skate journal: estes park skatepark with rob, paul and dave (aug 31, 2024)

On a hot day I picked up Paul and we met Rob and Dave in Lyons and drove up to the new skatepark in Estes Park. Upon arriving to the park we saw Fort Collins OG Adam and his friend Noah totally shredding. Noah’s kickflip was insane. They both had mega pop and classic street skater style. Dave had skated there a couple of times, but the rest of us hadn’t been there before. It took some getting used, but had some really fun stuff. My setup was getting really annoying as the bushings were falling apart while skating and my front truck was loose I could barely push. I had the most fun doing lines starting with the tiny qp in the back then a noseslide and bank trick. Got the front feeble, noseslide, kickflip fakie. Also front slash, noseslide to fakie, halfcab flip on the bank (with half my foot on the ground). Paul had front rock then back 50 the whole top section popped into the bank. Dave had manualed across the stairs on the bank and battled nose manual, but wouldn’t get that until the end. Dave and Paul had some nice grind and slides on the little china bank, noseslides and grind on the bank to ledge. In between pointing out the flaws of the middle upper section Rob had lots of manuals across it, back 50s on the little ledges. He also had some good ones on the lower manny pad. Paul had some really cool ollies off the qps onto the stallion, easily gap to back 50 the top euro, he was ripping. I didn’t really land anything else other than a boneless over the rail which was scarier than I wanted it to be. Dave had a million lines, crooks the china bank, switch front nose the bank to ledge, manual the bank to pad, kickflip on the bank, nollie shove hippy jump! It was a fun session followed by a nice dinner in Lyons. Good times folks.

FWIW my initial take is to give the skatepark a 7/10 rating, but would like to skate there again and get more of the tricks I wanted before my legs gave out.

(setup 2/10 null 20 year 8.5/14.25, jessup ultragrip, slappy lights 8.5, 51mm bones stf v1 pj 103a, new balance numeric tiago 1010 phantom size 12 with currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 7/10 felt good initially but the pain really crept in and prevented me from keeping at it)