skate journal: big arvada with cass, will, donnie and garrett (jan 16, 2025)

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)