On a very nice day Jake and I rolled to Westy park. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there. We rolled around briefly then I saw Jake do a line of f/s halfcab on flat, boardslide the flat bar then ollie the euro. Seemed like a fun warm up line to me and I got it a few tries later. Then Jake asked what was next. I went for kickflip on flat, axle stall the quarterpipe on top of the bank, then ollie the 4 stair. Initially I wanted to boardslide the ledge off the 4 stair, but that seemed hard so early on and we just ollied down it. Jake beat me by a few tries. Then it was hit turn and he came up with a really fun one. Front 180 up the euro, fakie flip on flat, halfcab boardslide the flat bar. This one took us a while. Jake had gotten it, but had a real quick pro push on the fakie flip. I got it within a few tries of him getting a clean version of the line. My halfcab boardslide was super bad, but counted. I barely had the front truck over the rail. Next up I set with b/s kickflip below the euro, boneless over the rail, crooks on the ledge. Jake would get it first. He had struggled with the backside flip and when he finally ‘got it’, he held onto the rest of the line for dear life. Ha ha. I would get it right after him I think, back to back. Next line Jake picked. Noseslide to fakie the concrete ledge in the middle of the park, halfcab on flat, front tail the ledge which is an extension in the bowl. We both got that one a couple times in various levels of cleanliness. Next up I set with pop shove on flat, front 50 the bump to ledge, then drop down and 180 off the next level. It took us some figuring out how to get the 50 out of the weird bump and then how to land it and be able to quickly ride off the ledge down to the next level. Jake improvised with boneless a couple times until a sketchy foot placement almost left him for dead. We would both get it and wow was it a fun and rewarding feeling. After that we played with some front 50s the long hubba. Jake got a little closer, but had a pretty bad bail. I was going oh so slow and only got up on it a couple of times.

We went to Lafayette after that and didn’t even get out of the car as it was totally packed with scooter kids. Then we went to Saul’s. The smoke had moved in and it was snowing ash. It was crazy. Saul had several of his patented amazing quick carve grind lines. Jake had a line with lien to tail over the hip and some additional radness. I was super sore and could barely carve around, but had a few fun scratch grinds and 50s. I ended with a non-decked front rock that somehow hurt my knee even more. Argh. We sat and chilled and had some good laughs.

(setup 8.38 null plant life deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 titanium with cast baseplate, stock bushings no big washer, 52mm bones stf 103a v1, new balance numeric 288S maroon size 11.5, no insoles)
(pain level 3/10 initially then 6/10 at Saul’s)

On the way home from my mom’s I stopped at the Leadville park. There was only one other dude there, but he had his wife and 3 kids and they managed to hog the park well. Like the wife would sit on a ledge to film him, the youngest kids would climb on something and then an older one would scooter or skate around. I thought they were nice at least, until the dude literally started trying whatever I was trying. That’s when I got annoyed. Well I guess I was already annoyed. I had felt good playing disk golf with my brother earlier in the morning, but as soon as I stepped out of the car to skate my right knee felt terrible. It’s that lovely arthritic pain that comes with wind and cold. Ugh. I had changed my setup on the road too. I swapped out the Thunder 151s for Venture 6.1s. Not necessarily by choice, but I wasn’t feeling the Thunders and I used some old 5.8 Ventures as completes for my brothers kids. The first few ollies felt so solid it was crazy the difference in pop. That didn’t equate to good skating though. I had a couple kickflips on the hump, noseslide and noseslide to fakie the bump to ledge, almost nose manual the curb. Was trying a line of ollie to fakie on a bank, halfcab noseslide the little ledge then crooks the bump to ledge. But I never got the crook. I may have settled for noseslide. The 6.1s felt very heavy. I tried to do switch 180 down the drop up top then ollie up, but couldn’t get the ollie up. This is when daddy hero came over and did halfcabs down it. I suggested he had to get the ollie up to make it count so of course he did that first try and looked at me confused that I couldn’t do it. Sorry dude I’m 20 years older and my arthritis has my knee all locked up. This session was one of those ‘maybe I don’t really like this park that much after all’ sessions. I rolled around aimlessly for awhile then got back on the road.

(setup 8.38 null plant life deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 6.1 stock bushings, 52mm bones stf 103a v1, all washers on the outside of the wheels, new balance numeric 288S maroon size 11.5, no insoles)
(pain level 5/10 arthritis sucks and takes away any confidence)