I lounged away the hot part of the day and when the clouds rolled in I headed out to Louisville intending to go do the metal curb spot. But when I arrived there was a family playing basketball and sitting on the curbs and I didn’t feel like rolling into that. After some driving around looking for a school I ended up at Louisville park since there were only a couple of scooter kids there. I was skating a smaller board in hopes of easier flip tricks. It seemed to help but I didn’t do much. I had done a few basics around the park and settled in on the line of crooks the ledge then noseslide to fakie the bump to ledge. But it started pouring.

It dried up before I got all the way back to Boulder so I went to Platte with no real intentions but ended up going in on crooks shove. Took a while, but I got two and I was hyped. Although I wanted to do shove off the curb after and missed it both times. Doh. Hucked a little more, but crooks were basically it. Considering how tired I was it felt good to go in on one trick.

(setup 5/10 null 8.25 beatles, jessup ultragrip, thunder hollow lite 148 royal bushings, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic shape yellow, new balance numeric 440v2 white size 11.5 currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 5/10)

Around noon Paul, Rob, Dave and me rolled up to Estes Skatepark. We arrived to a park filled with a toddler birthday party. Ugh! We saw Bratcher, Jesse and Tyler (I think?) over at the old park so some of us started over there. There was a little ride on grind bar across some dirt where we ruined our bearings. Brian had joined us. Him and Rob had gone over to the new park. Dave was trying to manual the deck of the middle extended qp which was nuts. I had done a few basics and on the ledge and was trying a line to switch front board the mangled flatbar when we decided we should just go to the new park.

Over at the new park. I really struggled. Didn’t sleep well the night before after such a rad night so I didn’t have much energy. But I had fun with the dudes, laughed a lot and had a couple of things I liked. Gapping to front 50 the tiny euro to curb was fun. Rob had them backside too. I missed a lot of flip tricks. At the end at least I had one line I liked with the noseslide to fakie then halfcab flip. The noseslides were really fun. Dave was doing lines with manuals in to the bank and ending with manuals out of the bank with a lot in between. Paul was killing the bank to ledge. Rob was easily doing back 50s on the curbs and got Brian hyped to do some. We skated the minramp section a bit. The highlight being Brian falling backwards having a conversation as he slammed. Well, maybe it was more his blunt to fakie or crazy blindside pivots. Rob handled axle stalls as did Brian. Dave went in on the bank crooks. Eric showed up, had some good lines in the mini, good front 50 the bump to ledge, high speed manual attempts. Brian’s boardslide around the kink on the bank to ledge was great. I’m not remembering much more even though I know a lot happened. The Dave f/s flip attempt was funny. The bs flip was perfect. All session we had to deal with an abundance of kids on scooters or bikes with zero awareness of the dangers of a skatepark. Two times in a row kids rolled under Dave as he was doing tricks on the quarterpipe. The overly positive kid was tough to take after a while. But all in all we had a fun session. That park is fun and it would be way more fun if the youth would have some sense of skatepark etiquette.

(setup 3/10 8.5 nullosaur, jessup ultragrip, ace af1 low 55 hard bushings, 53mm bones stf v1 pj wheels, new balance numeric 440v2 wide white size 11.5 with half insoles and currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 6/10)

So yeah, this really happened. I don’t really know how to write this entry. Everyone hear knows he’s been my fav skater since WHL. I have been DM’ing a little with PJ for years. He’s always been super nice and when I saw he was in Omaha I reached out and asked if he was coming through CO. He said yes and I told him about dog park, but it didn’t seem he’d be coming through Boulder. I had plans to meet up with Rob, Paul, Ed on what initially seemed like would be a normal mellow Friday session. But pretty quick into the session PJ said he’d be coming by. After an initial excitement freak out I was able to settle down and we skated.

PJ and Paul showed up around the same time. It was actually kind of funny because PJ slammed on his first kickflip. Like just a little look around at the park, stand on the board, slam on a kickflip. He then did some warm up flatground just going slow in a little section in the back of the park. Then we were all skating just doing our things. Rob had a nice manual around the lurb, back smith the curb (got a cheer from PJ). I’m sure this comes as a surprise to know one, but this session is a blur for me and I don’t remember much. Paul had some nice switch slappy crooks, back 5-0s. PJ had some really casual kickflip manual, 50’d everything, first try front shove back 50. We thought he left, but turns out he was just chilling a bit. Ed had shown and was cruising around getting manuals and ollies and everything. I had some crooks, slow 50s, switch front noseslides.

After a while we noticed PJ skating the actual skatepark so Paul and I went over there. I may have gotten a little line of boardslide transfer into the bank followed by b/s flip the hip but I honestly can’t remember if I did the bs flip. PJ was mostly skating the bump to ledge. PJ did front shove back 50, back tail, nollie crooks, kickflip noseslide pretty quickly. He also took a few tries to ollie the pyramid, but then did 180 and kickflip first try. Varial heel the euro hip first try. A funny kickflip over the hip where he readjusted and landed where most mortals would have bailed. I knew it was now or never to get a clip of him showing me up and he thought the idea was funny. Thanks Paul for filming. PJ had initially tried to show me up with treflip noseslide, but settled for kickflip noseslide. At this point things were pretty normal and it was super fun. I did noseslide then kickflip to fakie on the bank after and PJ did nollie crook (I think) followed by such a casual treflip to fakie. After this I offered to film his his treflip noseslide which took him several tries. It was cool to see his process and that he doesn’t in fact always land everything. When trying the frontside flips Paul was trying the noseblunts. It was cool and both dudes got their tricks. Paul and I chatted with PJ for a bit after skating and it was awesome. I really can’t believe it happened and how normal and fun it felt once it was done. Epic day for me. Thanks for coming to Boulder PJ!

(setup 5/10 8.5 nullosaur, jessup ultragrip, ace af1 low 55 hard bushings, 53mm bones stf v1 pj (ha) wheels, new balance numeric 440v2 wide white size 11.5 with half insoles and currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 4/10)