skate journal: Denver spot weirdness (Oct 22, 2011)
I was still feeling the effects of the flu. My body didn’t feel right at all. Some early morning football with Ollie followed by stretching didn’t seem to get things going which normally puts me in good shape for the day. Ugh. Carleigh and I rolled to Denver to meet Chad at his place then drive 20 miles down Colfax to a cool manny pad spot he know about. It was a ledge on top of a ledge mostly fitting for manuals. The place had a good contingent of homeless people lurking which made it a bit odd. We skated for awhile before getting a negative vibe and leaving. While we were there Chad killed the place. Nollie front heel fakie nose manual. That would be enough said, but there was so much more it was awesome. Heelflip manual. He was trying kickflip manual front 180 out then switch back 3 down the second ledge. Bernie got manual drop to manual. Oh yeah, Sam and Bernie had met up. Sam, Carleigh and I basically just ollied up/down the ledges. I tried to manual the top one, Sam tried to nose manny it. I was feeling pretty achy and mentally unable to skate.
On our way to a new spot we saw this spot and it occupied the rest of the day. This spot is epic. Bernie did some good stuff that I should have filmed. Quick up to nose manny shove to manny. Quick up to manny kickflip back to manny. Chad slayed all. Easily the best I’ve ever seen him skate. Tricks included hardflip back tail, nosebonk bigspin, back nosegrind back 180 out, nose manny the tall ledge, it was insane. Sam was pretty chill. Carleigh was working on a 20 trick line ending with kickflip and noseslide. I had told myself I wanted to do 3 tricks before filming (Even though I never ended up filming because Bernie filmed Chad). The first was to manny the ledge on top of the curb above. That was easy. The second was to lipslide it. Third was to ollie the flower pot on the far left of the photo (the ledge drops one curb level before the flower pot so it’s about the same height as the bench). I never landed the lipslide. I landed on it, I got close, I bailed, but I never rode away from it. Ugh. At the end of the session Sam and I tried to ollie up the tall part of the ledge that Chad was nose manny’ing so easy. Sam tried once, barely got the nose up and fell onto the ledge. It was funny. My initial tries were worse, but eventually I got myself up on the ledge with minor scrapage of the back wheels on the way up. The first two times I pansied out on ollie’ing over the flower pot once I got up there. Ugh. It took awhile to get up a third time and I eeked out the worst ollie ever over the flower pot. It wasn’t tall or far or anything, but after spending so much effort getting onto the ledge and recovering from the flu it was hard for me. I was pretty hyped though, that is easily the highest thing I have ever ollied onto. This was the end of the session. Pretty fun. Chad slayed it.
Oh yeah, thanks Carleigh for the photo! I know it’s not a make, but it’s the only photo from the session and I might as well document the trick I tried for two hours straight.