Shortly after the Dr told me not to skate I picked up Kevin in Denver and we went to Broomfield park. For those not in the know, Kevin moved to WI. But yeah the doc wasn’t happy with my calf progress and said not to skate for a long time. Well, he said to avoid jumping which I mostly did. But going to Broomfield isn’t very good for that. Especially when only the street section is dry and even the quartapotty had a puddle in front of it. I rode my 8.75 setup because why not, it should prevent me from trying flip tricks and ollies. I did do a kickflip though which felt surprisingly good. Also a few basic non-pop nose stall related tricks on the ledges. Kevin took requests like a first try signature switch nosegrind 180. There were a few people there with multiple phones in the way pointing at tricks they were trying. It ended up getting pretty cold and windy so we left.

In Boulder we went to Valmont which was 10 degrees colder, but the sun had come out and there was no wind so it felt great. I kept with trying not to really jump. Had some fun doing ultra basic front 5-0 to fakie on the top of the bank and a couple fun runs on the little transition area in the top. Cass, Jack B, Paul also showed. Kevin did a switch backside flip, alley oop nollie b/s flip, some good long runs. Paul gets his back leg up on ollies and they look rad. Cass back big over the euro like it’s nothing. Jack B went over to the small section of dog park that was dry and worked on crooks. I did a couple slappies there eventually. Kevin had nollie nosegrind on the bench. Cass was almost doing back 180 nosegrinds on the curb.

(setup null 8.75 spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, ace 55 hollow, bones 51mm pj v1 103a, xero kelso b/w size 12 nike sb dunk insoles)
(pain level 3/10 not much pain because I didn’t really do anything)

Jack B picked me up and we went to the “Silver Session” at Square State. There was an abundant amount of older 20 somethings claiming they were “basically old enough” ha ha. It was rad through, everyone was cool and it ended up being a really fun session. I had tried skate shoes again, 212s. It only took 3 tries to get a kickflip so it seemed like the right call (until the next day when I woke up in calf pain). After a brief warmup in the main park I went to the miniramp and was super hyped on how hard Travis was shredding. I haven’t seen him skate in like 10 years and it made me happy to see him out there shredding. Brian slammed pretty good on the first wall. Doh. It’s also always a treat to see him shredding the mini. Then back to the main park where a good group of dudes were working on tricks and routing for each other. There was Dennis, Pat, Damian, Alton, Jack B, Jesse, Tim and more. Jack had done a live stream so I swiped a few of the tricks from it. It’s hard to remember what everyone else did. I had a crooks I was happy with on the bump to ledge, wallie nollie, took way too long to kickflip up the euro and came remotely close to kickflip 50 on the bump to ledge. But it felt good to actually be skating. Jack boardslid the rail again, first try pop shove up the euro and much more. Jesse with the pop shove tail grab over the hip. Damian front 50’d the rail to prove his 20 something ness. Dennis is still one of the nicest dudes ever and super fun to skate with. Everyone else shredded too. After a while I went back to the ramp as I was getting really sore. It was fun and I would do a few tricks I was happy with. Wish the coping wasn’t so darn sticky though. It was a really fun night with a fun crew. The bummer is it appears that wearing even the most minimalist skate shoes resulted in my calf acting up again. Ugh. Skating in Xero’s isn’t fun, but that appears to be the only option I have to prevent constant injuries.

(setup null 8.3 vhs, jessup ultragrip, royal 149 ultralights, bones 51mm pj v1 stf 103a, new balance numeric 212 b/w size 12 with 272 insoles)
(pain level 5/10 got so sore quickly)

On a sunny but cool morning I gave India a ride to work then went to the skatepark. I was armed with the same crappy Xero’s, but a couple smaller boards. After some carving around I did some flatground ollies with both and basically nothing happened. It was so depressing. Like I totally attempted to ollie and the board did not leave the ground. It was almost kind of amazing in a way, like wow, it’s amazing how much the body can degrade after 3 weeks of not skating when you’re almost 50. I would stick with an 8.25 with venture lows and it was okay, but I still had ghost pop over the hip. Cass would show after a while. He hasn’t skated in a long time, but he’s only 30 something (okay almost 40) so he was good. Covid got him good. He would get kickflip over the hip, almost a sick line of back bigspin the hip, fakie fail then front big on the bank. I got some kickflips. As in plural this time. I got around 5 kickflips to fakie, but they took a long time to get the first one. Never got two in a row. Jack B showed while I was trying to backside flip and was about to lost my mind. Luckily I finally landed one. Cass called out a fun game of best dork trick on the bank. He would almost get a fakie casper, but kind of rolled his ankle. That wasn’t a dork trick anyway Cass! I did some bean plants which I haven’t done in a long time, but they sucked and would not make Rob proud.

(setup null 8.25 hesher, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 low v-cast, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic, xero kelso bw size 12 NB insole from some 306s)
(pain level 5/10 not worth it)

On a cool winter Saturday I heard that Valmont was shoveled. I hadn’t got the okay to skate yet, but I was feeling good and went skating. I had told Dave I’d maybe skate 20 minutes. He knows better. Two hours later I finally decided to call it. Maybe because that’s how long it took me to land a kickflip. Ha ha. Honestly though, I tried to wear some Xero Kelso shoes that shouldn’t injure me. They didn’t, my legs felt better, but man they SUCKED for skateboarding. Dave hasn’t been able to skate much lately either due to a hurt back. I was happy to be able to push without pain. I did have some fun when I wasn’t trying a kickflip to fakie which literally took like 50 tries. I thought it was mostly the board being so big, but really it was the shoes with toe spacers. Dave had some rad switch tails over the hip, fakie flip on the bank, boardslide to fakie on the rainbow, nollie back 180s over the hip. Jesse had shown and did a few amazing pop shove tail grabs over the hip. Dave wanted to learn one. As you can see he kind of got it. Then he hurt his back on the invert. Doh.

(setup 8.5 null vhs, jessup ultragrip, royal 149 ultralights, 54mm bones stf 99a slims, xero kelso b/w size 12)
(pain level 3/10)

Kevin and Rob have been requesting I do reviews for a long time, so here’s my first one. Now that it’s done I should add that I think the tightened wheelbase, lower truck height and the heavy hangers contributed to the flip trick struggles. Anyway, maybe I’ll do more as it seemed to at least make my friends laugh some.

Met up with Joe, Sean and Garrett at dog park on a cool day. I did a couple slappy crooks and a switch front nose before settling in on filming those dudes.

My calf is still not healed, but on a beautiful day I couldn’t resist standing on my board. And that’s literally mostly what I did. On the side of the school I just did a few nollie shoves, fakie shoves, ollies and posed a couple kickflips. I was wearing Xero Kelso shoes because I’m sick AF of being injured. Skate shoes suck. They weren’t as grippy as NBs, but felt okay. Their wider toebox made my 8.25 board feel absolutely tiny though. I skated maybe 10 minutes and did not seem to do anything that made things worse. Oh yeah, I wore toe spacers too which really seemed to help position the foot.

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2023 goals:
Get healthy!
Never wear skate shoes again (that’s what caused my calf injury).
Put out a part for my 50th.
Get shown up 50 times.
Drink very little.
Halfcab heel noseslide 270 shove out.
Film a line with a treflip and a nollie treflip in it.

Up too early before the midwest moisture had burned off we delayed skating for some breakfast and a yummy nearby coffee joint then got to skating. I thought I felt good doing my morning exercises. Nope. I would go on to struggle something fierce. Joe was working the ledges in the actual pool area. I had tried messing around then went up to the very top area that has some seriously easy training wheels curbs which were fun. I had some 5-0s and 50s on a curb high one off a drop that was fun and some 180s off the next levels. I played with nose manuals on one of the little pads for a bit and got a couple, but couldn’t get shove out. I started playing with a line similar to the one at the start above but with a fakie 50 then wanted to switch 180 off the ledge, but the crack was preventing that. Then I started going the other way ollie up, front nose fakie, halfcab flip off the ledge. I did several halfcab flips on flat to try and get it dialed in off the ledge. I would get the line a couple times, but the halfcab flips were not great. Actually nothing was ha ha, but I was still pretty happy. Never halfcab flipped off a ledge that tall. Maybe not even off a curb? Or maybe once back off the little dock at Stonehenge. But yes it was really fun and I was very hyped to do it. Then I filmed Joe get a line in like 5 tries. Then a lot easier of a line above in about 20 tries ha ha.

After some driving we ended up at this weird bank at a cathedral which would normally be really fun and easyish to skate. But when you filmed like crazy the day before and session before it was a brutal warm up. I couldn’t kickflip and almost left my skateboard there. I tried some bigflips and didn’t get close. I finally got kickflip to fakie. Joe did a sick front shove over the hip. I tried no comply bigger spins for a while until the pain in my calf became way too much to keep skating. Then we got some margs to celebrate a fun trip!

(setup 2/10 null 8.25 esher, thunder hollow light 148 with venom 88a bushings, bones pj stf v1 51mm, new balance numeric 440 white size 12 half insoles)
(pain level 3/10 at slabs 8/10 at banks)

Up pretty early Joe and I got to Harrison St before the homeless had stopped pissing in the middle of the park (seriously right as we rolled up). Joe had skated there before. I was feeling pretty good actually even though it took us both a while to get used to the park and figure out what to skate. The first thing was the carve over the shallow end which resulted in a grind and was incredibly fun. Joe did the run to the boardslide. We tried some other stuff, I couldn’t quite grind the real quick transition by the big bowl. I took way to long to get the kickflip on the bank, but the grinds on the brick coping was super fun. Joe shut it down with the front shove and kickflip fakie line.

After an amazing lunch of Ethiopian food at Blue Nile cafe we ended up at the milk crate ledges. This spot has been on my list of spots for a long time and one of the main reasons I went to KC. I had no idea it was on such a hill which was a bit of a bummer. The top low ledge with regular angle iron was kind of actually the highlight. I would eventually calm down and get some of the longer crooks I’ve done in a while. Joe rattled off a few uphill frontside tricks. We started filming after a while, giving each other 3 tries to get some lines. I had fun basics line with crooks then slappy but couldn’t get a flipper after. Joe started his line with back 50 to boardslide 270 out. I went on to try fakie 50 and got this line a couple times very badly before trying to make it harder with a fakie front shove out which never worked. I eventually gave in to the soreness and exhaustion and filmed Joe get a banger fakie 50 to back 50. Fun day. Exactly why we went to KC. Skate a park, film some in the streets.

(setup 2/10 null 8.25 esher, thunder hollow light 148 with venom 88a bushings, bones pj stf v1 51mm, new balance numeric 440 white size 12 half insoles)
(pain level 4/10 not too bad initially)