Was cleaning the garage and hucked a few flippers here and there. Basically only tricks that I can’t land. Nollie heel, nollie flip, switch flip and switch heel. Surprisingly the switch heel felt the closest. Tried a few switch b/s flips too. That one seems possible as it’s kind of like switch varial flip.
I worked from home because I had to be on a 7am call. I ended up basically being on the phone for 9 hours straight. I was pretty tired and wanting to skate something other then Valmont, but Dave insisted and didn’t have time to drive elsewhere. Starting out was rough. Really rough for me. I’m not sure why, but I could barely get up the curbs and it took me like 30 minutes before I landed a manual. I added to the fun by taking out the metal grate from the long manny pad to make for some gap/combo options. Dave got manuals and nose manuals way quicker then me, but was struggling with other things. He hucked a lot of 180s out of manuals and stuff which could make for some new manuals soon. He started trying nollie front shove manuals and got one. So rad. I was trying fakie bigspin manuals which I had never done. I had a brief blast of awesome as I landed a nollie big flip then the fakie bigspin manual. I was hyped. Coming the other way I was trying manual to ollie over the huge 1 foot gap (ha) then 360 flip off the curb. I had done a few b/s flips off that felt rad. Dave started trying fakie bigspin manuals and he too came through with it. That’s two new manual tricks for him in one day and one for me. We were hyped. Dave was doing lots of kickflips. I was hucking a lot of flippers and getting close to fakie 3 flips. Dave had to leave and as he was pulling out I finally got the manual to ollie over the gap then a 6 point landing 360 flip off the curb (4 wheels, 2 hands). We counted it. Then it was off to Crisis to see Sabotage 4! It’s a good one.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 52mm stf v3s nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum)
After sparring with Liz a bit I drove off to take some steam off on the concrete. I went to Stonehenge to warm up which was fun. I went through the basics doing both fs and bs. Rock, axle, pivot, smith, disaster (back disaster took me a long time) and tail.
Then I went to Valmont yet again. I wanted to hit a ledge and flatground and didn’t have much time so why bother driving to a crowded skatepark. I started at the ledge and went through some basics and did some flippers in between. It was fun. Crooks, back 50, front 50, front tail, halfcab noseslide. Close to front nose. I did several flippers, came super close to nollie inward heel. Had a fun ollie or two of the loading dock and a front 180 then went and skated flatground with my new 10×10 list:
fakie bigflip
360 flip
fakie 360 flip
nollie 360 flip
bs halfcab heel
nollie flip
nollie varial flip
fs bigspin
varial heelflip
rick flip
I landed fakie bigflip, 360 flip, nollie 360 flip and nollie varial flip. My phone ran out of space halfway through though so looks like I have time to redo it before Friday. I’d like to get rid of fs bigspin as I don’t really care to learn that one.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 52mm stf v3 nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum)
Had an exhausting day at work. After a nap, a little soccer with Ollie and then a brief flatground dorkery with Matt and Jake out front of my house we met Dave at Valmont. It seemed like we took awhile to get going. Manuals were hard. At least I didn’t have leg pain though. I think everyone got manuals. Nose manuals went down. Lots of close to front 180 nose manuals. Matt added kickflip manual, nollie manual and a really good 360 flip up the curb. Jake and Dave started a varial flip duel. Matt and I joined, but tried them switch. In one almost completely magical sequence Dave landed his, I landed mine, Matt landed his and Jake landed on his. So close to perfection. Jake’s knee was hurting so he mostly sat out. Dave went on to land his first ever switch varial flip! Matt and I tried switch tres for awhile, he would eventually land his all good. He also did switch heel which might be the first trick I’ve seen him not look totally natural on. He is human! I added nollie varial flip and nollie treflip to my flippers for the night. Dave and Jake switch ollied a board. I kickflipped it. Then Jake and Matt chilled as Dave came super close to f/s halfcab manual in hopes of eventually doing it to nose manual. He was also flying around doing manuals and nose manuals all good. I was trying a line of kickflip back tail stall on a curb then front 180 nose manual. Got super close. Had some fun flippers too. We ended when Dave did a front 180 nose manual. Fun times.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 52mm stf v3 nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum)
After lots of cleaning and chores, then some rain I went to Valmont with a new board. I waxed up the ledge real good while the puddles dried up. I love skating a new deck at a ledge spot first. I started with the ol’ no ollie noseslide routine and I felt pretty good. Then I started ollie’ing into them and still felt good. Got a f/s one to forward which is rare. Crooks happened quick. Back 50 took a bit. Front 50 happened with no pain in the groin which surprised me. I got a front 50 shove on the middle section that hyped me up enough to put a little dumpster after the loading dock and try to ollie it. But I never ended up committing. Oh well. Back to the ledge I hucked a bunch of tricks. Had a few front tails that actually slid I minute amout. I tried a bunch of nollie flips in between and didn’t even get my feet on it this time. I tried kickflip noseslides for awhile. It took me the time it took a cute fuzzy caterpillar to walk the entire length of the ledge. The one I got was another crappy one where I didn’t lock in. I did get close to locking in a few times though. Had a good nollie varial flip, a few 360 flips that I landed perfect and didn’t ride away from for some dumb reason. Got a kickflip back 50. Tried front crooks for awhile without success. Tried back 180 nosegrind without getting close. Did a couple dork tricks off the loading dock. Got tired and left for home happy that I didn’t have much pain.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 52mm stf v3 nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum)
Up early on a Sunday. Was at Dave’s around 7am and we showed up in Loveland before 8am. The family above contributed to some initial negative feelings for the park. We avoided the strett area for awhile because of how lame that family was. The snake run was fun to pump and a little scary. Dave had some grinds at least. Then we messed around on the tree root spine for awhile which was quite fun. Dave had a good halfcab to tail that I couldn’t do. I had the little rock revert that got him. We did standard tail 180 transfers, smith/feeble transfers. Then it got fun with some early grab transfers. I’ve never done that before so it was pretty fun.
Then the street area cleared out and we hit it up. I took awhile to get slappy crooks on the bank to curb. Never got one that I was too hyped on. The quarterpipes are all so steep there. I don’t like that aspect of the park. Dave had a good slappy front 5-0. There is a bump to mini downhill ledge which was a fun warm up. I had a couple front 180s to fakie 50. Dave front 5-0’d down it. We hit the kicker for awhile. Dave had good ollies into the steep side and nollies the other way. I had a really weak b/s flip into the mellow side, halfcab flip and fakie bigflip too. All were fun. The quarterpipes around there are fun for doing lines. Both of us did a lot of different tricks on the qps. Dave had a couple really good back tails. I forced myself to front 50 down the mini hubba. I’m scared of downhill. It has a weird start to it, but I would get a few that felt alright. Noseslides down the longer one were fun too. Dave got busy with some nose manual attempts both ways on the bank to curb area. He would get a really good one coming out of the bank. I did a dumb kickflip to fakie on the escalator bank. Dave had some rad switch crooks on the waxed bank. I did some back 5-0s to fakie. Dave said I didn’t even shuffle out, but I’m not sure I believe him. That was pretty much it. We skated the bowl for a bit. Dave did some of his trick, fakie ollie to layback air. So rad. I didn’t drop in, but I had fun carving around and was getting up the hype to dropin when this funny dude from Brazil came to sweep out the bowl. Decent park, horrible family scooter scene.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum 52mm sfts that are down into the mid 40s and telling me to setup new wheels)
Went to Broomfield park while India was in ballet. Had about 2 hours to skate. It was sunny and hot. I was feeling better for awhile and was finally able to ollie without groin pain. It took awhile though. Warming up on the quartapotty wasn’t great. Blue ledge stuff wasn’t all that either. I guess I shouldn’t have expected much since I really haven’t ollied much in awhile. I had a run of boardslide the tiny down rail then back 50 the ledge. Also a run of f/s flip on the hump up top then front 50 shove the black ledge. I wasn’t able to get a crooks on the black ledge. Or a front 5-0. Had a good feeling nollie tre on flat. Other flatground felt alright. Tried to do backside nosegrind on the blue ledge for awhile, but only had a couple that were remotely close to locking in. I started to get really sore by the end.
Later that evening I tried nollie heels and nollie flips in my garage. I would commit to nollie heels every try, but they would only flip half way. I landed on another nollie flip with hands on the ground. Still hyped that I’ve made a little progress with that trick.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 52mm stf v3 nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum)
Finally feeling somewhat healthy. After a day of g-chatting at work then a nap I set out to do 10 tricks, 10 tries each. My list is above. I had warmed up a little before that, but hadn’t really done any of the tricks except heelflip and halfcab flip before I started 10×10. It went pretty good I guess. Until I watched the footage that is. Wow my style is bad. The halfcab flip and f/s halfcab heel were first try. The 360 flip and ‘nollie flip’ were 10th try. Everything else was in between. Seeing the footage I probably should have done more attempts to get them looking better. Oh well, live and learn. I was really happy to kind of land a nollie flip because that’s 2 days in a row I landed on it. Gonna keep at that one for sure. The slam on the varial heel got my hip pretty good. It hurts. After the 10×10 I kept skating. Still couldn’t land a nollie tre. So weird. I would eventually land one very sloppily. Other tricks I did. Varial flip rewind, b/s halfcab heel, fakie bigflip, fakie varial flip, a few more 360 flips, more heelflips. Then I hucked tricks I never land for a bit and didn’t get too close to anything. At the end I was hucking cab flips both ways. I wasn’t very close. On the regular cab I decided to go big flip as it seemed like it would help the spin. It did. I did two cab bigfips in a row. Wow! Now before you think it looked like this, remember that it’s me. I was going slow and there was a lot of pivot. Luckily I didn’t film it because in my head it was mostly one motion. I am going to work on it though. Man it’s great to feel healthier.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 52mm stf v3 (these are around 48mm now) nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum)
Feeling a little better finally. I met Dave at Valmont to skate the little manny pads as that building is vacant. Neither of us could ollie at first. We both just ran into the curb and lifted up. I was skating horribly slow. I tried an ollie and it kind of hurt so I just stuck to kickflips for the most part. I know it’s bizarre that kickflips don’t hurt, but ollies do, but I’m not going to complain. I did a bunch of kickflips up the curbs in hopes of a kickflip manual, but it didn’t happen. Dave was struggling with the basics and took awhile to get manual then nose manual. But when he did it was really good. I did a couple regular manuals after awhile and they felt fine. Yeah! Then out of nowhere I did a front 180 nose manual. Easily the longest and best one I’ve ever done even though I was going really slow. Oh well. I tried a few fakie bigflip manuals or kickflip nose manuals. Dave was trying back 180 nose manual. Then the rain came.
I had to pick up Ollie from football shortly so driving home was pointless. So I just skated this curb protected from the rain by a tree. It ruled. I did a slappy crook stall shove out. Kickflip axle stall varial flip out. I was really hyped, I don’t think I’ve done that before. Got super close to kick back tail shove out. Did a kickflip out of a tail stall which might be a first ever, then almost did it out of a front tail, but I had to leave.
After doing some cleaning in the garage I grabbed my spare 8″ board with 42mm wheels and messed around for a bit. It ruled. After about 15 minutes I did a nollie flip. It hyped me up a ton. I love having a real garage again.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 52mm stf v3 nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum)
I thought I was feeling better, but when I arrived at Broomfield park I didn’t feel good at all. I played on the quartapotty for awhile, then filmed Riley, Jack and Nolan do some damage on the gnar hip. Then I watched Carleigh carve over the love seat for the first time in the bowl. So sick. Then I started just doing slow kickflips over and over as they didn’t hurt my strained groin. Then we played a game of skate. Darin, Scotty, Bernie and I. We had to go through all of Darin’s 180s before it got going, but it ended up being a good one. All four of us were at SKAT. I even landed a treflip first try horribly. Scotty won the game with a nollie late front foot flip. Perfect. We played another game with no repeats. Darin and I took out the young guns, but Darin took it in the end with tricks like fakie pressure flip and impossible. I had gotten letters on some tricks like pop shove revert, fakie shove, fakie bigspin that I should have landed. Then I filmed Carleigh, Jack and Riley rule the double set. So fun to watch and so stoked that Carleigh nailed the pop shove on her birthday. The last 10 minutes of light was spent trying the Fuller spin on the mellow bank with Garret and Bernie. Both of them got it pretty quick and thought it was fun. They also both did it with a judo kick. Bernie did it like 5 times with a judo kick and they all looked amazing. I think I finally landed one at this point. I was feeling pretty down about it. Bernie also did one with a crail grab. Fun night because of the occasion and crew, but I really hope my body starts feeling better, it’s getting me down.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 52mm stf v3 nb# pj stratford 533 brown/gum)