Kevin, Bo, Hayden, Jack, Joe, Garrent and I arrived at the Cheyenne park around the same time on a hot morning at 11.  There was a stiff Wyoming breeze and it was super bright out.  It was very disorienting at first.  I knew it had been awhile since I had been up there, but it was 8 years!  Yikes.  Anyway I messed around some, but mostly went in on backside flips over the weird metal steep to mellow hip.  Garrett went in with me trying front bigspin.  We got them back to back.  Jack had done a pole jam nollie heel, Joe did pole jam hardflip.  Wowsers.  Everyone was cruising around, it was hard to notice what anyone else did really.  Towards the end I was talking to Rich and most were playing SKATE or just skating flatground.  Jack landed so many tricks.  

Then we went to Johnson middle school as we always do when we’re in Cheyenne.  And somehow it was basically the exact same, except the fun little boardslide wasn’t waxed up.  Bo went right into filming as I had gone across the street looking for other stuff.  There was a fun frontside ledge that started curb height which I did one little 50 on.  And some wavy benches we would come back to later.  I filmed Hayden for a bit.  Matt, Tyreece and Shaun showed up.  Man it was rad seeing them.  Hugging Matt again was so rad.  Those dudes are still ripping.  Shaun was in full tech slaying.  Heelflip manual, heelflip back 50, nollie heel front tail, front 50 back foot flip out.  Matt did back tail, front blunt, nollie flip, still got it.  Jack had a cool line involving two wallie ledge tricks.  Kevin got bummed on his front blunts.  Garrett got a sick fakie nosegrind then switch noseslide shove line.  Hayden came remotely close to the sickest 180 manual.  Bo ruled it filming the whole time.  I had crooks and switch front nose on the ledge.  Joe got a cool line of nosegrind then back tail then heelflip.  

Then we went back to the wavy bench area.  It was harder than expected and not much more than 50s were done.  I didn’t do anything.  Joe tried a gnarly gap.  Kevin did some switch flips off the curbs.  

Next up was the contest.  We arrived in a brief rain shower.  I had done a few crooks and noseslides before the game of SKATE started.  I played Jack so you know how that went.  Rich was hyped on me landing some tricks, but if he only knew how bummed I was on missing treflip yet again.  Still though, it was super fun and playing Jack in SKATE was rad.  I didn’t skate after that really.  Hayden beat Garrett and then Jack, but Joe took Hayden out. Joe made it to the final game and did good, but was two hardflip variations short of a win.  Ha ha.  Gotta learn them hardflip reverts.  Jack won the best trick off the kicker with kickflip late shove.  He also did a first try late 360 shove after sitting for at least 30 minutes.  Then we we went out to eat.  What an awesome day.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollows, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf 51mm v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

After a terrible night of sleep and work I went over to the shady area on the side of the school. I was feeling very lazy and with the help of Nate made a 12×12 trick list to provide some type of motivation. I didn’t really pick an easy list or plan on landing most of the tricks. I did a couple slappies first. Then did kickflip and fakie flip followed by a heelflip that took awhile before starting in on the list.I didn’t film it because that’s just too depressing and I hate having to do the trick at a certain spot.

backside flip – got a horrible one
Heelflip – since I had already done one I got this one 2nd try
SW front shove – nope. I hate this trick
nollie cab – first try worst one ever done in the history of skateboarding
No comply revert – got a terrible one around 10th try
Switch flip – Nope, but seriously close
Fakie Varial flip – Didn’t get this one either which was quite depressing. Used to be a go to trick of mine.
Nollie varial flip – Nope, but pretty close
Nollie front heel – Not close
Treflip – didn’t get it in 20 tries
Var heel – not very close
Nollie inward heel not close at all

After that I tried switch flips and 360 flips until I eventually landed a 360 flip. My switch flips were flipping and close which was encouraging.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollows, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf 51mm v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

On a hot night I met Dave at St julien. We got there at the same time and we struggled together. Maybe it’s the brushed finish of the concrete, but man, it seems hard to do any tricks there. Dave had some cool wallie manuals and wallies over the ledges, kickflips, shoves. I wasn’t able to do a halfcab flip. Had a fakie flip followed by switch 180 over the little part of the ledge. Tried to do heelflip then back 180, but failed on the back 180. Had a fun nollie front tail. We got the boot. Then we got the boot from a curb. Then we ended up at Wells Fargo. We skated the alley for awhile. I took way too long to kickflip up a curb. Dave had cool lines of ollie up, nollie back 180 off, switch noseslidde, and got close to switch blunt on the qp. I think I got close to kickflip up the curb, back 180 off, almost rolled my ankle on a fakie pivot fakie. Then we skated the waxed area. It was super fun. The front 50s I did were a blast. I got a tiny 5-0 too, front feeble, back feeble, back feeble to fakie, back smith. Dave did tails both ways, to fakie, got kinda close to an ollie into Hale spin. Ended it with crooks and crooks to fakie that was so good (saving for slower lower older). Also an amazing back boneless then ended with a feeble stall on the metal bar of the lower section. So nuts.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollows, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf 51mm v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

After a busy day at work I headed up to Estes Park to meet Nebraska Dan at the skatepark. I got there first and rolled around for a bit. I was super sore and didn’t really feel like ollieing much so I would pretty much avoid it all night. Dan showed and after a brief warm up he was dedicated to getting some group lines where we did two trick lines and handed the phone off to each other. The tricks were supposed to end/start with the same trick. We started with a line of me doing grind up and over the box, kickflip on flat followed by Dan doing kickflip on flat then front 50 body varial out. We tried this for awhile. I ended up doing a lot of kickflips. Ha. Dan ended up changing to front 50 to front board – aka the Joe Hamilton. Then after that we kept going. He did a heelflip, I did a heelflip then a boardslide, he did a boardslide then a no comply, I did a no comply then a switch front nose, then he finally bailed. It was awesome. After that I captured him get his front board 270 / shove line. Then he got me get my switch noseslide shoves. The frontside one didn’t take all that long even, and man it felt awesome. Then we went and did the pump track for a bit which was pretty fun. We cracked some little ollies on a couple bumps. Then I drove home behind the worlds slowest driver. Argh. Heck of a fun night, beautiful sunset too.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollows, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf 51mm v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 5/10 sore from so much last night)

After work on a nice cool day I got a text from Dave to look out my window meaning he was at the school. So I went over there still feeling sore and worn out from all the filming two days before.  But I would actually start to feel pretty good quickly.  Dave was already skating well.  Back 180 fakie 50s, long slappy crooks, fakie ride off crook transfers, etc.  I had a few slappies and warm up tricks and would get some flip tricks at the start of lines.  Fakie flip, halfcab flip, fakie bigflip, f/s halfcab flip, f/s halfcab heel.  No nollie tre or rick flip though.  Also hucked sone backside bigspins for a bit, but never put the feet on it. Had a kickflip from the curb cut to parking lot where I think I closed my eyes before I landed.  Because I was quite surprised when I was rolling away.  I tried a line for a long time of front shove off the curb, front 5-0 or frontside slappy then treflip out of the curb cut.  I would never get the treflip.  Dave had some flippers too and left after a fast slappy crook shove.  Ollie’s friend Alex had arrived and I’ve never really skated the same spot before.  So that was cool.  He was ripping.  Kickflips, heelflips, close to treflips, front 50s, slappy.  But it started raining pretty heavily so we bounced.

After dinner I just had to get back out there and enjoy the cool weather.  I went to the knobbed research area.  I didn’t know how tight the knobs were and was hoping for some little quick grinds, but they did a pretty good job of shutting that down.  I was quite sore initially from the earlier session, but would get going and feel fine.  Warm up line was switch 180 the little flat gap, ollie onto the long ledge, back 180 off, halfcab flip.  Next was ollie a longer flat gap, ollie onto the long ledge from the side again (which is way harder for me than going straight on) then kickflip off.  The kickflip took way too long, but it was fun when I got it.  Then for whatever reason I wanted to treflip off it.  I didn’t line out to it because I was getting tired.  But I would try flip tricks between tries.  Mostly heelflips.  I didn’t commit to many of the treflips initially.  This is actually probably the tallest thing I’ve tried them off.  By the end I was committing to 1/3 or so.  The last one tweaked my knee pretty good so I stopped after that.  It was a little scary.  I was bummed I didn’t land it, but happy I tried so hard.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollows, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf 51mm v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Up kind of early to get my skating in before turning into Filmer Glen I went to Wilville. It was sunny and hot and not as shaded as I had hoped. I had put forged baseplates back on as well as some smaller/newer wheels I had forgotten about. It all felt good. One of my first tricks was Dave’s latest challenge. Front noseslide shove. I tried it on the non-waxed part and actually did it first try. Cracked me up. But then when I tried to do it on the waxed part later I could not. I messed around with lines. Going NW I would try front 5-0 the end of the ledge, ollie into the nearby tall ledge, ollie onto the weird knobbed section, some flippers, nose manual. Well I never got the 5-0 although I did get into it and grind it. If only I had brought wax. That was tall for me and I’d be hyped if I landed that. I got the ollie onto the tall ledge, but never really lined out a flipper before the nose manual. Going SE I got pretty close to a good line. Kickflip off the manny pad, heelflip, b/s flip, fakie flip, halfcab nosesllide. Just never got the halfcab noseslide. Missed the fakie flip most of the time because it was in the brick section. Then I kind of stuck with the 5-0’s for awhile and eventually realized I needed to get going.

Went to Longmont park. Garrett and Hayden were skating. Riley was there chilling. We chatted awhile. Then I battled stupid treflip out of the mellow bank by the entrance and landed it the try after Riley gave up on me and left. His time was better spent giving Hayden and Garrett flatground trick tip advice. After the treflip we had a few more minutes so I tried the front 50 shove then front shove down the 3 line for awhile. I landed on both quite a few times, but never rode away down the 3 stair. I was hyped on an accidental 5-0 shove though. Hayden did a sick 50 (or maybe 5-0?) to nose manual off the 3 stair that was sick.

Then it was off to filming. I didn’t really skate anymore other than pushing for a couple hours straight in the uncomfortable filmer crouch.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollows, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf 51mm v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Approaching the hottest point of the day I met Kevin at a nearly empty Broomfield park. We had some fun warm ups doing different stalls and stuff on the brown angled ledge. We did more than what’s shown in the video, but I don’t remember exactly what. I just know it was quite fun. We had done them frontside too, got a few more than what was documented. After that we played a game of SKATE that went on forever. Kevin slammed or missed like 20 nollie tres. Clearly something in the world was wrong. He would get a regular treflip though, and I of course got a letter on it. I had a couple tricks like f/s halfcab flip and fakie varial flip that I was happy about. I couldn’t get a nollie tre either or a fakie bigflip though. We played on the black ledge after this. Kevin was able to do nollie front nosegrind first try. I did a switch boardslide on it, that was new for me there. Nothing to really be excited about though. I came somewhat close to noseslide 270 shove, did several crooks, an accidental 5-0. It was so hot I lost motivation when Kevin left.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 cast baseplate v-hollow axle, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf old 53mm pj v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

On a hot morning we went to dog park aka green block. My legs felt alight, but it was a slow start. They were removing some of the wiring so there were parts of the park to avoid at times. But that just made us skate it differently which is nice. Dave brought some little cinder blocks to raise a parking block which he went on to kill. Front 5-0s, hurricanes both ways, front boards, etc. He would almost kickflip the wallie barrier. I was kinda just going around doing nothing. Almost got a line of ollie onto the top step then nosegrind 180 the new weird pad. Eric had some nice front tails and actually missed some heelflips for once. Sean was doing lots of tricks smoothly. Sean and I eventually started trying our same lines from two days before. I never got the nollie tre. Someone had waxed the butter/metal ledge beyond belief, it was so scary to try 50s on. The kickflip primo hurt. Dave had some nice treflips while trying a line. Sean got the line he wanted and added a couple bonus tricks. Then we all played a game of SKATE. Well, two games of SKATE. My tricks were sucking, it was frustrating. I took several tries to get halfcab flip and missed heelflip and treflip. Sean won it on back bigspin I think. We played the second one with no repeats, Eric wasn’t in though. It was getting really hot and there was like a solid 10 minutes of no one landing anything. I don’t remember much about this game other than it was a real struggle. After the game I tried nollie and regular tres for awhile and failed. This time I just gave up. So frustrating.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 cast baseplate v-hollow axle, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf old 53mm pj v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 2/10)

Another hot day. I had decided to put together a new board after all and meet up with Sean at Broomfield park. After a brief warm up for us where Sean was doing flippers and I was doing tricks without popping we started skating the blue bank. Ollie up then no comply shove to fakie was the first trick. Then kickflip to fakie. Obviously Sean’s came way quicker than mine. I kept clipping a little on the ollie up, it was super annoying. Sean was popping up like it was nothing, for me it was such an effort. I would eventually get kickflip to fakie which felt good. Sean did ollie up then started rolling back down before doing a fakie flip. Also heelflip up then kickflip to fakie. I tried rock to kickflip fakie. There was another dude there ruling flip tricks and it hyped me up. He did so many it was ridiculous. Anyway, after quite a few awkward attempts I would get the rock to kickflip fakie and it felt really good. We skated the black ledge after that. Sean was going through his motions, basically every trick within a couple tries until he got to back lip 270 shove out which took a little bit. I did okay, the smaller trucks are weird for grinds. But Sean kept insisting I was skating decent. I got front 50, front 5-0s on accident, switch noseslide 270 shove, crooks, halfcab noseslide. Couldn’t quite get crooks shove and not very close to halfcab noseslide 270 shove. We played a game of SKATE that went pretty well for me even though I was at SKAT off some fakie shoves because I was trying to pop them and failed at double or nothing. But after that I had a few first try tricks like halfacb flip, heelflip and I think treflip which took a huge load off me. I would also go on to get fakie bigflip, nollie tre, f/s halfcab heel, but Sean won it on nollie back heel.

(setup 8.3 null curby deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 cast baseplate v-hollow axle, stock bushings no boardside washer, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf old 53mm pj v1 83b, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles)
(pain level 2/10)

Around 11 on a hot morning I met up with Sean, Jake, Dave L at dog park. I had put 8″ trucks on. They felt good, but my grip was still super slippery from the candy bar I stepped in the day before. After a brief warm up we played a game of SKATE. I did alright, but got letters on heelflip and f/s halfcab heel, switch front shove and I forget what else. I saw Jake get a good fakie back tail on the cinder block ledge. Dave had b/s flip and pop shove over a parking block. Sean was trying a long line with f/s nosegrind the street bench, back nosegrind the top tier, nollie nosegrind 180. I think he got it. I was close to the best line I’ve done there. Front 50 the weird metal/butter ledge, kickflip over the mini wallie spine, ollie the little metal ledge, crooks the top of the two tier, nollie tre. I never got the nollie tre. Argh. I tried a few treflips outside of that, but didn’t get much. Robbie was there ripping. I kinda forget what everyone else did, but it was a decent session for sure.

Later on after a siesta I went across the street to try some treflips. I had some old vulc 212s since I was wanting more grip. I did a couple slappies then went to it. It didn’t go well. I got close in the first few tries, then it was all downhill after that. I also struggled with halfcab flips again. I was very close on nollie tres, but kept not getting it. I blame the tall wheels. Eventually a bailed treflip sent me over the edge and I broke my board and water bottle. Ugh. I felt so incredibly depressed after this.

(setup 8.3 null spanbauer pro deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 v-hollow, bones medium bushings, 3 washers inside each axle, bones stf 54mm v3 99a, new balance numeric 288s navy, no insoles then 212s with nikesb insole)
(pain level 2/10)