On a hot morning Neil and I rolled to Scott Carpenter after his red eye flight and a breakfast.  There were only a few people there initially and it wouldn’t get crowded.  We skated for about an hour.  Neil had some skate trip energy and was charging.  We stuck only to the new stuff.  It wasn’t long before we filmed some lines of each other.  I was doing crooks then noseslides and trying to add in a 50 or more.  Got one with an accidental 5-0 and nearly a treflip after.  Neil couldn’t quite get kickflip over the hip, but had some sick grinds through the mini snake run.  Then he added crooks shove, one foot the hip and a nose manual on of the bump to ledge. Eric would appear, had some good wallie 180s up the slappy ledges, slammed hard on a crook.  Saul appeared briefly too on his bike around when I got a b/s flip over the hip that only took 4 tries.  Then we bounced, hit 303.

Then we ended up at the Niwot ledge manny pad spot and met Sean F.  Neil and I were there first.  Neil loved the spot and went in pretty hard quickly.  He was shredding.  Manuals, nose manuals, 50s, noseslides.  I would get out the good camera to film a line of his.  Halfcab noseslide, nose manual, front 50 shove.  So good.  Sean was of course shredding too.  Everything at max speed and smoothness.  Neil filmed him do a casual line of front tail to fakie, halfcab manual, back 5-0 shove.  It’s crazy how he could do a tailslide that fast and come out with enough speed to do the halfcab manual.  He would later almost get 180 nose manual too.  I didn’t have much at this spot, I did a few tricks, wasn’t charging and lacked energy.  Had some okay crooks, a back 50, heelflip, accidental front 5-0, posed front crooks and switch crooks and didn’t get close to either.  

Next up after a visit to Sk8 Ratz we met up with Donnie and Riley at a school in Loveland that has a lot of variety.  There’s a bank to curb, a little stairset and a long ledge/manny pad.  Upon arriving I thought the ollie up the curb to the bank to curb felt impossible.  Riley, Donnie and Sean were getting it though.  Riley front tail kickflip out, Sean back pivot front 180, Donnie manual to nose stall to almost fakie manual down.  Oh yeah, Skelly had joined us with Emi.  Skelly kind of kept to himself trying to get his sore back to work.  He did get a back 50 front 180 out on the bank to curb.  The rest of us ended up mostly skating the ledge and man it was fun although tough with how much we had already skated Neil and I definitely struggled.  Donnie had some solid back 50s, front 50, manuals and would eventually get the dirt board out and try some manuals off a little retainer wall.  Man it was good seeing Riley.  He was skating so well.  Switch nose manual the whole thing, almost fakie flip out, halfcab noseslides, halfcab crooks, front 5-0 shove, etc.  Sean had back nosegrind, manual, nose manual and much more.  Neil had gotten himself going for awhile.  Lipslide, manual or nose manual, 50s.  But when i filmed him he had shut down.  I had a couple great feeling crooks and one that grinded so far, but I didn’t land it.  Tried a line of front 50 shove then switch noseslide shove for awhile, but never got them together.  Seriously no idea how I wasn’t landing the front 50 shove I was so close most tries.  Super fun session, day, crew, spots, etc.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer pro deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast baseplate with riptides v-hollow hanger, 3 washers inside each axle, venom 88a big bushing 91a small bushing, spitfire f4 99a 50mm classic shape, new balance numeric 212 cream size 12, nike sb zoom air/ sole tech insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Feeling lazy after a tough week of work I went behind the school (they have construction going on the side) armed with a list of 10 tricks and a setup change (8.25 / 5.6 / 50mm).  After the briefest of warmups I went in.
kickflip – took a few tries but got a couple
fakie flip – couple tries
halfcab flip – few tries felt good
heelflip – barely got the 10th try
fakie heelflip – Actually got one pretty quickly and it felt cool
halfcab heelflip – was close, but could not get it
360 flip – got a really bad 270 flip one in a few tries, but could not get a better one
nollie bigflip – a couple flipped right, but I didn’t get my feet on any
switch flip – not really close
switch front heel – still feels doable, but not close
Then I ollied onto the rock back there a few times and did a couple stalls.  I was glad I didn’t let the laziness prevent me from skating.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer pro deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast baseplate with riptides v-hollow hanger, 3 washers inside each axle, venom 88a big bushing 91a small bushing, spitfire f4 99a 50mm classic shape, new balance numeric 212 cream size 12, nike sb zoom air insoles)
(pain level 3/10)