Slightly before Ollie got really sick of me dragging him out skating once again. #over40switch @fullertrron

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jul 19, 2015 at 2:07pm PDT

Met Dave on campus on a day where Ollie didn’t want to skate much. We parked and Dave was skating this hammer spot. Ha. Trick, manual trick, wallie the curb trick. I started off really really slow and missed my first 5 kickflips. Yikes. Ollie did the wallie manual above and was pretty much over skating at that point. Dave and I tried some lines. I had two that I was really hyped on although everything else I did seemed like crap. One was ollie an orange cone, front 180 nose manual across the median, turn around, wallie the parking block, then a really fun powerslide down the hill (brand new asphalt). The other line was f/s haflcab flip, 180 nose manual, switch 180 wallie, then another fun powerslide. Dave had back 180 nose manual I think. Fast ollies up the curb with back 180 off, nollies off the curb, way better ollies over the cone then me and ended with the switch no comply. Gnar!

Then we went across the street and ended up being there awhile too. Dave was no complying from the parking block up onto the sidewalk. I was riding off the sidewalk then wallieing the parking block. They are really close together so it was kind of hard. We both tried to manual off the 3 stair, but failed. I ended up getting a line of the wallie thing, kickflip up the curb, front 180 down the 3, switch 180 off the curb. Felt cool. Ollie sat and played games on my phone.

We skated this area for awhile. Dave and I got the gap to manny (the other way from the photo) pretty quick. Dave got gap to nose manny first try which he normally works on for awhile. Sick! Ollie tried a few gap to mannies then started throwing his board around in protest that we were still skating. Dave worked on front 180 nose manuals for awhile. I got a line of kickflip off a curb, ollie up the curb (to where Dave is in the photo) then back 180 the little gap. It felt neat.

I hucked front shoves down the monstrous 3 stair for awhile and would eventually get a bad one. But I lined it out with a kickflip off the curb then a gap to manual. Dave got my back by landing the front 180 nose manual perfectly. We were both hyped. Ollie wanted to leave. Ted and a friend were skating the ledge so we went over there. Ollie was really bumming on the spot and just sat in the grass or tossed his board around bummed. Ha. I skated the ledge spot pretty bad anyway. Didn’t really do anything other then a front 5-0 when I was trying 50. Dave had some nice ride on front tails, front 50s and back noseslides. Ted got pop and flippers. Dan showed up and has so much pop it’s crazy. Good to see those dudes. I figured I better stop before I completely bummed out Ollie.

After some lunch and a run to 303 we got home. I told Ollie I was gonna try back lips at the school across the street and he actually wanted to go and skate. Whoa. I failed at back lips for awhile. For the record the asphalt there is horrible and made judging speed almost impossible. Ollie tried more front shoves, back shoves. Then did the raddest line. He did his patented board drop hop down the 2 stair, front 180’d the first stair, halfcab’d off the second, then a little gap to manual over the corner of the sidewalk. I gave up on back lips, but ollied the 5 stair which took awhile and I didn’t even land it very well. Ollie said “over 40 make”. That hyped me up. Then we went home. Oh yeah, I started skating a new pair of PJ’s that I bought forever ago. They felt great. They are the weird cream ones. It really makes me happy to buy his pro shoe. Like little kid giddy when I get a new pair. I can’t believe I questioned them. Never doubt PJ.

(setup 8.5 null, venture wide lights, thunder bushings, some old bones wheels that really small, NB+ PJ stratfords 533 cream)

Ollie and I went to Windsor park as I had some boards to deliver to MRKT and I figured this park would be fun for him. We arrived to a few people skating, but they all left right away. We were hyped. I had some fun long back 50s on the quarterpipes and did one over the channel gap thing. I had a front slash off a qp into a bank first try that made me feel pretty good and think I would have a good session. But it was all downhill from there. It started with taking about 10 tries to kickflip over the mellow hip and chickening out of rolling into the 4′ section. Ugh. On the way there I had thought of doing like 20 flippers over the hip and rolling in everywhere. I guess that’s what I get for thinking ahead. Ollie on the other hand was totally ripping. He had some back 50s on the wood qp, halfcabs both ways over the hips, 180s both ways over hips, manual the top concrete thing, rock ‘n rolls on the 4′ concrete qp, smiling, sweating and being smart enough to take breaks. I battled front 50 on the bump to ledge for like an hour. Seriously. It was beyond depressing. I would eventually get it. Luckily I am out of boards so I knew I couldn’t focus my board. I had some fun backside airs out of the little qp onto the bank, noseslide the bank to ledge and I ended by doing an axle stall on the tall cement qp. I think it’s about 7’? Yippee. We left at this point because the park was getting overrun by little kids and stuff. Kids that would circle the obstacles non-stop and not even hit anything. It was lame. After we got home I put some old smaller Bones wheels on that were in my garage. Can’t do the big wheels. I just can’t pop the tail with those things and break habits from 10 years of skating with smaller wheels.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm nulls nb+ pj stratfords usa)

Another day of working from home watching Ollie. 6pm came and I couldn’t talk him into skating. Doh. So after a really fun nerf dart gun battle I went out and skated in front of the house. Only this time I wore my old PJ shoes that hadn’t died. I’m not really sure why. I guess I don’t really like the Accel Slims all that much and I wanted to see how the PJs felt compared to them. The Es would not make it through my trip to NYC in a week and I don’t want to switch shoes mid trip. The PJs seem like they will last forever. Literally.

Ok, enough stupid talk about me obsessing over my setup and making excuses (but I am proud that I didn’t setup smaller wheels again). I started off slow as I always do, but I ended up feeling pretty good on my board. I got a lot of wheel bite as I’m not used to those bigger wheels. Did the ugliest treflip ever. Came super close to nollie flip. Got my first nollie tre in awhile. Heelflips actually left the ground. Had a great feeling f/s halfcab flip. Did a line of fakie varial flip then switch varial flip. I landed stopped on the switch one, but it still felt pretty neat. I like the NBs more then the Es.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm nulls nb+ pj stratford 533 navy/red/white)

Had from 7:30-9am to skate again so I went for it. I wasn’t as motivated as Tuesday and was pretty tired. As I’ve said a million times, I’m stubborn and I’ll try to skate regardless. I was thinking of the mellow bank above the night before, wanting to finally land a switch kickflip on it. After parking near the hill I skated there feeling ok actually and popping little ollies over cracks. I did my first no comply, alley oop nollie 270, pop shove fakie. Was starting to think it might be a good day. Then came b/s kickflip again. It took like 10 tries. WTF this is normally like rolling off a curb for me. I tried switch flips for awhile and didn’t get close at all. Got a varial flip to fakie first try, then failed at 360 flips to fakie for awhile.

Here’s where the real depression kicked in. I tried to ollie the small rock and couldn’t get close. In fact I could barely pose an ollie over it. I tried for awhile and gave up feeling totally defeated, questioning my bigger setup and skateboarding in general.

Then I saw this weird thing. Someone good could do a cool line of ollie onto the bench then a trick over the pole. Riley, I’m looking your way. I thought I could ollie out to it, but my confidence was at an all time low and I couldn’t even go to front axle stall. So I figured lining it out might help. I tried some f/s halfcab flips on the brick in the parking lot next to it and failed miserably. After awhile I figured out it was the bricks doing it and moved to the regular asphalt and got a couple. The first one was ok, but when I came down to the sidewalk there was a golf cart style vehicle in the way. Ugh. The next one I landed was almost primo and somehow fell onto the wheels. I took it. Then I did the sketchiest ollie up a tiny curb ever and headed to the curved bench. I was just gonna do 50, but it ended up not feeling bad and with a little grindage on the back truck I made it up, took a quick push and front 180’d back to safety. Flipped off the bench and pushed switch back to the car. Sorry this entry is so depressing. I’m really hard on myself when I have a bad day of skating. But it was in the streets so I can’t totally hate. As bad as the last line was, it made me feel alright.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm nulls es accel slims black/white)

After another day of working at home to watch Ollie I convinced him to go skate Louisville park. I quickly realized I was in for a tough session. We stared in the snake run thing which was actually pretty fun until a bunch of little kids showed up with no skatepark etiquette at all. They sucked. And they were scary to watch. They looked like they were going to die all the time. Some other guys were playing SKATE near the ledge so I kind of avoided it. I couldn’t kickflip on the bank. Ugh. I took awhile to do a boardslide on the bank to ledge. After awhile I started trying to front 50 the bank to ledge. I have gotten so bad at ollieing that I struggled to get on it. I got a few that grinded at least and felt cool. Tried to back them up with a b/s flip over the hip, but no luck. Ollie was trying fakie 3 shoves on flat and getting really close. He also had some good lines with front 180’s off the ledge, halfcab on flat then boardslide the little ledge. I did a few ledge ultra basics then started trying to do back 50 on the bank to ledge. Ollieing over the hip into back 50. It took me forever. Literally, forever. I’m not sure if I did that back when I used to skate there with Jason, but he would do it easy and 5-0 sometimes. Ollie was trying a line of a f/s carve around the corner, b/s 180 over the hip and then fakie 3 shove. He got to the fakie 3 shove almost every try, but never got the 3 shove. I ended with a noseslide down the hubba that took too many tries and a front 50 across and down the nearby ledge. Man I struggled.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm nulls es accel slims black/white)

Nice morning. I work the late shift this week and I’m working from home since Liz and India are in NYC. Shortly before dropping Ollie off for work at 7:30am I realized it would be a great time to get out and skate. Naturally I went to campus instead of the park because I’ve been missing street skating more then anything lately. And well, Boulder park sucks. I ended up at this spot for my warm up. Did some side rocks and took awhile to land a fakie front rock on the side. It felt neat when I finally got it and it was a good warm up. I had done a few kickflips and manuals down the bank so I was ready to line something out.

So I started trying to ollie onto this ledge and ride off. There is about 8 feet of runway. Barely enough to get a decent push and setup for an ollie. I eventually managed. Then down the little hill I did a back 180 then switch front 180 then tried to boardslide the bench. I messed up the boardslide a few times and decided to move on anyway.

Went to this awesome ledge. Unfortunately there were cars. I still managed a few things before more cars made it less fun. Had noseslide and noseslide to fakie, crooks and almost back 50. Couldn’t get close to a fs noseslide.

Then I hit this for awhile. Got my first noseslide attempt and it felt good. Someone has recently skated and waxed it. I think at some point in my 20s I was able to front 50 this, but wow it seemed tall. I managed a few noseslides, one barely crook and slammed hard a few times trying front board pop out. The approach backside is very rough. I want to front 50 this again. I was beat after that. Looked at a few things, but ended up walking back to my car. I was surprised how many people were on campus that early. Lots of maintenance people driving carts around scaring me. Ha. Super stoked I went though and surprisingly enjoying my bigger wheels.

Alright @boredzinejp here's my @43shifty that you challenged me to. I really suck at this trick, but it was fun at least. About time for your challenge @the_neviathan! Ha. #theglenandjosholdfartlongdistanceinstagramtricksuperchallenge #andnate #over40

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jul 14, 2015 at 7:33pm PDT

Then after work and dinner I went out and skated flat in front of the house while Ollie had friends over. It was sprinkling the whole time, but never enough to consider stopping. I haven’t skate flat like this in awhile and it showed. Especially with having a bigger setup now and newish shoes. But I still managed to land a few things and I seemed to skate a little faster so that’s cool. Got a few horrible 360 flips and my typical fakie flip tricks. After awhile I decided I wouldn’t try any more kickflip variation and went only heelflip, switch or nollie. I must look really dumb to my neighbors, because I didn’t land hardly anything. I got one unpopped b/s halfcab heel, but it felt really cool. Came close to varial heel and heel, nollie tre, nollie varial flip. Didn’t come close to switch flips or switch b/s flips (one can dream right?). I got pretty tired and was about to go in before I remembered to film a 43 shifty. The above clip explains it all. It took me 10 minutes to land that bad one.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm nulls es accel slims black/white)

Went out to Rampy on a rainy night after having a blast playing nerf guns with Ollie. My side was feeling much better and I was finally able to really skate. It took a bit to get the hang of it again, but I had fun. I didn’t do anything great on the ramp. In fact I actually kind of struggled with all the basics. Oh well. Once again I had more fun skating the flat even though I struggled with that too. Got one 3 flip, got close to switch and nollie flips, switch varial flip. Did some flatground ollies and had one of the best feeling ones I’ve done in awhile.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm nulls es accel slim black/white)

Haven't been able to ollie for a few days because of back pain, but man this slappy crooks soothed the soul. #nowaxnopopout

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jul 12, 2015 at 9:46am PDT

Went to campus with a little less pain and not much time. Pushing around hurt initially. I ended up at this curb. Did some no ollie noseslides/tailslides. Then started trying slappies. The crooks felt great. Didn’t get a backside one. Got one frontside that felt rad. Did a couple kickflips and started to feel warmed up, but I needed to head home and get ready for the Rockies game with Ollie.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm nulls es accel slims black/white)

Went out to Rampy after sitting around a lot in pain. I had some new shoes. I went with Es Accel Slim because it seems like a nice thin cupsole (still wish the new PJs skated like the old ones). I dropped in, but ended up chickening out of the axle stall due to fear of slamming and it hurt my side a bunch. So I just did some weird halfcab rock to fakie manuals things on the flat. I can’t wait for these pains in my side to be gone.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm (are you proud jack?) es accel slims black/white comed)

Totally obsessed over bigger wheels for the last day. I got home from work, took a nap and then setup some Null 54s. They look huge. I rolled down the bikepath to Wilville. I wanted to just skated the bottom metal curb as my side was pretty sore, but they were roped off for construction. Doh. A couple bikers were trying to grind the double set rail. I saw a couple bad falls. As much as I hate sharing a skatepark with a biker due to the collision factor I have a lot of respect for how gnarly they get. So I went to the middle area and tried to remember how to ollie. Ha. It took a couple tries for me to manual into one and I realized manualling is probably the worst thing I could do for my painful side. Luckily I’m really stubborn. I tried a line of no comply 180, halfcab flip, nose manual. The hc flip was hard because of how slow the bigger wheels rotate and how crappy I felt on a board. But I never got the nose manual or even really the confidence to ollie onto the curb in nose manual. Argh. At the end I just did some of those mute grab bomb drops off the brick wall. It could be a fun line to do one off the brick to manual then nose manual the next one into the bank. As the session went on I felt worse and realized my frail body just can’t handle vulcs anymore. Doh. I pushed/walked home. Saw the remains of a bike collision on the bikepath. Yikes.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 54mm nulls lakai fura white)