skate journal: all day boulder spots in the sun (may 17, 2014)

A gloomy start to a Saturday, but it ended up being super nice out. Neil, Blake, Rob, Ollie, Lazer and I started at CU. We messed around at the Physics building (I think?). Some little ollies up curbs, down, up ledges, etc. Everyone seemed to be struggling a bit. Lazer slammed on a nosebonk, but ended up ollie’ing a the gap over the ledge. Cops drove by and as Carleigh arrived told us that we couldn’t do any “acrobatic skateboarding”. After watching us skate for awhile clearly doing tricks. I guess they weren’t acrobatic enough. Anyways, we moved up near the student center. Rob no complied up a 3 stair, Lazer had a steezy ollie down it. I tried a line of riding through the skate stoppers then something off the bench, but it didn’t work so well. Then the cops came by again and gave us the official boot. Doh.

We went to Casey. It was a strugglefest. I ended up just skating flatground. I got through a quite a few of them and got stuck on treflips. Then I cracked my new board on treflips. Doh. It wasn’t bad at all though. I started getting really frustrated with my trucks as they weren’t turning tight enough and sat down for awhile as most everyone else was too. Ollie was playing basketball. Rob was crossing a dream trick off his list though. Wallride nollie out. He got a few. So sick! Looks for the documented proof in a Gnarly Carleigh photo somewhere, sometime.

Next up was the bank to curb/ledge. On the way there I stopped at home and grabbed my Venom bushing that I liked in my Ventures and put them in my Royals. Then they were super loose and I was hyped on them! Neil was having a tough day which is a bummer since it’s one of his last weekends before moving to Hawaii. He did manage to lipslide the two stair and front tail the curb though. Blake did his front 50 transfer again, almost dieing on some attempts. Lazer was boardsliding for miles. I managed quite a few tricks on the curb; front board to forward, switch boardslide, front tails with no slide, and geez, I guess that’s it. Probably not “quite a few” after all. I also got noseslide and boardslide on the taller part which hyped me up. Rob had a nice back feeble that grinded pretty far. Carleigh chilled and snapped photos. She wasn’t skating much because she hurt her elbow.

Then we went to Southern Hills after a stop at Que’s to say hi to Jack and then picking up Jake. I engaged in some of Colorado’s finest with Lazer and Rob and it made for an interesting session for me. My heart was pounding and I thought I would pass out, but man I felt extremely motivated to skate. Jake was killing it out of the gates. Rob went nuts too. It was a great session and a lot went down that’s hard to remember. Jake tre flipped into the handicap ramp, front tail and front tail to fakie on the ledge, quite a few fakie flips, halfcab boardslide, probably a lot more. Rob had some really long runs. Tricks like front shove out of the handicap ramp, kickflip into it, front noseslide on the bench, back noseslides, no complies. I’m blowing it on remember what all he did, but he was honestly skating some of the best I’ve seen him skate. Almost stomped a varial heel out of the handicap ramp. I tried a bunch of lines. First the ollie onto the narrow bench, kickflip off and back 180 off the 2 stair, but I kept not rotating enough on the back 180 and slamming so I gave up on that. Slammed hard trying to kickflip into the handicap ramp. Ha. Did some lines with heelflips or treflips to start then noseslide/boardslide/crooks on the bench. Or started with front board on the bench of the picnic table. Came really close to a line of halfcab flip into the handicap ramp then front 50 shove out on the bench. Lazer didn’t skate much and Carleigh kept it mellow with some ollies and cruised around a little. Blake had left. Ollie too. At the end Jake and I played a game of SKATE. It was a fun one, that I finally won. He normally beats me. I got Jake to do a f/s halfcab flip which he hasn’t done in forever. He got me on a treflip. I have decided to not try varial flips in SKATE anymore because when I don’t land them I get really mad. Anyways yeah, what a long day of skating. Felt great, weather was great, tight crew, good times.