On a cold snowy day I went out to the garage in the early afternoon with yet another setup change. Wore cupsoles for a change up. Had a blast. Did typical warm up tricks for a bit. Got to kickflip and bailed one then got 5 in a row. Switch flips were not very close. Fakie flip yes. Quite a few nollie flip attempts, a couple were close. Got a couple good feeling b/s flip and halfcab flips. Took a bit to get a couple treflips. Had a great feeling heelflip. Went in hard on nollie tres, a few were really close. It’s just so hard in the little garage and going that slow. Next up battled front heel which technically I may have landed, but not really. Some were close to feeling good. Took too long to get fakie front heel because of the low speed and terrible setup. At that point I wanted to land a copule more tricks so I did varial flip and fakie bigflip. Then I hucked some switch f/s flip and nollie varial heels. Neither were close, but both felt possible if the stars somehow aligned just right.

(setup 8/10 null 8.25 keyhole, null grip, slappy lights 8.25, spitfire f4 99a classic orange/black, new balance numeric 440v2 wide brown size 12 half 574 vulc insole and currex runpro insole)
(pain level 4/10 felt good for a while, but pretty sore near the end)

It was so incredibly nice out so I took an early lunch on a Friday and went to Boulder park. I have completely ruined my new years goal of no setup changes. I had an 8.25 with hollow Thunder 147s and hated it. Mostly, the squeek in the pivot cups was insane, to the point that I think the only other person at the park left. I skated about an hour still. Did a few normal basics there. Kickflips didn’t seem any easier really and so there was no doubt this setup would not last. Did have b/s flip on flat, but halfcab flip still took a few tries. Got one front 50 on the bench. Then tried to do a line of front disaster on the little qp then front 50 shove. Never got another 50. Went in a bit on front 50 back 180 out on the hump to ledge and would eventually get it. Felt pretty cool. Then it was back to work. Oh yeah, I had new 574s. I had no chance to break them in ahead of time, but they still skated alright.

(setup 1/10 null 8.25 keyhole, null grip, thunder hollow 147 bones medium bushings, 52mm spitfire f4 99a classic shape orange/black, new balance numeric 574 vulc grey/orange size 11.5 half insole and currex runpro insole)
(pain level 4/10)

A warm evening with a big storm and cool down coming so I really wanted to skate outside. Will and I had been talking and decided on Arvada. Cass, Garrett and Donnie were down too. As always, I was amazed at how crowded it was upon arrival. It’s so hard to get in the groove when 50 other people are skating. I mean it wasn’t that crowded for Arvada standards, but there are so many ways to skate it, so many different lines. Felt like I just kept getting in everyones way. I had a setup change which felt okay initially, but once I failed at front 50s on the tiny granite pad I about lost my mind. But before that, things were okay. Early on I saw Cass front nose the flat bar really well. We boardslid down the little parking block over the gap which was quite fun. Will had never been there before. Garrett popped ollies over the pyrmaid with mad style. He had manuals, nose manual, but not kickflip manuals. Ha, he actually focused his board on a failed nose manual. But still did some skating and then skated his Sk8 mafia mini. We skated like 3 hours. A lot happened. Donnie destroyed the little qp above the snake run. Sugarcanes both ways. Inspired me to commit to a measly front feeble. Will got close to manualling the big pad into the hill. I had a fun run of back 50 the qp, noseslide the pad into the hill, ollie up the tiny euro. Oh yeah, Donnie, Will and I played part of a game of SKATE. I think I was somehow in the lead when a young kid slammed very hard and required some attention. I had fun trying treflips on the sk8 mafia mini, landed on it. Donnie and Garrett did really good ones. My shoe is bigger than that board. Cass had a nice kickflip on one. Near the end I made made myself do 5 tricks on the mellow circle pad since people were finally not standing on it. I got kf to fakie, b/s flip, bad f/s flip, halfcab flip and a few bigflips. Donnie did an amazing back 360 kickflip and no comply to tail the little nearby qp. Will added some kickflips to fakie. Garrett was doing some crazy tricks on the mini, like tailslides on the little qp. What the heck. Anyway, that was the end, I was starving. Fun session, I might even go there again soon.

(setup 3/10 8.3 null keyhole, null grip, venture 5.6 v8 with bones medium bushings, 52mm bones stf v1 103a stf, new balance numeric 574 vulc blue size 11.5 half insoles and currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 3/10)