On a rainy night I gave India a ride to ballet with Jake then stopped by Meta, dropped off some goods, picked up Matt and we headed to Red Curbs. Matt had never been there before. I had a lot of new stuff. Those shoes are way brighter then they look too. They are ridiculous. Herman G6 Vulc. Also put some new 52mm Nulls on because my last set had worn down into the mid/upper 40s. They felt and looked huge! Ha. Oh and some old PJ trucks because I had worn my previous set of Ventures to the axle (unheard of for me). Anyways I set the tone for myself on my very first push around the spot by slamming onto my elbow on the edge of the curb on a slappy crooks. Matt quickly front 180’d the median and ollied some tall cones. Had some sick fakie nosegrinds, front 5-0 180, switch back 50, probably much more. Slammed prety hard without his wrist guard a few times. Doh. Jake gets better every time he skates. Front tails, front 180 over two sideways cones piled up, halfcab over that too, almost a kickflip manual, got into fakie back lips, his new trick the fakie bigger flip, fakie front tail, a treflip and more. I slammed and struggled all night. Managed to ollie the sideways cones, a couple 3 flips, slappy crooks, ride on front 50s and a few other basic flippers.

Put my old 8″ Ventures on a 8.25″ board. The board looked so small. I skated in front of the house for a bit before Ollie was ready to leave for a short Louisville session. I was able to ollie while hitting the tail again (ha), kickflips felt easier, halfcab flip felt great. I did end up liking how Indy’s turned, but for now I’m just gonna skate the Ventures and not think of getting 8″ Indys unless I actually end up disliking the Ventures (unlikely). We went to Lville. We skated the skate run thing first. It was fun. The Ventures carve differently then Indys, but the grind felt better and I actually landed tricks I got into instead of just stopping. Ollie pumped better then he has in awhile and followed some lines I showed him to keep his speed more. I got a front d, but bailed out of roll ins. Thanks JP. Ever since making that roll in bet I’ve been completely unable to commit to a roll in. Goofed around on the street section for awhile. Didn’t do anything special and definitely noticed that crooks are harder to get into with a smaller truck. But it was cool. Ollie had some nice front 180’s off the ledge. We were both so tired from vacation and driving that we called really quick.

Went to Crisis early to do big bidness before Fuzz opened. While I was at it I setup some Independent trucks. It’s funny how I avoided Indy forever and realized I had never put better bushings in them so maybe they are an option after all. And since the Royals were done due to too much wheelbite, Ace were done because the kingpin was loose and the hangers were bent (POS trucks) I was down to try Indy. With the white medium Venom bushings.

We went to the bank spot out on on 120th. I had a lot more energy then last time, but was struggling a bit due to the obvious reason of having an almost entirely new setup. Rob and Neil each had good lines after a short warm up. I don’t remember them exactly but Rob’s was something like kickflip out of the curb kicker, bean plant on the bank, kickflip on the bank, boneless. All done well. Neil also had a long one with Neil comply boneless, backside ollie, frontside ollie, basics done well. Neil and Rob also had b/s 180s out of the curb kicker, Rob had a kickflip on the bank. I struggled with kickflips out of the curb kicker, but eventually got one in a line with a kickflip on the bank after.

Then we went to a ledge we’ve never skated across the street. We should call it the struggle ledge because we all struggled. It wasn’t that tall, but it was just weird. Rob got a few crooks, Neil got into a few crooks, I slammed on a front board, got into front 50. Then a cop came to boot us and we thanked him for putting us out of our misery. He laughed.

We drove around for awhile and ended up at some abandoned government building. We found a smooth section and a curb that slid well for boardlides and hit it for awhile. Rob had a bigspin front noseslide, lap over lipslides, Neil had lipslides. I had a few “switch” boardslides and then almost got a line of kickflip over a hose, 3 flip on flat then kick back tail the curb. I broke my board on a heelflip on the way back though. DOH.

So we went to Crisis so I could setup a new board. I went with 8.5 this time mainly because there was one of the new Neandernulls with a yellow bottom sheet. Freakin’ gorgeous! We went across the street to the Safeway ledges. Neil was sore and didn’t really skate. Rob and I skated pretty hard for awhile. He got a lot of his tricks. Cab front nose, nollie front 50 first try, front 5-0, lots of good back 50s, back 180 fakie 50 halfcab out, back 50 back 180 (I think). I got a few back 50s and then one locked in kick back 50, but couldn’t get another kick back 50 (was gonna try shove out), a hilarious “front smith” where I didn’t grind and somehow fell out of it and rolled away, tried front tail shove, tried crooks on the fence ledge but kept doing noseslides. My flatground game was ok, got a treflip and started hucking Rick flips for some random reason. Even landed on one that could maybe count on defense in an over 50 game of SKATE. Rob and I ended with a really fun game of SKATE that went T-T before I won it on a fakie bigflip. Other tricks that went down were 43 shifty, no comply shove, no comply 360, no comply, front shove, b/s flip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, f/s halfcab flip (Rob went double or nothing on it and unfortunately came up short). It was a perfect ender for a really fun day.

Woke up around 5:30 am for some ridiculous reason. I slacked for awhile then decided I should go skate. I thought I’d be pretty sore, but ended up feeling pretty good. I had put my Ace trucks back on and some new Null wheels. I of course had the park to myself. Warming up was not as hard as it should be. Maybe it’s because it felt like I hadn’t really stopped skating from the night before. I tried that dumb flyout into the downhill that every 10 year old kid with pads can do, but still failed. Man that’s embarrassing. It’s fun cruising that park when no one else is there. I did more tricks then I thought I would, but nothing really noteworthy. I got a line of rock fakie the little white tooth qp (yes I consider that a trick because yes I am not good at skateboarding), fakie flip on the bank, then carved onto the bench. Ended with a line that I tried for a bit that I could normally never do with people flying around the park. Front shove on flat near the top of the fish pond (I had tried treflip and failed), kickflip to fakie on the narrowish bank to the right of the ledges, fakie flip on the mellow bank next to the round rail, then tried to noseslide the hubba. I got to the hubba twice and on the second attempt I got tossed to the flat. It didn’t hurt. Well, I mean I guess it did, but the people walking the dog nearby reacted like I had been shot or something. It was one of those slams where you just kind of laugh in the air and wait for it to be over. I guess to the average person walking their dog it must look incredibly dangerous.

Well my obsession over new trucks resulted in some new Royals. Based off a lot of things. First, I had them a long time ago and liked them. Second, Meta had them. Third, just look at the dudes that skate them! Cory Kennedy, Wes Kremer, Mike Carrol, Hsu, etc. Baller team and their footage looks like their trucks perform how I’d like mine to. Stable on straights, tight when you want them. Fourth, still completely blown away by the level of nerdiness on this site and he says great things about Royal. Anyways, I was at Meta at closing time and Matt came by with his cruiser, but we went and got his real board to get gnar. We started by looking for some metal construction manual pads and upon finding them just bombed a little hill instead. Then we ended up walking up to Casey and the ledges were lit so we skated there. My new trucks were a bit weird, but I couldn’t really complain. I didn’t have much pop. Got a front nose 270 out (aka the Helmstetter), noseslides, boardslide, possibly a crooks and a front 50 that was a battle. Flip tricks went ok, the Royals are lower so flip faster. The 3flip I landed felt really weird. Matt had no problem front tailing the ledge. Then went on to do a sick line with a little manual bonk on a rock, front tail to fakie then switch tre on flat. Whoa! He also got noseslide 270 shove and back tail. Then we rolled the rough hill back down and called it a night. Fun.

After a lazy snowy saturday I went out to Rampy to break a bunch of new stuff in. I had liked my “test” big board enough that I wanted to keep with it. Which meant I wanted to get off those Ace trucks as quickly as possible. Thanks to Emage for having Venture Wides in stock. Another 8.4 board (I can’t do 8.25 with the big trucks because I hate seeing the wheels past the board), new Venture wides, same 51mm STFs I had with my last setup. I also put in the original thick insoles that come with the Stratfords to try and help soreness. I skated in them, but decided after they are too thick.

Ok eh, enough talking about my setup and on to the show. I mean the bad skating. I was really tired. Probably still from the marathon old man/lady night. Anyways the board felt good on Rampy. I like how Ventures turn so much more the Ace. I didn’t do anything new on trannie, but I had some alright runs. Did a few tiny f/s ollies. Flatground went pretty good. Took a bit for kickflips, but most of the awkwardness I felt was due to the thick insoles, not the setup. I did manage f/s and b/s flips first try which really surprised me. Got a couple 3 flips and hucked a few tricks. Then went in and watched MIB 2 with the kids and ate tons of popcorn. Man I love popcorn.

After a really long drive down from the mountains I quickly setup a new board since I had broken my Atlas Nulled in Fairplay. As punishment for breaking two boards in a week I decided to setup the weed graphic. Just Say Null. It’s funny at least and it’s funny how few people get it’s jokingly an anti-weed board. Anyway, after being bummed on how those Thunders turned in the Fairplay bowl I decided what the heck, lets go back to Venture, but this time the highs. Seeing as how I’m a complete freak with almost brand new trucks of several brands sitting in my garage this was pretty easy to do. It was about 9:30pm when I got out and I was dead tired from this crazy adventure park in Buena Vista we had gone to early in the morning. I rolled around the Table Mesa shopping center not doing much. Then found they repaved the area in front of Savers so was super hyped to try and skate some flat. They even repainted the curbs too! Unfortunately though they kept shutting off lights and it was so dark. I managed a line of manual, front 5-0, kickflip. Eh. Then I went around and ended up at some parking blocks behind King Soopers and tried my best to boardslide the graphic off the board. Ha ha. I eventually did a few more flatground tricks. Halfcab flip, heelflip and varial flip. All had a better feel to them without the unwanted squirl of Thunders. Rad.