Needed to make a run to MRKT and Jake, Carleigh and Jack had expressed interest in it. Jake had his girl friends car and offered to drive. I cannot even remember a trip to Fort Collins that I didn’t drive. Ever. Sick! We picked up Jack after work (thanks for the burrito!) and made good time up to Fort Collins. After stopping at MRKT we rolled right into campus and ended up at an old epic spot that I skated with Jason and Josh a long time ago. It’s two ledges going down a banked sidewalk that has been knobbed for a long time. Forever ago Josh, Jason and I did quite a few things on it. I know I got front 50. Josh probably did lipslide pop out (he’s goofy) and I’m sure Jason did boardslide popout. Next to it is a weird 2 flat 2 flat 1 flat 1. Jack ollied the 2 flat 2. Carleigh rode down all the stairs. I took a long time, but rolled down them all too. Jake started doing tricks into the bank and that ended up being the spot for quite a while. Jack did like 100 tricks into it like 3 flip, nollie heel, impossible, a bunch more. Oh yeah, I had to setup a new board after cracking it the day before. So I had a new board and decided to put my old Thunders on instead of the Ventures. I also had some new wheels. Bones STF 51s. I’ve wanted to try them for awhile to compare to Superthanes (they flat spotted right away so clearly not as good). So flip tricks to start the day were a little weird. I did get kickflip and front shove pretty quick. We were all having fun. The rain was holding off. I did a front 180 off a nearby 2 stair and got a first try halfcab flip into it. Jack backed me up with an impossible to accidental manual (so sick!). Then Jake got his back with a kickflip. Then to complete the 4-4 Carleigh came in hot with a nollie shove. Everyone was hyped. Rather then take off we stuck around. Carleigh got some kickflips. Jake and I failed at fakie flips. Jack added more tricks like switch front heel. I should have gotten the fakie flip. Oh well, ollieing up the 3 felt pretty good.

Sean, Mike, Taylor and Jason showed up and we went over to the Clark building area. Us older dudes skated the hip mostly for awhile. I managed kickflip in a couple and front shove first try. Carleigh and Jack ollied the stairs all easy. I failed getting Carleigh’s back. But after Jack ollied the rail then boardslid it I had to get his back and scratched a little 12 year old no pop ollie and landed. Felt great. Jack went off for awhile. Boardslide, feeble and bluntslide the 5 stair rail. I have video of it, but the youtube editor wont work now. Look later. I got a few more tricks on the hip. A really bad frontside flip and a halfcab flip where I popped after the hip. Ha. Jake got a solid kickflip and Mike did a few front shoves, a full cab and more. Sean was skating it like a bank to curb. Carleigh starting going for kickflip. Jake got a buttery fakie bigspin over the hip. I started messing around with a line starting with a front 180 off the top 3 and ended up doing one of my favorite lines ever. Front 180 down the 3, curve around then pop shove, ollie onto the little ledge near the 5 stair (on the left of the photo), scrape the tiniest no pop ollie off the drop (tall for me!) then did one of the best frontside flips of my life over the hip (that’s not saying much though). Seriously, one of my favorite lines I’ve ever done. The frontside flip wasn’t even in my plan, I guess I was just surprised to land the drop and kept going. Carleigh kept attacking the kickflip, but we ended up getting the boot. Off to Northside it was.

Northside was pretty packed with the Fort Collins heavy hitters and of course they were ripping. Xavier and Dana are insanely good. I didn’t really seen any of our crew skating as there were so many people. I had a couple lines around the place that felt good. Some little wallies and grind on the brick qp. Then Jack and I played a game of SKATE in the parking lot that lasted a really long time. I landed pretty much all of my tricks except for nollie tre and was up SK to SKAT, but couldn’t land anything else to win it. The treflip felt great. I liked having the Thunders. Maybe I’ll stick to them. But wow, what a fun day of skating. Thanks for diving Jake and Jack and Carleigh for being such awesome friends and being down to skate anything.

Another weekend, another snow storm. So sick of it. We got about 8″ and it was still dumping. It was quite cold too so a warmer garage was needed. I went with Steelyards which was quite nice and warm. I had setup a new board with some new Venture Highs. Yes, I will be the first to admit my truck issues are pathetic. But hear me out. I don’t think Thunders are all that great. I hate Indys. I liked how the Venture lows skated, just not how low they were. So rather then putting my old Thunders on I picked up some Venture highs hoping that my truck problems will be solved. I did some kickflips on flat and was kinda bumming on how slow it flipped with the highs. Oh well, I hit the Steelyards parking garage solo. Right out the gate I felt great. It didn’t take long before I was trying real tricks. I was just skating flat because in my head I was telling myself if I ended up not liking the highs I could return them if I didn’t grind anything. I had told myself I had to do a treflip and a nollie treflip before I could grind. It didn’t take long. I was skating way better then the last couple times. I was landing fakie bigflips again. Tried a line of fakie bigflip, front shove off the curb then treflip. Came close, but the treflip eluded me. Tried another run with f/s halfcab flip, nose manual, nollie treflip. Didn’t get the nollie tre with those, but managed a great one in my favorite run of the session. Little front lip on the corner of the unwaxed curb, nollie tre then a high speed kickflip off the curb (first try). I was super hyped on that. I tried a lot of tricks. Came remotely close to a gleNBD of front 180 heel. I had my headphones on and was skating really hard, eventually I got kinda tired and just settled into kick back 50/5-0/tail going one way and front 5-0 kickflip out the other way. I would also huck flippers. Came close to varial heel and got way too close on a b/s bigflip. Got a couple more treflips. Struggled with b/s flips and heelflips though. Front 5-0 kickflip was on my to do list by 40 (before the arthritis flare up that ended hopes of that list) and I got insanely close. Like holy smokes I can do this close. Landed both feet on it and fell off close. I ended up trying it so many times and it eventually wore me out too much and I gave up. I really thought I would get it. Doh. I did get a few kickflip back 50s. One bail that landed with the board balanced sideways on the wheels (photo above) that made me laugh. All in all a great session and I’m glad to have moved on from the low trucks and hopefully I will like the highs and stop being a whiny bitch about my setup.

Got out of work and what do you know, my car wont start. Had that problem in the morning too and had to jump it so it looks like it needs a new battery. Rather then taking care of that I did a few things and watched the Nuggets somehow destroy OKC for their 13 win. So awesome and so nothing to do with a skate journal. But its the reason I didn’t get out until 9pm. It was way colder then it should be. In the mid 40s, but with a cold wind. I had setup some new wheels. Some little Pig 50mm wheels. They had been taunting me at Crisis for a long time so I got some. My first non-Null wheels in years. Out of the gate they seemed great. And I warmed up pretty quick and had the drive to push a little faster then normal (not saying much). I had some boardslide pop outs and noseslide pop outs to get warmed up. Then came kickflips and some stalls on the curb. The box in the photo wasn’t there initially. I got some crooked grinds on the middle section. They felt super good. So good I kept doing them. I guess the narrower wheels let me lock in a little better. I got a couple treflips after, but both were super bad. Looking back I hardly landed anything frontside. Did I even try? Man, I landed like two front 50s and a really bad front tail. Oh and a couple front noseslides to fakie. I tried a bunch of flip tricks. After bailing a frontside trick I would do a nollie heel or nollie flip attempt. Those weren’t close. Well, the first one was close, but it must have been luck. I tried a bunch of fakie big flips going fast. That trick isn’t working lately. I got one. Coming back I would try the fastest nollie tres I’ve ever tried. I got one. I landed on almost every one of them though. That trick rules. Later on I put this box after it and ollied it in a couple tries. It felt neat. I put it upright too which was way taller and didn’t have the cajones to commit. I got tired quick around then and the wind kicked in overdrive so I went home. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a bad day skating when I land a nollie tre. Love that trick.

These two awesome people picked me up on a windy Sunday afternoon with no real plans that I know of. We ended up at the steep banks – aka the Neil banks – aka Inotech (not quite Initech from Office Space). No one seemed overly hyped on the spot and Jack and I dorked around on bank wallie to sidewalk stall to trick back in. I never landed anything, but Jack got a wallie back 50 shove it to axle stall or something crazy like that.

We moved on and ended up at the weird basketball court/skatepark near Neil’s house. Neil even joined us for a bit and landed a rare (or maybe his first ever?) nollie nose manual. I had a blast. I’m not sure why I found it so funny, but everything was making me laugh. Neil falling, Jack doing wallie 180s sidweways up a ledge or hanging up in the crack between picnic table boards, everything was funny. Even when I fell which I did a lot of. Fortunately for me if I’m falling that normally means I’m actually trying stuff that hypes me up. I had a couple lines on the little curb like kickflip up, b/s flip off. Front 180 up, f/s halfcab flip off. Got a line of nose manual the little one, then ollie up the taller curb and then a board stall transfer up onto the top of the ledges and go the other way and ollie onto a picnic table. I did quite a few kick back 50s and started trying shove it’s out and got a sketchy one. I was super hyped. Last thing for me was an ollie onto the table and front 180 off. It was propped up after the tall ledge so it wasn’t much to get on it. Carleigh did some of her first front 5-0s ever, posted up front tailslides, came somewhat close to shove out, did some back 50s and hucked a lot of flip tricks. Jack seemed to be having a blast too. He had a lot of funny falls too. He tried a lot of drop down 50s, did a crazy late shove to disaster from the upper ledge to the lower one, tried to no comply up from the low curb to the top ledge, and a lot more that escapes my mind right now.

The forecast was for upper 70s so I took the day off work. I started it off by listening to Green Mind while cleaning for awhile then watched Shape Duece while setting up a new board. A new board already? Yes, Derek broke his filming so I gave him mine at the end of the night. Since everyone skates big boards now my 8″ pile is just sitting there so I decided to trim down a little and skate one of those. The plan was to meet Neil, Brett and Dave at the new new Thornton park (above). Everyone had said it’s a “Glen park” meaning it’s full of dumb, mellow stuff. Ha. I got there first and indeed it is a neat park. I’m not gonna call it my favorite or anything though. Brett showed second and brought his boombox hooked up to a Pandora station playing a few good rap songs mixed in with mostly really bad rap songs. Neil showed shortly after that and it was just the three of us for quite a while with one other dude. It was fun. Neil had lots of ollies everywhere, wallies, krooks shove first try on the ledge, boardslides and a nosegrind or two. Brett had some cool nose stall body varials on the little bank to curb (in the back ground behind the hubba/bank), but then broke his board on a kickflip fakie. He got so mad. I struggle to skate in the morning and although this morning went better than normal I still struggled with some basics like a back 50 on a little rainbow ledge and ollies into the bank. But I did do some stuff I was hyped on like a few kickflip pivots on the bank to curb, front 50 the bank to curb, fakie bigflip over a mellow hip. Dave showed up and did a lot of cool stuff. His friend Simon showed too and ripped the place. It started getting really crowded though with bmxers, scooter kids, skaters, parents letting their toddlers walk around in the skatepark, etc. We left after Dave got a couple feeble grinds on the bank to curb and I got a line with a front 50 on the bank to curb, a nose manual on the tiny manual pad and a backside kickflip on the bank above the bench then frontside 180 off the bench. Fun.

We went to a nearby light pole with a bit of transition up to it next. Neil had gone to work. We skated this awkward thing for a good hour or so. I should have taken a photo, but not having a data plan anymore and not being able to Instagram makes me forget about shooting photos. It took a bit before we got some pivots and axle stalls on it. Simon killed it with wallie, wallie melon and wallie indy to the street. He also did a front pivot and a pivot fakie. So ridiculous. Brett got a couple nose stalls and rock ‘n rolls. I did a axle stall and eventually a few frontside wallies which I was really hyped on. Dave did some smooth pivots, wallies and a awesome street plant to fakie.

Then we went to Northglenn park and met up with Bernie. Brett had left. My Vox shoes had totally died at the last spot so I was rolling in some new shoes. Emerica Liverpools. They seemed good although a bit bulky. I mostly just skated flatground with Bernie as I was really sore. Nollie tres came pretty quick. I also had a run with boardslide the ledge, treflip on flat then a bigflip on a flat bank (although I landed at 90 degrees and stalled for a second). After a bit I joined Dave and Simon skating this little qp at the top. Simon was doing switch frontside 5-0s. Dave was working on back tails. I scraped a little backside slash to fakie and threw in some flip tricks after. What a fun day. After that I went home and grabbed the family and we went to the Nuggets game which ended up being a crazy game where the Nuggets somehow won. Awesome.

Had a rough day at work and all kinds of stuff going on. It was cold, but I wanted skate more then Rampy. I went outside and 30 degrees didn’t seem so bad so I hit Red Curbs after dropping off a box of boards to FedEx. There was a lot of puddles so mostly just the two main curbs and the 2 stair ledge were skateable. I warmed up with lots of slappy tails and stuff. I had all tracks from Dinosaur Jr on shuffle which was hyping me up. I got some lines early on like noseslide the ledge, boardslide the curb then quick little kick back tail the next curb. Slappy front trail coming the other way then front tailslide the next curb. Crooks the ledge, boardslide the curb, kick back 50 the little curb. Halfcab noseslide the ledge, kickflip a puddle, almost another kick back tail. Front 50 slappy the curb, front lip the taller curb (took awhile), bailed a b/s flip over a puddle. I tried a lot of flippers which always makes me feel like I’m actually skating. Got a rare f/s flip. Also hucked some ledge tricks like front board pop out on the ledge, fakie nosegrind a curb. A few 360 flips with 6 point landings (4 wheels, 2 hands). A fun little dork trick of manual to a little grind on the far side of the manny pad to rock ‘n roll tap out (whatever that’s called). I ended up having way more fun then I thought I would. Can’t wait for the warmer weather coming!

Dave had been wanting to do a Denver parking garage mission for awhile and made it happen today. We met at Crisis and rolled to Denver around 6pm on a cold day. We started at a Chase parking garage with lots of yellow curbs and manny pads. Warming up took me awhile. We were all kinda doing our own thing. Dave ran into a random dude he knew from running a shop in Alaska. I starting trying flip tricks and on the first heelflip snap went my tail off. Crap. First spot, 20 minutes in. I knew I should have setup a new board after cracking it so bad the day before. It was too late to make a run to 303, but luckily Dave had his vert setup in the car. It was a pointy nosed, square tailed deck with 59mm wheels. So quite a bit different then my normal Venture low, 52mm setup. Ha. I skated it though. Not so much at this garage. Fuzz slammed really hard shortly after that then we got the boot by an angry security guard.

We ended up at some hotel garage for awhile and hit this weird slappy to slappy curb. Fuzz did it frontside. Dave did a long one backside. I did some silly boneless to tail over it. Then we got the boot by another angry security guard. We checked some other spots out for awhile. Fuzz had some sick downhill mannies in one before another really bad slam trying a powerslide on rough concrete. It was really bad. After that we dorked out on one of those plastic speed bump things. Lots of chinese ollies/nollies/180s/grabs/etc. Fuzz slammed yet again on a gap to 50 attempt. He was hurting. I tried Jason’s crack trick of fakie body varial chinese fakie ollie, but never committed. Dave did a sick switch back 180 version. We rolled a bit more then ended up in another garage where we lasted a long time and it was super warm. Mid 60s probably. Sweet!

Some fun hillbombs in this one. Ended up finding this tall ledge that Fuzz noseslid, front boarded and front 50d it. So sick.

Fuller got buck with a caveman front 50 too.

After a hillbomb I found a little hip that led to a couple parking blocks. We slappied one for awhile. Dave did the best, steeziest, slappy crooks ever. Fuzz and I were in disbelief. I don’t even want to try that trick anymore after that. Then we moved one of the blocks around as you can see in this picture with two dudes pointing at the block. Why they pointed is a mystery to me, but the curb put a beating on us. I slammed hard on a wallie to manual attempt where the big ass wheels i was riding just went over the parking block and into the gap before the curb. Ouch. Dave had some pretty bad slams too on tricks like no comply to manual. We had a blast though. Dave got no comply manual. Fuzz learned no complies up. I wallie manual and almost no comply to manual. Dave tried a bunch of crazy tricks. Wallie back 180 nose manual. Switch no comply. He didn’t get them, but came super close. I had started going some flip tricks on the vert board and managed a b/s flip over the micro hip and a halfcab flip. It’s gonna be so easy to flip my little board after that. We eventually got kicked out by a security guard that really didn’t want to kick us out, but had to do his job. That was pretty much the evening. Dave did a downhill back 50. I kind of bombed a hill. Dave slammed pushing. Then we got some yummy pizza and headed home. Super fun night.

Got up early on a gorgeous saturday already in the mid 50s. Liz’s parents were here, but eating lunch with some friends so I had some free time and surprisingly my quads weren’t hurting so bad. Perhaps it’s the warmer weather helping out. I skated flat til Jake and Bernie came over. I felt really rusty. Jake showed first and we both just kinda messed around doing our own thing. Jake put together some decent lines. Bernie showed and we went to a middle school in east Boulder to skate the ledges out front, but instead ended up at the 3 stair in the back. Bernie’s friend Teagan joined us. Jake and I were having a blast. Jake had the first 180 down it and the first ollie up it. When Teagan joined though he almost kickflipped up it, had switch tre down it 2nd try and was having fun too. The photo is him doing a front 360 shove with Jake looking on. Bernie of course found some manual options with it. I managed a few tricks down it. Early grab, boneless, no comply boneless, front shove (first real try) and a kickflip. When we left my legs felt really good. Perhaps I should skate small stair sets more. This was the set I backside flipped before my arthritis hit the fan in 2011.

Jake had to leave. We went to the Google building because Teagan was trying to film a line with a switch tre down the six. While Bernie filmed him I just dorked around. I ended up above trying to ollie this little flower pot. Normally it would be somewhat easy for me, but the angle is so hard so after several fails I just went with a front 180 instead.

I came upon this across from the six stair in the next parking lot. It looked ripe for dorking out on and wow it ended up making my day even better. The slight slant of the sidewalk and the crack were appealing. First tricks were front 180 into it, sw ollie off the curb then a f/s halfcab flip on flat. I should mention that flip tricks were really hard at this point in the day because my shoes were toast. The real fun began when I started treated it like a bank to curb. My first “line” was ollie up, f/s pivot on the crack, kickflip off. I tried to ollie a tall cone after that too, but you all know I can’t do that. I don’t care, I was giggling anyway as that line was super fun. I also did ollie up. no comply to tail, back 180 off the curb. Almost got a kickflip b/s pivot too, but my nose would hit the rail. Eventually it was time to go and meet up with the in-laws. This was one of my favorite days skating in awhile. Dork spots are the best.

On a snowy night I was sitting around with the kids when Fuzz asked about Rampy. Yes, lets do it! Brett and John were supposed to join too, but they were no shows. I warmed up Rampy solo and it seemed like Rampy was eager for a good session. I was landing lots of tricks and putting together longer runs for me. I also took care of my 3 flip requirement early on which reminds me I had new shoes:

Lakai Carlo. My 3rd or 4th pair. Love these shoes. And I finally remembered to only get size 10.

Fuzz showed up and we immediately went to work laughing, skating and being hyped. It was such a rad session. We just kept going, doing tricks, trying new ones, falling for a long time. Fuzz worked on fakie front 50 body varial to disaster. Or whatever you would call it. It was silly and he had some good slams in the process. He also struggled with front feeble stalls for a bit until I offered him a beer for a make and of course he got it that try. Fuzz did a million more tricks. This is one of those sessions where tricks didn’t stand out as much as the fun that was being had. I was happy to get a few fakie pivot fakies, a front feeble with a grind, close to a frontside Joe Hamilton and happy that I had so much fun on Rampy.

Had a really tough day. Was busy at work and trying to finish up Brian’s front rock edit while at work. It was stressful, but it all worked out. I got out of work and headed to Crisis. Was gonna do some bidness, shoot the shit awhile then go to Lafayette park before Brian’s birthday dinner. But it started raining. Since when did it rain in Feb in Colorado? Oh well I’ll take that over snow any day. It was still cold though, in the upper 30s. I still had some time before dinner and decided to hit Red Curbs. Fullertron said he was down to skate there and a super fun session ensued. I got there first. I warmed up with mostly some slappys. Dave showed up. I got a line of slappy front tail, front lip, 360 flip on flat. Hyped! Dave went to work on slappy crooks and laid down some really good ones. He stands up on them way better than me. I tried kick front 50/5-0s for awhile. Got close, but no cigar. No kfbsts either. Dave had some good 5-0s, long boardslides to forward, fakie or 270 out. We hit the manny/grind corner section for awhile. It was fun. Dave did front 5-0 to nose manny. Manny to back 5-0. I got manny to tail (no slide), manny to front 50, nose manny to front lip (sketchy), manny to switch crook stall, back 50 to nose manual to slam my back on the edge of the curb. Ouch. We just kept on skating. Dave got 180 nose manual and switch 180 manual. I slammed on a 180 nose manual where I probably only had about half and inch left to manual. We wallied the rock once or twice. It was funny because Dave had to put some styrofoam in the rocks in front of the big rock as he was scared of the gap. He would end up getting it without the styrofoam in the end though. I might have wallied it in a line with a nose manual. I ollied some styrofoam boxes for a bit. Got kinda tall for me. I should try to ollie stuff more often. It’s hard. We skated a newly waxed short edge by a pillar for awhile. Dave got front lip and back 50. I got back 50, back 5-0 and a good slam. Dave tried halfcab boardslide combos for awhile while I tried kickflip up / b/s flip off. He landed a bunch. I didn’t get the b/s flip. That was pretty much it for me. A few more failed kfbsts. Dave was grinding the rougher curb (above) and got a back 50 back 180 out. Of course he was flying when he did it. Turns out we skated over 3 hours. Awesome.