We hit this right after getting off the bus. Nate front boarded up and across a lot of the ledge. It was amazing. He had also front 50’d up pretty easy. I couldn’t 50 because my trucks were too wide and would lie flat on the curb which wasn’t slick enough for that. I wanted to boardslide across and down the ledge, but never got that warmed up. We went and ate and Ben Raybourn walked by. That was cool.
Then we skated this spot for a couple hours. Nate did nose manual drop down to nose manual. So sick. He got close to a bunch more as well. Fakie manual, pop shove nose manual, and more. I did quite a few little 180s, came close to nose manual to tailslide, did switch 180 up one then quickish b/s flip up the next. Kickflips up. Not enough manuals though. We ended with a game of SKATE. Nate once again avoided the tricks I’ve never done therefor allowing me to win. Although I did land some good ones for me. Heelflip, 360 flip, nollie 360 flip, b/s flip, fakie bigflip. Fun trip. Man that was a lot of skating.
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
Comments Off on skate journal: some street spots in portland before i headed out (march 3, 2015 day 62)
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Such a nice day out! Got out of work at 3:15 and headed up to Fort Collins. Stopped at my Dad’s grave on the way. Went to Fossil Creek first. I love that park. When I got there there was just a couple other people sitting up top. I just skated the ledges on the bottom. I was feeling pretty arthritic. Mostly likely due to the huge weather changes coming (snow ugh) and skating every single day. I had a new board with awesome Ollie artwork after breaking mine yesterday. I warmed up with back 50s on the curb. Started trying lines with back 50 then crooks. Never got a regular crooks pop out. Kept landing on it, but not riding away. It was weird. I got a couple that fell off to fakie. Did front 50 shove. Chadman showed up! So stoked to see him. He is one of the best dudes out. I tried to back 50 the square ledge in the middle of the park and finally did it slowly. Chad did it super fast of course. He also started with a good line of switch front 180 onto the ledge, front smith the ledge up top then nollie shove off the curb. I was trying crooks shove one way and a line the other way. Out of nowhere I did a great feeling crooks shove. I think I’ve done that trick before, but I don’t even know. Either way it made my session go from fun to insanely fun. On top of that I got my f/s line next try. Ollie up the ledge, front 50 the upper ledge, kickflip off the curb (didn’t have to push in between any of those) then noseslide the ledge off the 3 stair. I was hyped! Chadman was killing it. Really good nollie flips, long fakie nosegrinds to shove out. Long manuals and nose manuals going fast. At the end we went up top and messed around for a couple minutes. I failed to ollie the ledge off the 3 stair. Chad came super close to drop down nose manual shove up the curb. So crazy.
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Then we ate Chipotle and went to MRKT. Then I went to Launch for “Over 30 Night”. To my surprise it was a mellow one with only a few people there. One of which was Nolan totally ripping. He’s only 25, but is one of those dudes that fits in with a mellow old man session or a heated young kids session. He can do it all. Like front tails across the whole ramp to forward or fakie, huge f/s ollies, hurricanes, sugarcanes, tricks I don’t know the name of and the stuff you see above. At least the f/s invert took awhile. I didn’t skate great. I think I was feeling the Rampy effect and skating a lot already. I got a few squeeker front smiths, little b/s slashes to fakie, front disasters, but wasn’t flowing too well. Played a game of SKATE with Andy and John that was pretty fun. It was right after John got there so he wasn’t warmed up and went out quick. Andy was trying some real tricks like hardflip, varial heel. He got me with 3 shove and fakie 3 shove. I got him with lame tricks on him like varial flip and fakie varial flip. Somehow had an ok b/s flip and a good feeling heelflip. Fun evening of skating!
(setup 8.25 venture wides bones med bushings no washers null wheels)
Comments Off on skate journal: fossil creek with chadman then old man night at launch (feb 19, 2015 day 50 (in a row))
After my depression session at Broomfield I pulled my pile of used trucks out of the garage. I ended up going somewhat big. Venture wides and I setup an 8.25 board. It felt pretty awesome too. I tried a few basics without doing as many setup tricks in between. The bigger board did feel a little better on Rampy. I did a few flatground tricks too. Kickflips felt great. Got a couple others including a heelflip.
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Went to Southern Hills after a long morning of cleaning toilets, vacuuming, etc. It was SUPER NICE OUT! Like 60 degrees and sunny. Breezy at times, but not bad. I had a totally new setup due to losing my last setup. Doh. So new Venture lows, Bones medium bushings, Reds, 8″ Null deck and some Ricta 51mm speed ring wheels. I was gonna just go with Null wheels, but Meta had them and I like to check the competition. Ok, the real reason is they were smaller. I gave everything a coat of Snaky Jakey wax and went to it. It’s been a minute since I was so motivated. I was skating fast for me. Did a line of noseslide, kickflip, crooks. I was super hyped on going faster for the noseslide. Had an exhausting line of fakie flip, halfcab noseslide, ollie up the 2 stair, ollie down the 2 stair, noseslide (was supposed to be crooks). Had a few front 50s, but definitely struggled with them as I have been for awhile. The new board did feel poppier though. A couple felt good. Had one line with ollie the two stair (it sounds lame, but there is a crack in front of it so it’s not all that small of a 2 stair) then front noseslide. Was trying a ridiculous line of front 50 a bench, nollie tre on flat, kick back tail the bottom stair. Since I never landed the nollie tre I just did back 50s on the curb which were fun. Also came close to ollie onto a bench then up onto a table. So close. Matt showed up and did every basic ledge trick first try perfect. The back 50 so casual looked so fun. I’m jealous. He also did front 50, front 5-0, front tail, front tail fakie, back 5-0 and back tail. But he couldn’t do a nollie tre! Ha. Oh and it took him 5 tries to land a treflip which might be a record for him. I didn’t get much more after Matt showed. I was pretty beat. Oh, some crooks where I started at the beginning of the ledge and grinded pretty far, rather then just jibbing the end. Fun day, that’s the best I’ve felt all year! 25 days down. 1/12 of my goal of skating 300 days.
(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing ricta 51mm wheels)
Comments Off on skate journal: good times at southern hills (jan 25, 2015 day 25)
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Feeling insanely sore and stiff I headed to North Boulder to bring India to ballet. I had almost two hours to kill before having to pick her up. I had a new board (8″) with Ollie’s awesome artwork on the grip. It felt incredibly warm out, but that meant puddles everywhere. I went to a parking garage across from Ideal Market that I’ve been to once with Jack before. The upper levels were completely wet, but the bottom two were mostly dry. I did the downhill lap over and over, getting a bit techer each lap. I would go down a hill, turn and down the next hill bringing me to a stair set that I could walk up and be right back at the start. It kind of ruled for how sore I was. I started with slappy tails and 180s going down the hill. Then I started doing back 50s on the curb above, kickflips, 180s, ollies over the next medians. My last lap was back 5-0 on the curb, kickflip going down the hill, ollie a median, curve around and ollie another median. Then I played on the a yellow median like the one in the photo for awhile. I had a fun slappy front tail then fakie flip. A manual bonk into the hill. Got a fakie nosegrind which cheered me up a bit. At that point I heard people talking and I got a little freaked out. It’s weird going into vacant parking garages at night. Sometimes it’s pretty creepy. Turns out it was a security guard and I was getting the boot.
So I drove around for a bit looking for other garages and dry. I ended up noticing the middle school might have some dry. There was a small patch of dry near the tall ledge and a small section of dry to skate flat. I started with the ledge. It was one quick push then hit the ledge. I did noseslide, noseslide to fakie, front nose to fakie and front board. Maybe a crooks. Then addition of the new skate stoppers kind of kills the spot. I wanted to do a front 50 so I tried that. Forever. I’ve never gotten into 50 on that ledge before, only the smaller one there. It sucked. I took forever. I only got up on it 3 times. The last one seeming very easy making me wonder why it took so long. I had a few more minutes to kill so I went for flippers. Got a really horrible front heel, a slightly less horrible fakie f/s heel and a treflip that took me forever making me 5 minutes late to pick up India. As much as I struggled it felt great to skate outside in warm weather. It was 55!
(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)
Comments Off on skate journal: random parking garage then little dry patch (Jan 5, 2015 day 5)
Bitter cold and snow all day so I worked from home. I didn’t think I would skate at all since my knee was pretty bruised. I setup a new board (8″ this time) and felt better come evening so I went out and skated. I started mostly doing doing trannie stuff and it felt good. I do too many tail stalls and rock fakies as setups, but oh well. I got a couple f/s bean plants which make me happy. When I would bail at the end of a run I would do a flip trick. Kickflip on the slightly smaller board (last board was 8.125) felt great. Rattled off a bunch of my basics in between trying a random dumb one on the ramp – “nollie” front disaster to fakie. Felt neat. I had added heelflip, fakie flip, fakie varial flip, 360 flip (first try!), b/s flip, f/s flip and started hucking fakie double flips. I was desperate to make my year end goal so I wouldn’t have to do it again. I landed one both hands down. Then another one both hands down. Then one bolts, but I stepped off. Then one with one hand down. And finally one with no hands, but a bunch of tic tacs. Counts! Whew. It felt pretty cool to complete the 12 new tricks for the year. I’m also excited to not try double flip tricks any more. I’d rather learn tricks like nollie heels even if it’s less then one new one a month. I also hucked a bunch of bigflips and got remotely close.
Comments Off on skate journal: Solo Rampy and got my 12th new flipper of the year (Dec 29, 2014)
Slept in a bit for once on a cloudy saturday. Ollie actually wanted to skate. I had to meet up with Rob in Niwot so after that we ended up at this random bank behind Case Logic. I was sore from so much skating recently and hiking. Ollie had some nice fly out 180s both ways. Manuals down it. Some other stuff before getting distracted by a pile of tar to reshape. I went through a few basic flippers on the bank then started trying to ollie the trash can. I originally placed it the lowest way possible and was able to ollie that pretty easily. But I couldn’t get it the ‘taller’ way. Not even with Ollie shooting a sequence and cheering me on. Just look at how my back foot isn’t even close to the board. What the heck? Ugh.
Ollie had enough skating so I dropped him off and ate some food before going to Southern Hills. This spot is tougher to skate then it looks and I didn’t have much pop. I started linking some basics together. Noseslide, heelflip, crooks. But then some kids came to play basketball which kind kills half the spot. It was ok though because then I could just go back and forth and not line out as much with how tired I was. But I had to skate the old ledge (front left in the photo) which doesn’t grind all that good. I was only able to do the basics. My front 50s were really slow and full of struggle. I kept trying though. Got one front 50 shove out. Couldn’t do back 50. Couldn’t do halfcab noseslide. I put a little rock between the crack and 2 stair so I had to ollie over it. I only managed that a few times. Also kickflipped into the handicap ramp a bunch and a halfcab flip that felt great. Ollieing up the 2 was hard. Flip tricks weren’t going well, so I mostly hucked ones I can’t land anyway. After awhile the basketball kids left. I forced myself to ollie up onto the bench (right front in the photo). I was going pretty slow but I figured I should do it with a kickflip off the bench. After only a few tries I rode away from the first kickflip I committed to. I was so tired until that point and it totally hyped me up and gave me a second wind. I got a treflip, hucked a bunch of fakie tres, tried to slide front noseslides longer. Did a bunch of crooks on the good ledge (back right of the photo). Then forced myself to get into crooks at the start of the ledge in hopes of crooking the whole ledge. I didn’t get close to crooking the whole thing, but I was hyped to get on early and grind it awhile. Then it got dark.
I was planning to meet up at Crisis, but it was only 5pm so I went to Broomfield park which was mostly vacant. I mostly dorked around on the blue box and quartapotty. Did a switch boardslide on the blue box and a back 50 front 180 out. Front 50 back 180 out, lots of slappy tailslides. Tried to do fakie nosegrind sw 180 out, but couldn’t quite do it. Man, what a long day of skating. Later that night Fuzz kept telling me I skate too much. Ha.
Comments Off on skate journal: marathon skate with ollie then solo (dec 13, 2014)
There was supposed to be super high winds, but it was just breezy and kind of warm in the mid 40s. I setup a new board as I could not get the crap off of my grip from the night before. It turned into this weird slippery mess. Grip gum, shoes, scrubbing would not get it off. And since I’m totally over PJ I had to get rid of his pro trucks. Ha, ok, as if. I had grinded them to the axle and being the poser that I am I don’t like keeping trucks around when I get to the axle. I mean when you get to the axle you already won right?! So I setup some new black ones that Reed from DLX had sent me. I had to wait awhile before I could leave because Liz was picking up India so I had to watch Ollie. I skated Rampy for a bit. Not having all that much fun. Oh I had put my old Bones medium bushings in the new trucks. I don’t really know why. Partially because I’ve wanted my trucks a little tighter, partially because I didn’t want to take the PJ trucks apart. Anyways, Rampy kinda sucked. I almost died trying a couple front tailslides. Forced myself to do a frontside ollie then it was off to the Research center.
I started near the Max rail. Just doing that line I love of noseslide, boardslide pop out then roll down the long stairs. I was struggling a bit with the new setup. After awhile I moved back to the 4 stair side. I really wanted to get up the 2 stair part then down the 4, but I’m not good like Matt and Josh. So I settled for an ollie to back axle stall, turn onto the top, push and ollie it. Yippe. I tried a couple front 180s after, but they were just poses. Then I went over to the ledge. Had a few crooks, a sloppy back 50, a couple really great feeling front 50, really great feeling front 50 shove, a couple worry attempts at front tails and of course some noseslides that were supposed to be crooks. I lined out a couple things that felt good. Ollie up the curb, crooks, front 180 the manhole, halfcab flip. Had a few b/s flips. And trying to learn switch back 180s better. I would love to do that trick up curbs.
Then I skated flatground for awhile in the big parking lot out back. I had told myself to do 20 tricks and was at 15 when I got distracted by trying a long line. Manual a bit of the sidewalk in the background by the snow pile (the manual took me forever and I think I toe dragged a little (TILT!)), no comply 180, fakie flip, halfcab flip then ollie the tiny gap over the curb in the foreground. I only got to the ‘gap’ once and it was way smaller then I thought so luckily I did it first try. That pretty much drained me and I headed home after that. The manual seriously took me forever. Ugh.
Comments Off on skate journal: skating all sides of the research center (nov 25, 2014)
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Shortly after lunch and a meeting I bailed to the nearby park. It was sunny and warmer, but still cool with a crispness in the air. I felt stiff, but I suppose it gets old reading that every time. Anyways warming up went somewhat ok. Had some better then usual front 50s on the little ledge and ollied the flat bar way quicker then normal. Ollies were rough though and the tall stuff there wasn’t working. I couldn’t get on the tall ledge. I tried filming like Neil does for a minute and above is seriously all I got. I didn’t feel like dealing with the angles and hitting record so I stopped. I couldn’t ollie the little part of the angled ledge. I tried getting over it at a taller point though. Got one flatground treflip. Came remotely close to some really slow bigflips. Had some front boards on the flat bar that may have slid over a foot. Believe it or not I’m hyped on that. I really like skating this park by myself. I skate different then I would around others. It’s fun. Maybe I’ll get better at taller stuff, maybe not. But it’s way funner then just going to the gym at work.
Comments Off on skate journal: lunch break at the ledge park (Nov 4, 2014)
It was so nice out. I normally go to the gym around 10am at work for about 45 minutes, but it was just too nice out. I went to the nearby “rollerblade park” and skated for about 45 minutes. It was hot out. I had a new board after my idiocy last night. 8.1 this time. Felt good. I kept it pretty mellow. Mostly just skated slow trying flip tricks and the occasional ledge trick. At one point I had a halfcab flip, 360 flip (over 40 make) and then a nollie 360 flip (over 80 make). Ha. Was hyped. Was really missing vulc shoes though. They are just so much better for skating. Gotta do this instead of the gym more often, it was quite fun.
After work, a nap, laundry, I went to Crisis to meet up with our old guy crew for Denver Tuesdays. I was first so Fuzz and I sat and watched a video while disagreeing over everything except how rad Ty Bealls part is in the A-Street video. Ha. Dave and Rob showed and we drove to Cherry Creek to a parking garage called “Cherry Curbs”. Money. And it exceeded all expectations. We mostly skated this crazy manny pad with all kinds of weird angles that you can go into/out of grinds. I was the last on the manual to front 50 train. Actually, I’m not sure if I even did it without tilting. Rob did it with no comply and one foot as well. Fuzz got tech with heelflips up, switch back 180s, noseslides pop ups. Dave did front 5-0 to nose manual and manual body varial. Rob had such a steezy nose manual front 180 out. I was trying a quick foot combo of manual then nose manual to grind. Unfortunately we got the boot. At least we got awhile on it.
After some spot lurking we ended up here for a fun brief session under Fuzz’s headlights. Well, Fuzz’s truck’s headlights. Fuzz and Dave did some soft rocks/pivots. I did the standard kickflip to fakie and fakie flip. Then we all did early grabs off it and Fuzz and I did bonelesses.
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Then we ended up at this gem of a spot. It had this little slappy ledge, then a short long ledge after, then down the street a little another ledge with a gnar option. Dave did some ultra smooth switch slappies. Rob had slappy then nollie lipslide. I had slappy, bad crooks, then almost boardslide on the further ledge. Fuzz almost got to the gnar option with a front 50, but we got kicked out. Doh.
We ended up at the newish college spot downtown with the long marble manny pads. Everyone got manuals except me (nothing new there). It seemed like really fun place to skate. As I was just getting warmed up again it started raining.
So we went to the RTD garage. Fuzz and I didn’t think we would skate at all, but I guess Rob and Dave were shredding hard enough to get us off our tired butts. Rob was seriously ripping. Manuals at high speed, nose mannies, lots of energy hopping up/off the ledges. Back 50 around the corner to shove out. Whoa! Fuzz was on the high speed tip too with a long manual that opened a little emergency phone case. Pretty funny. He also had good fakie 50s with and without halfcabs out. I just did crooks. But I did a lot of them. Some long ones on the main ledge and a few through the corner which felt really neat. As usual Dave was the last man standing. He did all kinds of moves. Front 5-0 through the corner, boardslide to fakie then switch front noseslide. Front board to fakie. Crooks and ended it with a really good switch crooks.
Got home around 2:30 am stoked and feeling very alive. Thanks for the good time dudes.
Comments Off on skate journal: solo longmont park then denver with old dudes (oct 21, 2014)