First time with new shoes in awhile. The Supras put up a good fight and showed me that cup soles are better for repeatedly hucking flip tricks which is my favorite thing to do. So I got another pair of cupsoles. This time Vox – Lockdown Cups. They are a bit bulky for my taste, but we’ll see ..

It was a gorgeous evening. It had gotten to 99, but since we’re in a desert it cooled around 7 when we met up. We watched Suciu’s part in Sabotage 3 which inspired all of us then drove up to campus. We started off in this parking lot. Everyone seemed hyped and on their game pretty quick. Rob had a sick no comply shove up the curb and a push down the 3. Ha it was awesome. He also no complied up the 3 and did a bunch of long manuals around banked curb. Jake and I failed at manualling the curb – 3 section. Jake did have a nice ollie up, front 180 down, f/s halfcab off though. I was breaking in the new shoes and having fun. If I didn’t get the manual I would do a 180 off the curb after the 3 then a fakie flip trick. I was surprised at how good the new shoes felt. I managed a switch front 180 up, front 180 down the 3, sw front 180 off the curb.

Then we ended up at the new area where the old brick plaza was. Rob had some good boardslides, front nose to fakie, some creative slams as well as some rad no comply variations. Jake kickflipped the little brick section. I had a couple great feeling treflips followed by crook attempts turned into noseslides.

Next up was the fun little manny pad area. Jake went for halfcab manny and some wallrides on this fun barrier that was on the end of the sidewalk. So you could ollie onto the sidewalk then wallride the barrier down the 3″ to the parking lot. Ha. Rob came close to 180 nose mannies both ways. Had a sick nose manual drop down to nosemanual then turn front 180. I was feeling really good and skated non-stop. Got kickflip manny and nose manny shove. Maybe sw front 180 manual too. Had a really fun line of ollie up the curb then wallride down into the parking lot then lipslide a parking block. Also frontside wallride up onto the sidewalk, then ollie onto the tall orange ledge and front 180 off.

Last spot of the day was the double mellow banks. Jake was looking pretty tired and even kicked his board a couple times. Unheard of for him! He did manage some good lines though. Kickflip into the first, nollie 180 the second (I think?). Fakie bigspin then pop shove. Quite a few more I can’t remember right now. Rob did no comply shove then back 180 and maybe called it after that. I had pretty much the best flip trick showing I’ve ever had there. Pop shove the first, kickflip the second. Halfcab flip the first, back 180 the second. Fakie bigflip the first, front pop shove the second. Anytime I landed the second trick going forward I would loop around and try to ollie up the 3. I bailed most times. B/s flip the first, halfcab flip the second. Treflip the first, kickflip the second. Fakie flip the first, sw front 180 the second. And the ender, F/s halfcab flip the first, kickflip the second and finally got a clean ollie up the 3. Hurray for cupsoles making flip tricks even more fun!

On a hot and lazy afternoon Ollie and I set out to go skate. I was so lazy I even wore shorts. We ended up at this spot and I figure since it’s a ledge spot Ollie would be over it pretty quick and we’d move on. We were just kinda goofing around for awhile then Ollie pretty much did the first line in the video. I figured it would be cool to film it with my phone so we did. I love how he has no idea about what is cool in skateboarding. He’s wearing basketball shorts, he’s pushing mongo and he swings his arms around on purpose. But watching him is the best. He is only doing it for fun and he smiled the entire time. I had a couple runs starting with the tre stair too that were fun. Ollie, ollie up the curb, manual around a pillar, front nose to fakie on a ledge. Ollie the three, front 180 up the curb, sw front 180 up the smallest ledge, front shove off a taller ledge, 3 flip on flat. Ollie the three, kickfilp up the curb (hard because it’s so quick). I’ve wanted to do that ollie up the ledge then ride off ever since Jack manualled it in the snow forever ago. It took me awhile. I kept thinking my big butt would hit the rail as I ollied on. Hyped on getting that though. Ollie was doing lots of front and back 180s off various ledges. The best though was after awhile he was ollieing off the 3 stair then ollieing up the curb after. He was so hyped to be ollie’ing up a curb with speed. The look he gave me after the first couple was mind blowing to me. That is the most hyped I’ve ever seen him on a skateboard. I had a few other things I did that I was pretty hyped on. First try kick back 50 on the low ledge, a couple frontside flips. The crooks then treflip was extra great feeling because I just said if I land the crooks then I would try a flip trick and it worked first try. Ollie was doing a bunch of the quick ollies on different flagstone sections. It was so sick. I was finally able to do it as we rolled to the car. What a fun session. Sharing an amazing skate session with your kid is an amazing feeling. I put this up there with lots of other incredibly fun sessions I’ve had and am so grateful for all of them.

(Sorry for how lame facebook videos are to embed)

Another post work Friday session here. The park aint great, but it’s location and lack of crowds is. There was even a couple other people skating for awhile. And they were pretty good. But no one wants to read about how good young skaters are on this blog, it’s just about old people. Unfortunately we skated pretty good for old people today I think. We mostly warmed up on the bank. Dave and Rob both had sick no comply bonelesses. Or whatever you call a boneless that’s grabbed backside. Dave had a pretty bad slam on a switch shove or something. I was in a flip trick mood and went with it. Got a few treflips and a couple in lines. I still can’t ollie up the middle ledge. Man it’s tall. At one point all three of us got tricks in a row that we had worked on. Mine was front 50 kickflip out (little kid trick!!). I think Dave’s was nollie into the bank. I don’t remember Rob’s trick at the moment. Whatever it was I’m sure it was steezy though. I had a blast and landed lots of tricks, but I felt like my style was extra bad. Seemed like after every trick I would have a weird hand motion or tic tac or something. Dave also had a good front board to fakie on the flat bar, front 50s on the ledge, slash on the bank to sideways ledge, and a first try fakie flip on the bank. Rob had some no comply 360s on the bank, front board on a tall ledge and lots more. I couldn’t get a b/s flip on the bank. So funny. I landed lots of flippers though and since thats my favorite stuff I had a blast. Good start to the weekend.

After a long day at the zoo, but a perfect early evening I met good ol’ Dan at the Omaha park. We started getting our groove on. Dan had a rad fakie rock 360 on the deck back to rock. Shortly after Drew Newlin showed up with a large crew of Omaha rippers and the session go really heated. Fun to watch, kind of embarrassing to try and get in the mix with. I bailed some crooks, but almost got kick back 50. Dan and I headed out because we were gonna meet Joe and Matt in a nearby suburb for some pizza then a little session at a metal park.

The park itself was a joke, but it has 3 things that most “awesome” parks around CO don’t have. A good ledge, good flatground and a good flatbar. Joe snapped this photo of me doing a front 50 front shove. It’s kind of funny because now that seems to be called the Joe Hamilton trick. Well before he got so darn good people used to call it the Glen Gillingham trick. Thanks Joe. Some day you will be 40 and it will be hard too! Ha. Joe wasn’t skating because of his rolled ankle, but it was feeling better and he could walk ok at least. Matt is really good at skateboarding. It’s crazy. On the box. Back 50, back 5-0, back nosegrind, back nosegrinnd shove, back tail, nollie back 5-0, front 5-0, nollie front nosegrind, nollie front nosegrind front 180 (I get partial credit on this one!!!), front tail, front tail fakie, and probably a ton more I’m forgetting. It was just as good on the flatbar. Front smith, front feeble, front lip, nollie front lip, front board shove, back crooks, back feeble, back lip, nollie back lip pretty much every trick there is. These dudes are so fun to skate with. They were all cheering and having a blast. No bad vibes at all. I started slow and even though I took 10 tries to get a front 50 it got cheers. I went on to get crooks, front 5-0 and kick back 50 (kind of). Came close to front 50 back 180 out, front 5-0 shove. Geez, I feel so lame compared to Matt. My flatground game was on pretty good though. treflips, b/s flips, nollie tre, halfcab flip, fakie bigflip, etc. At one point Dan dared me to do a crooks. I got it then followed it with a really bad heelflip. Matt followed suit and did the same thing as me with another not great heelflip. Dan was last. Got the crooks and mr heelflip himself bailed the heelflip! Ha ha ha the crowd went wild. Dan killed it though. Front nosegrind super easy, lots of fakie 5-0 attempts, 50 to manual to 50 and a bunch of other unique tricks. I was maybe most impressed with the first try over willy on the flat bar. That thing is tall! The session was over pretty quick as it got dark. But wow it was fun. These dudes never disappoint.

Another fun morning that started watching Ollie’s flag football game. I had some minor food poisoning the night before so was feeling pretty exhausted and drained. Showed up late for Skateshop appreciation day, but managed to still have fun. I basically just skated the tiny qp at the top of the park with Derek, Jack and Carleigh for awhile, then “judged” people jump down the rail/stairs (Yeah Jack!) and on the 13 foot qp.

Then we went to this awesome spot. There are five levels each with the same size ledge/drop between them.

Some had stuff down them, some didn’t.

We stayed here a really long time. The crew was pretty big. Fuzz, Jack, Carleigh, Blaine, Justin, James, Rho, Neil and Chase. Carleigh took quite a few awesome photos here. I’ll mostly just talk about the older crew because listing everything is already an impossible task. Justin filmed a rad line. James rips, slams hard and did a front tail 270 shove down the metal shelf ledge. Jack slammed hard several times right out of the gate so made the wise choice to show some restraint and just chill. I should mention that Jack and I were twins for the day as we both had JAM shirts on and Null 10 year decks. We’re cute like that. Neil skated way longer then his normal 20 minute max. 50s down the metal box, crooks shove on the ledge, halfcab up like it was nothing, lipslides. John went to work on a line pretty quickly and spent most of his time working on it. Front 180 up, fakie flip on flat then front shove front noseslide to fakie. So sick! Fuzz ripped it. Front 180 up, sw 180 a little hole, nollie front tail. Back 180 up, back 50 up the metal ledge, back 50 front 180 out up the metal ledge, fakie nosegrind 180, fakie 50 halfcab out on the ledge. Yeah, killed it. Carleigh skated a long time. I saw some kickflips and front 50s early on then she tried back hurricanes for a long time. I’m not sure how many total she got, but I saw at least one make. So sick. That is not a trick I’ve seen done on regular ledges too many times. Or ever. Rho is Crisis’ newest team prospect and the kid rips! Back 180 nosegrind down the metal shelf, front noseslide up, back crooks up and down, back smith up. Full on shralping. I felt like I was struggling initially, but after getting a kickflip up one of the levels I started to have the time of my life. First line I got was kickflip up, front 5-0 shove then front shove off. Another was kickflip up front 50 front 180 out, halfcab flip on flat then kickflip off. Front 180 up, halfcab flip on flat, front 50 back 180 out (so bad) then a slow and not popped fakie bigpin down. Tried some more lines, but didn’t really combine them til later. Did a few crooks, back 50s, front 50 to front board, some bad kickflip back 50s (almost locked into 5-0 on a few). Near the end I went up top then kickflipped down all 4 in a row. This was probably the highlight for me. No the kickflips weren’t gnarly at all, but to do 4 kickflips down something in a row first try felt amazing. At one point I ollied a little shopping cart on it’s side as I couldn’t get the courage to try ollieing over the couch. Last thing I did was a line of front 5-0 , boardslide down the metal shelf ledge and finally kickflip the next drop. I had cracked my tail previously on a kickflip down (and somehow everyone else but me knew that? ha) and that kickflipped finished off the tail. I gave my board to Jack to have him take out his frustrations with the spot and he put it out of it’s misery. What a fun spot. Not sure it could every be as fun again, but man for this session it was amazing. I guess I like the cupsoles and I wasn’t very sore after all that. After we had a nice dinner at the Dark Horse then did some beer drinking at the Outback to celebrate Jason’s girfriend Lindy turning 30. Happy Birthday!

Met Dave at Sol prior to getting picked up in the Square State Skate bus. Rather then just wait we skated this little dork spot behind 7-11. Basically put a couple plastic soda crates and did slappy tailslides. They were fun though. Then we skated the Sol ramp for while. Flatground initially. I had most of my flippers except for heelflips which appear to be totally gone. Dave started “skating the vert” (Sol ramp inside joke due to kids that only skate flat calling the ramp a vert ramp) and did some sick fakie ollies and nollies. I tried a few too and did some weak ones. Everyone showed and we were off in the bus with an awesome crew. Dave, Rob, Ric, Brian, Wade, John and myself. After a stop at MRKT and a burrito we showed up at Launch. It was pretty crowded for me. I tried to skate, but couldn’t do a damn thing. Everyone else was ripping. I saw Rob and John skating flat and joined them where we skated for quite awhile. I got most of my flippers, John too. We also skated the wallride for awhile. I haven’t seen Rob miss a kickflip since he’s been back.

Finally went back up onto the ramp and things went much better for me. Got some runs with a few tricks in them. Front disasters, scratch grind reverts, a first try front 50 (the trick I was most hyped on) a little grind around the corner and tried front feebs. Ric was ripping the way he always does. Super inside slashers and crazy lines. Brian can do one million tricks and he did them all. Loved the front 5-0s into the corner, the front pivots fakie, the halfcab rock reverts and all of it. And he finally rock creeked a blunt to fakie and kind of hung up! rob was flying around the corners with his narrow feet stance. Solid front slashes and got a few long back 50s. Wade carves around that thing so awesome. John has amazing backside ollies and a ton of revert tricks. Loved the blunt to back smith attempts where he was just stuck on the coping in a weird position. Some great runs though. Fullertron was in full effect. He did some “aerials” as shown in the mute above (photos by Brian) and straight up killed the ramp. So many tricks it’s impossible to list. Andy was there and skates the ramp like he owns it. He does. Ha. Kickflip pivot? Yeap. Some other dudes where there ripping and the whole vibe was awesome. As Brian pointed out I don’t think we even made the top 5 in the oldest category. They need to change it to over 40 night!

Last, but not least a curb session ended the night. Lots of no comply variations and tricks over. Andy had front shove (above) first try. I got a backside flip which might be my first one over anything. John had no comply 180. Brian had a sick impossible on flat. I don’t even know, it was just awesome. People were doing tricks over it and it would get the same amount of cheers as just running into the curb. Such a fun vibe, session and experience.

After some early morning basketball with Ollie I went over to Jason’s where I met Fuzz and Neil. We got Jason in his electric wheelchair and loaded it up into his van, picked up Jake and hit this spot again. It’s name has become Retal Curbs! Like Red Curbs, but metal. We met Dave, Brian, Carleigh and Denise here too. It was rad seeing Jason with some freedom cruising around the spot on his own and he even pulled me in for a boardslide. Ha. Lots of boardslides went down initially. Fuzz and Neil quickly added a bunch more like lipslides, nollie lips, etc. Jake had quite a few tricks too. A random Boulder skater showed for awhile and took some sketchy looking falls. Dave killed it as usual. This time he got the front 50 back 180 out. Also front 50 to front board. Feeble transfers, everything. Fuzz had a sick fakie front 50. Brian had a sick front board. Denise had a cute drink. Jake stacked up quite a few tricks too, but I’m failing to remember them now.

I had gotten kinda bored with the spot and started looking around and ended up putting down a really fun line. Ollie the little red flag on the far left, manual the median, curve right and do a treflip on flat then a boardslide on the flat bar followed by a front 180 over a couple cracks. Not all that cool, but man it was fun. Carleigh showed pretty late in the session and I saw her get into a hurricane on the bar. Gnarly.

Then we went to Crest View Elementary where we skated hard forever. The long aluminum bench is kinda intimidating initially. At least to us old people. Jason was cruising around in his chair again. It was awesome to see his smile. Neil had some good boardslides on the first bench. Coming the other way had some good front 50s. Jake was on the same tip. Tried to get front shove out, but didn’t quite. Fuzz killed it. Boardslide the long bench. Ollie the bench, back 50 the tall side, boardslide transfer to tail crack and a lot more. Carleigh was going for a line of kickflip then front 50, but slid out when she got into 50. Dave took a super gnarly slam. It didn’t stop him though. He almost got a line with front 50 then front board transfer. But that’s what he slammed hard on. He got boardslide transfer too. I couldn’t boardslide the long bench, but probably did 50 kickflips up the curb going the other way to set up for front 50s (which I normally bailed). Got one with a shove out near the end. Took forever. But anytime there is a curb to kickflip up I’m gonna be having fun. Dave and I also got boardslides to manual. I had a little line of boardslide then crook grind fall off then sit on the bench. I tried to hang with Fuzz doing ollie up then ollie up again to manual, but couldn’t. Fuzz did it so sick with manual drop to manual drop to manual. He’s good. Dave did a super sick hippy jump too. Fuzz and I messed around with this little downhill line to curb cut. I had a fun run of kickflip into the handicap ramp, ollie a crack halfway down then ollied into the downhill curb cut. Fuzz switch 180’d in then ollied out of the curb cut over a crack. Pretty darn awesome. Super fun day. Then we went to 3 Margs and Jason’s where we watched the documentary on Skatopia which is quite horrible (because of the content). But all in all a totally awesome day.

After a busy family morning watching Ollie play two flag football games back to back (scoring 5 or 6 touchdowns!) Rob came over and we went to this ledge/hip spot. It was immediately fun. It’s so awesome that Rob is around again. He had a backside boneless over the hip pretty early on that hyped me up big time. Neither of us were killing the ledge, the downhill/uphill parts of it are weird. But we were starting to get some basics down when Neil showed and ripped it up. He would skate the ledge uphill, land a trick then go back down the bike path to a trick on the hip, then back up to the ledge. He did some really good ollies over the hip and one foots. Rob tried to get pretty tech on the ledge with 180 nosegrinds and back 180 fakie 50s. We also did some back 180’s off the first part of the ledge like a kicker or started with flatground tricks at the top (I went with heelflip). Near the end I tried a bunch of 3 flips over the hip, but couldn’t quite get them so I went for kickflip to fakie on the steeper part of the bank. So fun. Neil did one too. Rob had a steezy tail block. I added a fakie flip and kind of a fakie flip over the hip thing and we moved on to an old classic Boulder spot.

This is the spot! Great flat ground and a manny pad. Perfect! They have added the bike racks since the last time I was there so it’s not quite as easy to skate, but still awesome. Neil manny and nose mannied the long way quick. Then did a line with a nollie front 180, halfcab manual then nose manual the long way. Rob had nose manny and manny quick too. Also tried a line of manual a corner then front 180 nose manual the other corner. Didn’t quite get it. Also had some good flatground lines with no complys, shoves, etc that were sick. I went more the trick up trick down route. Kickflip up/down was real quick. Started going kickflip up, treflip off and after a few sketchy ones put one down that felt amazing. Few tries later added b/s flip off. Finally did the manny and nose manny the long way. Then added a weird halfcab flip off and a line with front 180 up, a horrible sw mongo push and then a fakie bigflip off. So stoked! Ended by doing another treflip off and called it a day. What a blast! We grabbed some grub then went to the art show at Installation which was really fun too.

It took two days to heal from my 40 trick day. But I was feeling good and extra motivated for multiple reasons. First, listening to that PJ Ladd song (the first song in his part was too short so we went with the after credits song which I almost like even more) reminded me of the PJ part. So I watched it. A bunch. When PJLWHL came out I was probably at my most motivated point in skating. So I kind of had that vibe going. And my 40 trick clip had me motivated to be a better skater and skate faster. I still feel like I should have cared about the tricks I was doing a little more for that clip, but oh well, it was a blast. Okay, longest intro ever for an hour long parking garage session. I had to break my ‘not wearing a beanie anymore because it’s supposed to be warm” pledge. I started out cold and pushing around the place fast. Ollies over the parking blocks were hard initially. After a bit I felt warm and started trying some lines. First one was was ollie onto the far left sidewalk, head to the right then front tail to fakie on the parking block, halfcab flip then kick back lip on another curb. Didn’t get the last trick. Started trying a different line starting with back tail instead, then treflip then kick front 50. Came super close and was hyped on how fast I was going on the treflips. The back tail were barely even skidders though. I ollied the newspaper rack a few times again, once even in a line after manualling the above sidewalk which didn’t leave me much setup space. Another line I tried was ollieing a crack to crack gap, slappy back tailslide, front lip a parking block. Didn’t get all 3. Was able to kickflip over the parking block really easy. Got a front shove first real try. Almost got backside flip over it. Got a fakie bigspin. Did a lot of tricks cruising around faster then I thought I could. Ended by front lipping a parking block then trying to ollie the newspaper stand again and landing right on it. Ha. Super fun session though. Wish I always had that much energy and motivation.

Today was a big day. Went to Broomfield park a little after 10 am on a super nice day. The goal was to film 40 tricks in a fun way that makes fun of me and highlights how lucky I am to know so many amazing people and skaters. It went better then expected and was a total blast to do. There is gonna be a video of it so I don’t need to list the tricks I did and ruin the surprise. I’ll just say I did 40 tricks and it took me almost 8 hours to do them. I obviously got really tired and could not be picky with how I landed tricks. There were a few where I was so tired and could hardly do them, but whatevs, it was a blast. Big thanks to Chad and Jack for not giving up on a few of the harder ones. And of course, thanks to everyone that came and showed me up! Dinner and videos at Crisis after was a blast too. What a good day. So many awesome people.