Super exhausted after skating so much all weekend. I walked up to the ATM, deposited some Null checks then skated in front of the old Savers briefly. I tried 20 switch flips and 20 switch treflips, did one slappy crook and left. The bike path home was pretty fast and fun.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones medium bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254s)

For more about the artist Frank Zirbel, click here.

After a nice hike and a nap and stuff I met Rob at the newish spot with the manual pad / 2 stair. Rob quickly determined that his leg was acting up and he wouldn’t be able to skate. Doh. I stayed around for a bit and tried to get warmed up, but it was a struggle. I started getting a few flip tricks and about 30 tries I finally manualled off the 2 then kickflipped off the last curb. Then I went to pick up Jake and we headed to campus. The engineering building had a bunch of gravel on the bank/bank spot so we moved on. We had front tail stalls off the little one ledge off the curb. Then we went to the long ledge. No cars again! I was feeling really good at this point and probably skated too hard and didn’t pace myself. I was trying lots of lines. Flippers, manuals, ledge tricks. Didn’t land much on the manny pad or ledge, but flippers went pretty good. I was 2-4 on treflips, but 0-10 on front 50 shoves. Jake and I both got a back 50 or two, noseslides, neither of us got crooks, he might have got front tail, I did a few accidental front 5-0s that should have been 50s. Then we played a game of SKATE that ended with me winning on 360 flip.

We headed to the bank to fence, but ended up stopping at this little bump into downhill sidewalk. Jake put down kickflip first try and I put down b/s flip second try. Then it was off to the races with all of our tricks. I was hyped on fakie flip really quick. It wasn’t much downhill, but it was still a bit of a challenge and super fun. Jake got kickflip, 360 flip, heelflip (first try), f/s flip, fakie flip and almost fakie treflip. I got b/s flip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, fakie bigflip, varial flip, nollie treflip, f/s halfcab flip, treflip and hucked cab flips at the end that felt remotely close at times. Such a fun session.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254)

Up early on another beautiful saturday morning. This rules. Ollie wanted to join in the old man fun as he seems to be into skating lately. The crew was Fuzz, Rob, Dave, John, Simon, Ollie and I. It took me a long time to get going. John was ripping already of course. He’s got it like that early in the mornings. Super graceful b/s ollies over the hip. A lot happened that morning and I don’t remember much somehow. That park is weird. Rob, Fuzz and I don’t get too hyped by it. Fuzz did a cool board stall 180 out on the bottom of the marble hubba. It tried to manual on it, but was too scared. Ollie was cruising around how he does. It was cool he had lots of hip tricks like halfcab, front 180, ollie and kind of f/s halfcab. It’s nice that he’s chill and doesn’t talk and demand attention like a lot of kids do. Rob manualled a long section of the park that involved going up and downhill. Fuzz and I tried to get his back. Fuzz did. I didn’t. Simon was slaying the park. He’s so good. Fuller and I finally settled in on the kicker to kicker ollie challenge. It took landing a flatground 360 flip to hype me enough to commit to the ollie and rideaway stoked, but bummed it took me so long to do it. Dave got my back. We were hyped. Dave got a feeble transfer that he’s been wanting to do forever. So sick. After awhile it was just Ollie and I. Ollie did a fakie shove from high to low near the mellow bank by the triangle flat bar. I took a long time to do a dumb line of kickflip to fakie then turn around and noseslide down the low marble hubba.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 27, 2015 at 1:11pm PDT

Then we got some food and went to this park. It might have been overkill for Ollie because he was over it after doing a few tricks. And it was pretty hot and sunny at this point. I tried hard to do some ledge stuff, but I had no pop. I had a line of wallride, axle stall, boardslide the mini bump to rail, crooks the ledge. I had some other stuff I can’t remember now. Tried to do kickflip pivot on the bank to curb for awhile an failed. Overall a fun day though and hyped that Ollie was down to skate so much.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254)

A photo posted by Rob Helmstetter (@43shifty) on Jun 26, 2015 at 4:47pm PDT

Went to Boulder ditch after work to meet Rob and Dave. I arrived first and laid back in my car for a power nap of which I was rudely awoken by Dave. Ha. D5 and Pigeonhole were there skating and it made for extra hype. This spot is a tough warm up, but it ends up working out pretty good. Dave was on fire from the start. 47 and killing it. Everyone seemed to skate pretty good and Rob skated the best I’ve seen him skate there. He had a line with f/s ollie, back smith the curb qp, sick boneless. D5 had rad alley oop rocks, rock ‘n rolls. Pigeonhole had boardslide transfers, boardslides and a big smile. I finally back 50’d the pvc. Had a fun line of front disaster the curb qp, boardslide the ledge then a kickflip. Also the front rock then b/s flip I’ve done before. And some longer boardslides on the pvc. Dave back 5-0d to back tail the whole pvs from crete to crete. Insane. He also did lipslides, front 5-0s, front tails, back disaster the curb qp, drop in on the tire, front 50 transfers on the pvc, front board transfer the pvc, much more. Happy Birthday Dave!

(setup 8.25 null venture light wides bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254s (note I was really hyped on my setup today))

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 25, 2015 at 9:03pm PDT

Ollie was sitting around playing video games yet again so I asked him if by chance he wanted to go to a skatepark. He immediately replied with sure. Whoa. So off to Lafayette we went for what I figured would be a short session. When we first got there it wasn’t crowded at all. My legs weren’t doing well. I’m not sure why. Argh. We both just kind of cruised around and did whatevs. Ollie still pushes mongo, but who cares. He cruises around pretty naturally. It’s awesome. He front 180’d off the little tight qp at the entrance of the park like 4 or 5 times. Tried to ollie up onto the manual pad and landed in rock, pulled it up with speed. Fakie shoves, back 50s in the mini pool coping in the middle of the park, close to kickflips. I tried a line for a long time of front 50 the manny pad, kickflip on flat then back 180 the tight qp at the entrance. Half the time I messed up the 50 or was cut off by masses of kids. I never got it, but landed on the back 180 a few times. Thats tall for me. Noseslid the hubba, halfcab flip on the bank, rock’n roll in the toilet bowl over some kids board. But for the most part I sucked. My best trick was the fact that we stayed there until 9. It was kind of my personal hell to skate around so many loud kids on scooters and bikes. IF Ollie wouldn’t have been there I never would have stayed.

Rob/Neil/Fuzz edit of the footage from Neil’s GoPro during his visit a couple weeks ago. Fun!

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 24, 2015 at 7:43pm PDT

Met Rob and Dave at Blue Skies on a warm afternoon right after work. My body didn’t seem to be working very well initially and I felt like it took me forever to get going. We mostly skated the bank it seemed. Rob had his groin pain going on so he wasn’t skating the same way he normally does. It was pretty cool though he was doing tricks like no comply wallies and even put one onto front 50 on the snake rail. He did b/s no comply bigspin and b/s no comply fingerflip on the bank. Dave had some pretty awesome kickflips to fakie to hands down slides that were makes. And a clean one too. We both tried switch flips too. I was nowhere near close and my switch pushes up to it were horrible. Dave got really close a few times. I was also trying noseslide front 270 shove out on the ledge and had some really close ones. I would love to learn that trick. After a good treflip night a couple nights before I was 1-20 or something like that. Ugh. Rob and Dave left and I went up to the rink to skate flat. It was sprinkling a little off and on. Almost too much to stop, but not quite. I rattled off a few basics right away and thought I was in for a good session. Alas I got to heelflip and hit a brick wall. Treflips were bad too. I hucked a lot, but rarely landed anything. I did get a line of varial flip, f/s flip, fakie treflip which sounds great on paper, but it was slow and the f/s flip was extra bad. I struggled to get a nollie tre, couldn’t do f/s halfcab heel, close to nollie f/s flip, close to nollie bigflip, not close on switch tricks. Oh well.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254s)

Was super exhausted and sore and didn’t feel much like skating. So I just pushed over to the bike path and enjoyed the quick downhill ride. It was fun and almost got me hyped enough to keep going to Wilville and keep skating. But instead I pushed switch home and called it a night.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 22, 2015 at 9:57pm PDT

After driving down from BV and some eating and resting I headed to research ledge on a beautiful evening. The first thing I did was walk up the hill and just do fakie ollies down it. So fun. Then a couple runs with different 180s. Then noseslides, crooks and horrible back 50 on the ledge. Started with some basic lines like front shove, ollie up the curb, crooks. Then the other way front 180 or switch front 180 the manhole and front board popout or switch noseslide on the ledge. Tried crooks bigspin out for awhile. Never got too close. On the way back I would try tricks like switch heel, varial heel, fakie tre. I eventually went up the hill and tried some long runs starting at the little hip thing. Got a few flippers over it, kickflip, b/s flip, varial flip, halfcab flip and fakie bigflip. No long lines though. I would try treflips on the sidewalk when I went back to the starting point and landed quite a few. Dave showed up. Then we just skated the hill for awhile and it was awesome. We didn’t have many long runs, but we did put down a lot of tricks. First and foremost Dave landed his first couple fakie flips in forever, or maybe ever. So awesome. He did a lot of nollie shoves, shoves, 180s in all directions, 360s in most directions, lots of kickflips, no comply shove, etc. I got a line of fakie flip, halfcab flip, 360 flip. Hyped. Other tricks were heelflip, fakie bigflip. Got close to varial heel on the way up and posed more switch flips. Then I kickflipped all the way down the hill. I think I did 10 in a row with only one little speed check. It was a blast! But man it really wore me out.

Then we went to the back area. I was too tired to ollie, but we did a bunch of cali grinds. I just did back 50 and back 5-0. Dave did front 50, front 5-0, front 5-0 to fakie, switch back 50 and a front 5-0 to front tail to fakie where he rode off the bottom stair. So sick. Then we went back to the ledge. I thought we would be leaving. But nope, it’s Dave so we kept on skating. He did this front board transfer up onto the ledge to fakie then turned it into front lip to front tail. Rad. So I spent the next hour trying to do a regular footed version of that which I finally did. Boardslide transfer up to fakie, turn it to switch front board then pop out to fakie. Pretty fun. I then did boardslide transfer up to fakie and a switch front 180 off the ledge. Dave did an amazing front crooks! Seriously, perfect! He did some regular crooks too. I ended with a good feeling crooks. Really fun night.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushings 51mm stfs quincy 254s)