Got to dog park by 10am on a hot morning. There was a helmet wearing dad walking his daughter around on rollerblades. They had a crew of kids with rollerblades, scooters and skateboards. Luckily for the most part the kids rode skateboards. I was really struggling in the warm up game. Jake showed up after awhile and things got better, we started skating pretty hard. I still struggled to confidently 50 the little benches. Jake pretty quickly front tail’d the back of the step ledge. Whoa. I got his back with a fun line of wallie the barrier, noseslide to fakie the back of the step ledge, switch noseslide 270 shove the metal ledge. Will joined us. We mostly stuck in the far east lane for awhile. Jake was doing super good crooks on the metal ledge. Will was trying to learn front tails and crooks. I did my first fakie 50 switch front 180 out in a long time. It felt great. Tried to switch front shove out too, but didn’t get it. Couldn’t commit to nosegrinds. Kind of got a fakie heel and a treflip. Then we ollied the black wedge to barrier. I was the last to get it, but it was still only 5 tries and it felt really good. Jake front 180d it after that. I posed kickflips over it. They felt doable, I was landing one footed. Maybe someday. Will was ripping the benches. Fast front 50s, 5-0s , nosegrinds and maybe a smith. Garrett had shown up and was cruising around. Smooth tailslides and speed. I did a couple bean plants on the bank and ended trying a line of kickflip to fakie then halfcab noseslide. My legs couldn’t handle the halfcab noseslide anymore so I sat down. Jack showed. He did a sick bump to front 50 on the copingless chinabank right away. Also some weird nollie front blunt the other side of the butter bench. Sean finally showed and did a lap around the park with some solid 50s then we left.

Then we were up in Fort Collins. Garrett, Sean, Jack, Hayden and me. We skated into campus from the shop. We warmed up on the little ledge on the sidewalk. It was quite awesome having the biggest Nuller crew in awhile. Jack started the entertainment with a good slam on a slappy attempt. Luckily he didn’t hit his bruised rips. I think everyone fell. It was funny. On top of that it was the Tour De Fat and all kinds of drunk weirdos were biking by in funny clothing. Fort Collins rules. I was surprised by body let me skate. I was slow to warm up (compared to them), but did have a fun little line of chinese nollie then boardslide flop out. Jack did a hilarious nollie tre, I think Garrett or Hayden got one too, but I failed. We skated a long ways and eventually ended up at the long hubba. I didn’t skate it. I filmed the Nullers. Sean, Garrett and Hayden got really good stuff. Then we were on to more spots and ended up at the plastic ledge spot. I skated here while they warmed up. Had a fun noseslide and eventually a boardslide where Hayden does the crook in the clip above. Jack got a cool boardslide pop over to manual to front shove down the 3. Sean came up short. That spot is weird. That was it for the day. Pretty long and exhausting, but very fun.

(setup 8.25 null abstract #6 deck, venture 5.6 v-lights, spitfire f4 101a 51mm classic wheels, 3 washers inside each axle, bones medium bushings, new balance numeric 913 Westgates b/w, stock insoles)
(pain level 2/10)

On a nice morning I went to dog park having the day off work. I got there before Dave L and arranged a mini bank to curb. The black wedge to the back of the stop ledge. It was kinda fun and awkward. I was wearing new shoes, Westgates. Well, I’ve worn them a couple times skating before. They felt surprisingly good. Dave L showed up and we both slowly warmed up. I was more lining out boardslides and the bank to curb. He was doing nollie 180s over a parking blocks. We moved moved the cement ledge that had been against the fence without blocks under it to a good spot again. I was hyped on that. We started linking lines. Dave could easily manual them. That is so rad. I should try to ride on them, but I’m terrified of that. He did back 50 then back 5-0. Pretty unreal line to me, but he was kinda like whatever. I took awhile to get halfcab noseslides. Not sure why, maybe the smaller setup. I did the lines above, they were pretty fun. I think I broke the record for shortest grind on the fakie nosegrind jib. I had gotten the line with the ollie over the wallie barrier. I mean, it wasn’t a clean ollie, but I’m working on it. The footage of this shows me how bad my ollies are. I need to drag the front foot further up to level out the board. So maybe after 30 years of skating I will try to correct my pathetic ollies. I had gotten a few flatground tricks. Heelflip, treflips, halfcab flip, fakie flip and maybe a couple more. I filmed Dave do a cool nollie lip up the parking blocks then a nose manual 180. We left as the sun came in and heated things up a lot and a few people started showing up.

Surprisingly I wasn’t too sore and I wanted to skate some flatground before date night with Liz. So I went in the shaded alley behind the school. Things went a little better than last time. I’m still terribly inconsistent though. It took awhile before I landed anything actually. Jumping is hard. I got the halfcab flip then treflip line. Backside flip, heelflip, the worst f/s halfcab heel done in history, first try f/s halfcab flip, maybe a fakie heel. These Westgates are very comfy, but the board feel leaves a lot to be desired. Not the best flick and not a good heelflip. But a lot can be said about being able to skate 5 hours in a day and not be too sore.

(setup 8.25 null abstract #6 deck, venture 5.6 v-lights, spitfire f4 101a 51mm classic wheels, 3 washers inside each axle, bones medium bushings, new balance numeric 913 Westgates b/w, stock insoles)
(pain level 2/10)