Out pretty early on a very nice Saturday I met Cass, Kevin, Venture Dave and Jake at Golden park. There was still quite a bit of snow and we shoveled and squeegeed the little ledge section. Which is kind of funny because we never actually skated it, we just hit the main park as it was mostly dry and it was super fun. I had switched back to lows and would love it when I hucked a b/s flip early on and mostly landed it. We were up top doing some ride on grinds, qp and flatground up to start with. Kevin was rattling off trick after trick. Then we settled in on the east side of the park having some fun lines with the ledges and banks. Dave was manualling the west side deck, shoves and impossibles on the bank. Jake and Kevin did rock fakies on one of the steep qps. Jake almost got a back blunt on another steep qp. Cass had some good noseslides, crooks. Kevin was landing everything. 50s up the ledge, crooks down, nollie varial flips, nollie treflips. Cass never quite got the front board shove. Jake said our physical challenge should be boardsliding down the ledge. I baby stepped to it and would get it. His knee started hurting so he forfeited the win to me. I was hyped to get first try kickflip, fakie flip, varial flip and fakie varial flip on the bank. I was working on fakie tre when the wind kicked in fierce. We skated a while longer, but it was tough so we took off.

Jake and Dave were done. Kevin, Cass and I went to triple nipple. The park itself had no snow in it, but snow runoff made the ledge unskateable. Doh. It took me a bit to find a fun way to skate it considering half the park was wet. But it ended up being a pretty good time. The little transfers over the spine are so fun. I had some front 50s, first front feeble in a long time and took a bit to get the disaster to sugarcane. Kevin had lines for days and worked for the switch flip. Cass on the other hand gets off the bench, does the front shove second try then goes back to chilling. My kickflip felt about as bad as it looked, but it was still fun. Pretty awesome day really.

(8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 lows bones medium bushings, spitfire 51mm 101a classic shape with 2 washers inside, new balance numeric 288S b/w size 11.5 440 insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

After a chill Friday at work for once I went behind the school on a cold afternoon. After a brief warm up I went in on a list that Nate and I came up with. I never anticipated getting many of these as it’s been too long. So here’s the tricks and an emoji describing how I feel about the tricks.

fakie flip 😕
bs flip 😕
fakie bigflip 🤷‍♂️
halfcab heel 😊
front heel 👴🏼
nollie varial flip 😡
fakie tre 😢
fs flip 🗑
fakie varial heel 🚫
nollie inward heel 🚫

The only trick I was happy with was halfcab heel. I tried fakie tre and nollie varial flip the longest. I was so close. The fakie varial heel could have been closer, but I was beat by then.

(8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast plate titanium hanger, venom 91a bushings, spitfire 51mm 101a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S b/w size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 2/10)

On a really cold and snowy night I mustered the motivation to scrape off the car and go to Square House. It ended up being a pretty epic crew and a really fun session. Eric, Furlong, Brian, Christian, David, Kyle, Saul, Ted and more. Obviously the crew is way too big to remember everything. I’ll start with Brian because I’m so grateful he is down for old man night. Saw some classics like fakie feeble fakie, carve grinds, windshield wiper, tough guys, no one footed front rocks while kicking a kid on a bike though. I haven’t seen Furlong skate in forever so that was a special treat. He still has it. Blunt to back tail, back tails with both feet on the tail, blunt rock fakies, smiths, lots of style. The trick of the day appeared to be fakie lipslides. Eric and David were doing them. Eric also did fakie tailslides, back lip, front 5-0, back 50s fakie. Christian is such a beat. At one point Brian and I just looked at each other and laughed. He was doing runs with so many tricks like back d to sugarcane, the Darin, long back tails, back blunts, everything. Saul and I went over to the ‘street’ section for a while. He did a bunch of slappies. I took way too long to get a line of ollie the 3 stair then kickflip to fakie the bank. Then I took way too long to kickflip up the euro and then once again way too long to backside flip up it. But I was happy to do that at least. Eric had come over and almost heelflipped up it first try, but then also struggled. Back to the ramp I got a hurricane, some front 50s, front d, some fakie revert stuff. It was tough for me to not last as long as others, but I was beat and called it a night before the session was over. Fun times, rad crew, thank you Brian!

(8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast plate titanium hanger, venom 91a bushings, spitfire 51mm 101a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S b/w size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Got to the tennis court shortly before the sun set. It was cold. I pushed around a bit and bailed a few slappy crooks. What the heck. I didn’t have much energy or drive and my legs felt very heavy. I skated for about an hour. Had a good feeling manual on the little pad, struggled to get a terrible little front 50 on the ledge, crooks, halfcab flips. Nothing really stands out, I don’t like the feel of 8.25 with 5.6s, but I’m going to try and stick with it.

(8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast plate titanium hanger, venom 91a bushings, spitfire 51mm 101a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S b/w size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

After another Sunday getting stuck working way longer than needed I eventually made it out to a parking garage off Valmont to skate some flat. I avoided the library spot only because I was in a super foul mood after working and didn’t want to be around people. One of the better garages for flatground is now totally vacant and I made good use of it. Well, I skated in it for an hour and a half or so. I had brought my 8.5 and 8.25 setups and after a quick spin to compare realized how stupid 8.5 feels to me. I got to my warm up line of kickflip, no comply 180, fakie flip pretty quickly. Then I went in on 2 trick lines. Fakie flip followed by halfcab flip. Halfcab flip took too long, but then started a line with it then did b/s flip. Did quite a few cruddy b/s flips and couldn’t get fakie bigflip after. Gave up on that one and then everything kinda turned into random hucks. I would get a first try fakie varial flip, eventually a fakie bigflip, couldn’t get a heelflip to save my life, f/s halfcab flip, super close to nollie varial flip and somewhat close to nollie front heel. I was kind of close to nollie treflips so I setup the phone to have one clip of the session and much to my delight I landed one in a few tries. I didn’t have much time left to skate so I called it on a good note. I was pretty bummed on how I change setups all the time making these tricks harder. And the fact that I spent another week basically on 8.5 when I should know by now that I always end up disliking 8.5. Argh. I can skate 8.25 better. I should stick with it and I really hope I do for quite some time.

(8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast plate titanium hanger, venom 91a bushings, spitfire 51mm 101a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S b/w size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 2/10!)

Feeling lazy after a long week of work I eventually made it to Square House to meet Jake, Garrett, Joe and Donnie. Jake and I were there first and started on the ramp. No surprise, but I had changed my setup. 8.3 with mini logo 8.3 trucks, 52mm classics. It felt great on the ramp. Jake and I both seemed to be skating pretty well at of the gates. He had front blunt, blunt to fakie, front d revert and a lot more. I had back 50s to fakie (the cheater way), inconsistent with front disasters and my first couple hurricanes in a long time. Garrett, Joe and Donnie warmed up with a game of SKATE that took a while and had some crazy tricks, makes and slams. I think Garrett ended up winning it. He had some nice kickflips to fakie, back blunts, flows really well. Joe probably did front crook to fakie before doing an axle stall. Ha, but he really did skate the ramp like a street skater. Donnie had some high speed antics as one would imagine but I’m not sure if the got the grind off the extension to lower section. I really like this ramp.

Then things started to thin out so we went to the “street” section. This is when I really started to dislike my current setup. Took me like 10 tries to get a kickflip on the little bank. I had some crooks and noseslides, didn’t get b/s flip over the hip and never committed to ollieing up the 3. Not my best skating. Donnie was a mad man. Grinding off the higher qp to the lower and managing not to kill any kids in the process. It was close though. He had some high speed 5-0s on the little qp, transfers, front 50s on the ledge. Garrett shredded. Treflip to stairs to kickflip fakie the qp, switch heel the stairs, front feeble the tall qp, died hitting a crack and dove into the qp at full speed. Joe had some incredible lines like back tail the bump to ledge, fakie hardflip the stairs, switch hard on flat with both feet behind the back bolts. It was pretty amazing. He also ollied up the stairs super easily, heelflip, hardlflip down, nosegrinds down the ledge.

Near the end the dude working was skating and nearly died trying to front 50 the rail. It was the worst slam I think I’ve ever seen in person. Pretty sure he broke his thumb while taco’ing the rail with his back. It was so brutal. After that we had lost some motivation and played a game of SKATE in which I was quickly out. I used Garrett’s board and I liked it at first, but not after a few missed halfcab flips.

(setup null 8.3 smoke valley, jessup ultragrip, mini logo 8.3 trucks with royal bushings, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S white size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Another day another setup change. I really thought this was the one. I know people are telling me to stick with one setup, but now that I have freed my mine of my loyalty to Venture I’m trying to find what I actually like. I though 8.5 with royals would be the ticket. It was not. I started off alright at Boulder park around 7am. Most of the time I was there another dude was skating, but we didn’t interact at all. I took a while to get down on the various bump to ledges. The board still felt very hefty which I was not excited about. Also they did not grind very well. I did skate hard, I just didn’t land anything. I did make myself ollie up onto the old ledge and ride down it several times. Also finally did a bunch of roll ins to setup for bump to ledge bails. But I was happy to finally easily do a bunch of roll ins. Had some crooks, a couple kickflips to fakie on the little bank that barely got around and hucked a bunch of back 270 kickflips over the hump that were not very close. I ended by taking way to long to do a line of ollie a little hump (and try not to get ghost pop which kept happening), noseslide to fakie the bench, halfcab flip over the hump. It did feel good though.

(setup 8.5 null smoke valley, jessup pj ultragrip, royal 144, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5 440 insoles)
(pain level 4/10 lots of skating this week in old trashed shoes)

On a super nice day I managed to leave work at a decent time and get to dog park. It wasn’t too crowded surprisingly and there were even a couple older dudes at the start. I did a couple rock ‘n rolls on the low part of the barrier then some slappies to get the legs going. I didn’t skate great or bad, just kinda in the middle. Couldn’t get nose manual again, made myself finally try some nosegrinds on the medium pad, but was never too close. I hucked for awhile and it was fun. Got close to kickflip back 50 and remotely close to kickflip crooks. Got the most basic of flippers and stalled out when it came to fakie bigflip and treflip. I think I’m over the big hefty setup. Time to lighten the pop a little, but still stick with the big board.

(setup 8.5 null smoke valley, jessup pj ultragrip, venture 5.8 ti axle royal bushings, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5 440 insoles)
(pain level 3/10 some knee and achilles pain but man the achilles is finally doing somewhat better again!)

After debating a lazy night I picked up Saul and we rolled to Frederick where we met Mike and Garrett. There was almost no one when we arrived. We started in the little bowl which I had only skated once before and this time it was actually fun. I would have some fun carve lines then ended with a run that had axle stall and rock ‘n roll in the shallow. I was hyped on that. Mike had some good lines with front slashes and lots of backside carve grinds. Saul hit coping on basically every wall. Then we went down to the main area. We mostly skated the curb area for awhile or did laps around. Kinda hard seeing what others did. Saul got a couple slappies, had a good bail, went back up to the bowls for most of the night. Mike had some good slappies, wallrides, wallies. Garrett was doing super fast switch manuals, tricks over the pyramid ledge, super good slappies, b/s flips the big hip every try. I skated okay, but nothing special. Was happy to get a 2nd try ollie up the tall pad, halfcab noseslide, crooks, but couldn’t get nose manual or backside flip over the hip. The whole time we were there this dude was trying a long run ending with kickflip boardslide. he never got it, but he did end up getting all the tricks. The kf boardslide was sick.

(setup 8.5 null smoke valley, jessup pj ultragrip, venture 5.8 ti axle royal bushings, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5 440 insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Went to Broomfield shortly before dark after a rough day at work. I had put ventures on my 8.5, left everything else the same. This is my last round of comparing venture vs royal. I didn’t really like the ventures much, they are so hefty. Skating was alright though since the lights never turned on we only had about 15 minutes of skating which means I never got to the frustrating tricks. Sean did some basics for him which I would have freaked out over.

(setup 8.5 null smoke valley, jessup pj ultragrip, venture 5.8 ti axle royal bushings, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5 440 insoles)
(pain level 2/10)