed fun.
Then I hit the downhill sidewalk for awhile. Failed back 180s over a tiny snow pile for awhile. Did them in lines with a couple basic flippers. Then tried hard to ollie the smallest part of this snow gap. Snow gaps are one of my favorite parts of winter skating. Wait, the only part I like. Anyways, I tried to go big over the big part of the pile, but that wasn’t a reality. I managed the little part after several tries. Then I did a fun line of ollie up the curb (over a snow pile), kickflip on flat, ollie the gap. I went home.
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
Went out to Rampy and skated kinda hard for once. Kept trying to avoid back to back setup tricks. So hard. Had better boardslides to fakie then normal. Which isn’t saying much considering how narrow Rampy is. Failed on bean and texas plants. Did a few flippers on flat. Slammed pretty hard on a fakie front smith to fakie. Called it a night.
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
It was snowing really hard and cold. Didn’t feel much like skating so all I did was try to manual the hallway in my house a few times. It was harder then I had hoped.
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
Lost the first journal entry I posted due to a bug in how Instagram embeds text with emojis init. Ugh. I hate retyping stuff. Anyways, I woke up motivated to skate, but it was snowing which is always a bummer. I went to Red Curbs before noon. I skated solo for awhile. Mostly just doing basics and warming up. Blake joined after awhile. We mostly tried lines between the 2 red curbs and two stair ledge. I think I had a line of crooks the two stair ledge, boardslide, slappy crooks. Maybe something like slappy tail, front 50, slow front noseslide. I couldn’t do front lipslide to save my life. Ugh. Blake is getting super good and put together some long back 5-0s and boardslides. I tried kickflip noseslides for awhile. Got remotely close. Then we mostly skated the two stair ledge. Blake front 50’d it good. I tried to go over the 2 stair part to back 50, but couldn’t commit. It’s such a short ledge it’s kind of freaky. I managed a couple really bad back 50s where I came in at a right angle going really slow at least. We skated flatground a bit too. Blake had a kickflip and heelflip over a puddle and a nice inward heel on flat. I had a few first try tricks that cheered me up a little. Halfcab flip, heelflip, nollie tre (yeah!), f/s halfcab flip, varial flip, fakie flip. Back on the ledge Blake had a few good front smiths then ended with a banger of a front nosegrind. I kept skating for awhile. Mainly the manual pad. Took awhile to get a regular manual which was frustrating. Then tried the harder way with shove out and got kind of close. Battled nose manual shoves for a long time and eventually got one. Kinda hyped on that. Landed a treflip and cracked my board a little on another one. Struggled with fakie 50s until the snow became too much (see clip above).
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
After skating 4 hours the night before on top of skating 50 days in a row my body was understandably sore. I knew I would haven’t much pop and didn’t feel like bailing tricks I should be able to land. After a few 180s, kickflilps and a few other basics I settled in on some very rare flippers. b/s halfcab heel, f/s halfcab heel, varial heel, nollie flip, switch flip, nollie 360 flip, 360 flip (yes I suck so bad at this trick I now categorize it as a rare trick) I landed on all of those, but never rode away from any. Well, I guess there was a couple nollie tres that could maybe count on over 80 defense and a varial heel that I landed on too. As depressing as this sounds I still had fun. Hucking tricks I can’t land is somehow fun to me. I do wish 360 flips weren’t such a struggle though. Oh yeah, I started a new pair of NB+ Stratfords. Only two left in the stockpile!
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
Such a nice day out! Got out of work at 3:15 and headed up to Fort Collins. Stopped at my Dad’s grave on the way. Went to Fossil Creek first. I love that park. When I got there there was just a couple other people sitting up top. I just skated the ledges on the bottom. I was feeling pretty arthritic. Mostly likely due to the huge weather changes coming (snow ugh) and skating every single day. I had a new board with awesome Ollie artwork after breaking mine yesterday. I warmed up with back 50s on the curb. Started trying lines with back 50 then crooks. Never got a regular crooks pop out. Kept landing on it, but not riding away. It was weird. I got a couple that fell off to fakie. Did front 50 shove. Chadman showed up! So stoked to see him. He is one of the best dudes out. I tried to back 50 the square ledge in the middle of the park and finally did it slowly. Chad did it super fast of course. He also started with a good line of switch front 180 onto the ledge, front smith the ledge up top then nollie shove off the curb. I was trying crooks shove one way and a line the other way. Out of nowhere I did a great feeling crooks shove. I think I’ve done that trick before, but I don’t even know. Either way it made my session go from fun to insanely fun. On top of that I got my f/s line next try. Ollie up the ledge, front 50 the upper ledge, kickflip off the curb (didn’t have to push in between any of those) then noseslide the ledge off the 3 stair. I was hyped! Chadman was killing it. Really good nollie flips, long fakie nosegrinds to shove out. Long manuals and nose manuals going fast. At the end we went up top and messed around for a couple minutes. I failed to ollie the ledge off the 3 stair. Chad came super close to drop down nose manual shove up the curb. So crazy.
Then we ate Chipotle and went to MRKT. Then I went to Launch for “Over 30 Night”. To my surprise it was a mellow one with only a few people there. One of which was Nolan totally ripping. He’s only 25, but is one of those dudes that fits in with a mellow old man session or a heated young kids session. He can do it all. Like front tails across the whole ramp to forward or fakie, huge f/s ollies, hurricanes, sugarcanes, tricks I don’t know the name of and the stuff you see above. At least the f/s invert took awhile. I didn’t skate great. I think I was feeling the Rampy effect and skating a lot already. I got a few squeeker front smiths, little b/s slashes to fakie, front disasters, but wasn’t flowing too well. Played a game of SKATE with Andy and John that was pretty fun. It was right after John got there so he wasn’t warmed up and went out quick. Andy was trying some real tricks like hardflip, varial heel. He got me with 3 shove and fakie 3 shove. I got him with lame tricks on him like varial flip and fakie varial flip. Somehow had an ok b/s flip and a good feeling heelflip. Fun evening of skating!
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
It was warm out and lots of snow had melted. I stopped by the research center on the way home from work because it has lots of open newish asphalt. Flatground went ok. Still struggling with halfcab flips and treflips. I tried to manual this curb and stuff too. It was pretty early on and I was trying a run where I ollied a little puddle then quickly ollied up the curb, pushed a couple times and ollied this puddle. I’m not sure how, but I landed really far back on the tail and cracked my board more. Doh. Had some heelflips, landed on a switch flip, but couldn’t get it. Switch flips are such a tease. As soon as I think I might land it I can’t get close anymore. I tried the gap again and cracked my tail even more. What the heck. This gap is tiny, but the bigger setup made me feel like I should do it easy. I have no idea how I was landing so bad. So then I resorted to trying nollie tres (landed a couple really bad ones) and then went for a 3 flip and cracked the board beyond skate condition. Doh.
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
Shortly after getting home from work I went out to Rampy with one purpose, to learn Texas Plants. I started with the tail grab bomb drop into the ramp. Got comfy with that then started hucking. To my surprise the board started coming up to my front hand. Josh was right with the tip to put the front foot back a little. A few tries later I landed one. Then another, And many more. They got better as I went. I was about as excited and happy as I’ve ever been skateboarding. I never thought in a million years I would land this trick. Thanks for getting me to try it Josh!
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
Went out to Rampy with Ollie after dinner on a snowy night. I had to clean up the mess of truck parts. While I did that Ollie just pumped back and forth for literally 5 minutes. Ha. I was kind of in learn Texas Plants mode since I have to now:
Did a few other basics, but mostly hucked Texas Plants. Couldn’t get close. Ollie and I let our boards drop in then jump on them when they came back. I figured that’s a start on jumping into tranny. Then Ollie put this box in the middle of the ramp and we skated around it. It was easier then I thought actually. Ollie ran into it once though which was really funny. Then I started trying to cheat the last part of a Texas Plant by holding on to the tail and setting the board on the ramp and going in. Setting the board fully in without jumping in was pretty easy. Jumping in though, scary. I kind of did it, but probably had my front foot on tranny before “jumping” with my back foot. Oh well, fun, short night and stoked that Ollie skated.
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)