skate journal: marathon day with the squirrel bros, dave and hayden (march 4, 2018)

Posted in Skate Journal on March 5th, 2018 by corpo

Trying to get Ollie out of the house turned into me bringing him and 3 friends on a mission to MRKT and more. We started by meeting Dave at Rocky Mtn Elem. Dave was there before us and piecing together a nice line of ollie the flat gap, kickflip on flat, noseslide, 180 nose manual a brick median. I had some better than normal feeling slappys and a crooked grind. Ollie dropped in on the kinked brick section pretty easily. Gabe was going for it and tried to ollie the sidewalk gap. I can’t believe he was committing. It was rad. Sam and Otto were cruising. Dave and I posted up at the sidewalk gap for awhile. Not shown are the big cracks on both sides of the gap that messed with things. Even with my huge 52mm wheels. Ha ha. Dave was going for gap to manual which he got. I was trying to ollie over the cone which I never got, although I did land it while knocking down the cone.

Then we went to Northside after lunch and MRKT. It was pretty mellow. Bo, Hayden, Peyton and Jacoby were there. Those dudes all rule. Ollie and Gabe got up on the MJ ledge quick. Ollie got a pop shove to fakie. It was rad. All of the Squirrel Bros skated the park. They were up on top, cruising, it was rad. Ollie had a bunch of carves on the brink bank to ledge ride. I did a lot of chatting for awhile. Then cruised pretty chill not doing much. I had the little cruiser line of wallie, ollie on the bump, axle stall the barrier and a first try roll in to the halfpipe area that hyped me up. Then I filmed Hayden try f/s flips for awhile. Then it got windy and the kids wanted something else anyway so we went to Spring Canyon.

Which was incredibly windy. We skated though. Bo was filming Hayden on the ledge and I wanted to skate the ledge so those are my embarrassing tricks. I couldn’t even land a back 50. Ugh. Hayden had the smoothest back nosegrind back 180. Hayden rips. The SBs were having fun. Ollie’s coffin was rad. Bo ripped the bowl way harder than I imagined. I got a bit of a fire near the end and did the boardslide transfer that Dave got me to do a long time ago. On one attempt I almost killed a scooter kid in the bowl with my board shooting out. Yikes. Landing it hyped me up as I hadn’t done much all day. Hayden’s gap to nose manual is bonkers. He rips and it was fun skating with him. I had worn some FP Gamechanger insoles. I can’t tell if I was more or less sore after skating than the day before. Argh. I wish shoes/insoles weren’t such a battle for me.

(setup 8.25″ null monico deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, 52mm spitfire F4 101a classic shape, 3 washers on the inside of each axle, bones medium bushings, adidas busenitz vulc white/blue size 11.5, fp gamechanger insoles)

skate journal: epic crew at an epic spot. hip spot in denver (march 3, 2018)

Posted in Favorite, Skate Journal on March 5th, 2018 by corpo

On another gorgeous day Jack and Carleigh picked me up, we met up with Fuzz and Kevin and we went to this spot in Denver. Apparently it’s normally covered in dirt and the city just came through and cleaned it out. Jack’s board went into the water first try. That would happen to everyone’s board at some point. It took some getting used to. My ollies were so pathetic, they were just like little tail scrapes, but I did get a kickflip pretty quick. Jack too. It was surprising to see flip trick master Kevin struggle with kickflips. Fuzz got front 360 quick. After I took too long to do a front shove I filmed Fuzz and everyone else for awhile. Carleigh put down a few pop shoves. Chelsea almost put down some crazy popped kickflips. Kevin had a sick hardflips. Jack did a bunch of tricks like 360 flip, varial flip, impossible and the coveted kickflip late shove. Then I started skating again and eventually I started trying varial flips which seemed like it would be easy. I’ve never done it over a backside hip before. It wasn’t easy. Carleigh was throwing backside flips. It was crazy because she didn’t look close for awhile and then put her feet on it once or twice and then she did it a few tries later. So sick. She did another one too. Both were perfect. Kevin was going in on nollie f/s flips and it took awhile. It was just Carleigh, Kevin and I still trying tricks. Oh yeah, Billy was there earlier. He was mostly chilling, but would take his cruiser for some casual crushing and almost did f/s flip over the hip. Carleigh tried straight kickflips for awhile. Kevin and I were so close so many times. He got a perfect one. Then it was just me skating feeling lame for taking so long and wanting to quit, but thankfully Jack kept encouraging me to try so I did. I finally landed it and it felt really cool. Lots of times when you finally land a newish trick (done plenty of varial flips, but not ever a backside hip and definitely not over a somewhat gnarly street hip) the first make feels weird, but this one just felt great. I was hyped. Kevin had started skating again and worked on switch backside flip for a minute before doing such a good one. Then we went on a journey around the corner to a mexican restaurant and enjoyed some good food and margs. Awesome day. I was incredibly sore after which is the only negative. Not sure I should be without orthotics while skating.

(setup 8.25″ null monico deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, 52mm spitfire F4 101a classic shape, 3 washers on the inside of each axle, bones medium bushings, adidas busenitz vulc white/blue size 11.5, stock insoles)

skate journal: weird flatground friday with dave at blue skies (march 2, 2018)

Posted in Skate Journal on March 5th, 2018 by corpo

On an absolutely gorgeous day I got out of work pretty early and met Dave at Blue Skies. It was seriously so nice out. There was a crew of younger skaters at the actual skatepark, but we were doing flatground friday so we went to the hockey rink. At first we had the park all to ourselves, but then at times there were several young scooter/bike kids and then some people using the hockey rink for what it’s intended for. Dave started off on fire. Skating fast and landing everything. It took me a bit to start committing, but out of nowhere a nollie tre happened it felt so awesome. It’s been awhile for that trick. Then Dave and I went into a funk for awhile of not really landing anything. I mean we landed stuff, but it was mostly just setup tricks to bail harder tricks. Ha. I couldn’t get a 360 flip. I was trying lines of shove, kickflip, heelflip, but struggled with the heelflip. Dave had a lot of kickflips, cabs, shoves, switch shove, a perfect back bigspin, varial flips, struggled with fakie varial flip then did a perfect one and his second f/s halfcab flip. I don’t remember getting passed the basic warmups other than the early nollie tre. But man that nollie tre felt good.

(setup 8.25″ null monico deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, 52mm spitfire F4 101a classic shape, 3 washers on the inside of each axle, bones medium bushings, adidas busenitz vulc white/blue size 11.5, stock insoles)