Went over to the school not feeling very motivated. I hit the curb for a few 50s then wanted to hit the ledge. I did a couple noseslide jibs, but then a huge wind kicked in and I just went home.

(setup 8.25 null dream machine deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, vans kyle walker black/gold size 11.5, gamechanger insoles)

Fun times with @fullertrron on his 50th last night. @skeleton_canal @gnarlycarleigh @43shifty #over50make

A post shared by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 27, 2018 at 10:27am PDT

On a hot night we gathered at Broomfield park. I got there around 7:30. Rob and Carleigh were already there. Will and Dave would arrive shortly. I had new shoes again. This time Vans Walkers to try the wafflecup. I was 1/10 on my first kickflips. That isn’t good. Rob was on fire. Back 50 body varial out, back 50 back 180, front 50 to front lip, halfcab noseslide to fakie, first try front nosegrind and apparently a front 50 back 180 which I didn’t see so I’m not sure it counts. Ha. Carleigh did front d quick, back d pretty quick too. Lots of boardslides, kickflips. I had a brief period of skating alright. I had rock ‘n roll on the steep bank up top, kickflip on the hump, crooks, close to noseslide 270 shove. But for the most part I skated like complete garbage. Will got on the grinds and manuals quick. The switch front tail is nuts. Dave came out with a lot of energy, but quickly used it up since he’s old now (hee hee). But really he was ripping. Nose manuals, lots of quick feet stuff, front slash down the hubba bank, axle to fakie on the brick qp. It was cool how few people were at the park. We mostly just did our thing. Near the end we filmed a little. I had fun with the front board transfer thing. I had never done it with the switch 180 off before. Will tried to clean up the back 5-0, but it ended up being a battle. Dave’s quick foot line was way harder than it looks. There was much more skating than described here, but it was a fun one.

(setup 8.25 null dream machine deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, vans kyle walker black/gold size 11.5 ,low profile gamechanger insoles)

Happy 50th @fullertrron !!!! Now that you are 50 you can get away with #over50makes like this. 😂 #rippingestripper #kingstubborn #myphonewasblurryfromfilmingsomuchripping

A post shared by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 26, 2018 at 4:32pm PDT

On Dave’s last day in his 40s we met on a hot afternoon at the rink at Blue Skies. I arrived first. I had a new deck and new shoes. Adidas City Cups. They felt great walking in them. And then I pushed and my heel came out. Tightened them up, same problem. Ugh. But man, they have a great flick. I was like 10/10 on my first kickflip tricks. I had a line pretty early on that felt good. Something like halfcab flip, b/s flip, fakie flip. My foot almost came out of the shoe on the b/s flip. Aki showed a little later and was quickly on the flip game. Dave started slow, but started coming through with several varial flips in a row and lining them out with kickflips, nollie front 180s and getting close to halfcab flip. It took my board for him to land the halfcab flip. That’s a sign Dave. Ha ha. Aki got the Ironman. Heelflip, treflip, kickflip. He had a bunch of treflips that were so solid. I basically didn’t land anything else and started to get really sore. I couldn’t land a heelflip or treflip to save my life and it was annoying. I blame the shoes. We were at it for a couple hours. I felt close to nollie flips at one point.

Then we went down to the skatepark so Dave could feeble the rail. He did it better than this too. Aki had some killer lines with some really locked in crooks. I tried switch no complys on the bank. Dave also did layback boardslide down the hubba, handplant thing, front 50 no comply 180 out, back 50s. He was shredding.

(setup 8.25 null dream machine deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, adidas city cup black/white size 11,low profile gamechanger insoles)

@hayden.don.miller quickie at Northside

A post shared by Null Skateboards (@null_skateboards) on Jun 23, 2018 at 6:44am PDT

After a chill day at work I swooped Rob up at his new place and we headed up to MRKT. After some tacos we went to Northside for a weird one. When we arrived there was lots of lurkers, a homeless dude drying his clothes out in the middle of the park and lots of skaters. Rob wanted out. My legs were hurting so much from arthritis that I wasn’t very motivated to skate another spot involving ollies. So we stuck it out and it mellowed out. It was cool that Mike was there. He was ripping the way he does. No comply pole jam then come around and do it switch. Pretty amazing. All I basically did was cali grind over a hump a few times. Did a front 180 out once which was fun. Hayden was ripping. Him and Jaeson were shredding the quarterpipe for awhile. Jaeson did halfcab crooks to fakie. So nuts. Hayden had crooks, noseslide fakie, bluntslide and was going for peter blunt. Rob turned it on. One foots on the bank, bean plants, going for no comply pole jam. I flimed Hayden do the kickflip nosepick near the end. It was super nice out. I wish I could have skated. It’s been awhile since I’ve had an arthritis flare up though, so I shouldn’t complain too much.

(setup 8.25 null monico deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, es accel slims navy/white asta size 12, gamechanger insoles)

On a beautiful evening Carleigh and I met up then went to campus to meet Rob and Jake. We met at the slappy ledge and as I was waxing it a CU cop rolled up hot. But it turned out it was for someone else who actually needed help. We didn’t feel like pushing it and went around the corner to India’s dorm and skated the manual pad. It was quite fun. Carleigh was doing lots of kickflips and getting close to manualling the longer pad. Jake was breaking the tilt record on his manual attempts. Rob went in on nose manual to front tail on the ledge right away. He got one. So sick. He also did a no comply to manual around the sidewalk. I got a manual pretty quick, took awhile to get a nose manual then got a 3rd try kickflip manual. The kickflip manual felt beyond amazing and sold me on the smaller/lower setup again. I’ll use those Indys for my Saulside board. I tried kickflip nose manuals too, but never got close. Some younger kids showed up. Good to see young ones getting out and skating street. We went around the corner to the slappy ledge and the cops were gone so it was good to go. Jake and I went in on lines. Rob and Carleigh were hitting the tall manual pad. Rob got close to manual. Carleigh got close to no comply wallie up. Jake’s line was f/s halfcab, slappy crooks to fakie, front 180 up the manny pad, halfcab off. We tried treflips for awhile, but neither of us got one. My lines got gradually harder. First one was halfcab flip, slappy axle stall, wallie up the manny pad, ollie off. Then started with heelflip and ended with front 180 off the pad. I was skating pretty hard for awhile, trying to ollie the ledge, noseslide the tall flagstone ledge, etc. Last line was heelflip to tail crack, slappy pivot, wallie up, kickflip off the pad but I landed terribly and came to a halt with my hand down. Everyone was done at that point.

(setup 8.25 null monico deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, es accel slims navy/white asta size 12, gamechanger insoles)

Such a great feel good trick.

A post shared by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 20, 2018 at 7:30pm PDT

Was at the nearby Westin for a work conference so went to Broomfield after work on a nice evening. I had the park alone with some scooter kids who did their best to avoid me which was nice. Another skater showed after a bit. My warm up was okay even though my legs weren’t feeling very good. I could tell the dynamic stretching paid off big time. The park felt a little different since I as on my smaller setup. I got the tiny boardslide rail the first few times I tried it and a first try halfcab noseslide, but other than that nothing out of the ordinary before Rob showed up. Another skater showed around then that was fun to skate with even though has doing tricks like heelflip nose manual and switch treflip. Rob wasn’t feeling it so much. After a bit we played a game of SKATE. It started bad with both of us missing shoves or kickflips, but it ended up being good for us. Rob got a solid fakie flip, but two letters on halfcab flip. I think the other letters he got were varial flip, heelflip and I won it on halfcab heelflip. He had gotten me with a cab and something else. We hit the blue ledge for awhile doing 50s where you get on over the corner. I was going backside and Rob frontside. His were sick. The back 50 over the top was my goal for the day so that was cool. It’s easier to commit to with low trucks as you’re just that tiny bit closer. I was beat, but Rob was charging so I started hucking no comply flips. I wasn’t getting too close until I setup the camera and it was first try on film. Nice. Rob closed it out with some nosegrind attempts then a boardslide 180 transfer on the brown ledge. The other dude skating was going for heelflip manual front shove out. So sick. Fun day, but I wish my knees were feeling better.

(setup 8.25 null monico deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, es accel slims navy/white asta size 12, gamechanger insoles)

Worked late, Broomfield was cancelled, saw that Dave was green on gchat and that it hadn’t rained yet. Somehow we ended up at Niwot HS. The main ledge was behind a dumpster and not skateable. Doh. We went around the school and skated a terrible bench that had a slight slope up to it. I rode my little board, it felt low and small, but not bad. It took us awhile to even nosestall on it. Dave would go on to get front axle, boneless nosepick. I got front rock, couldn’t get back axle.

Then we hit this speed bump for awhile. It started because I saw a clip of someone varial heeling off a speed bump. We both posed that for a bit. Then Dave did front shove and back shove taking off and landing on the speed bump. So crazy to land back in it. I had a few good slams trying kickflip and got a couple. I took the fatty to flatty approach though. Then we messed around on a couple of the ledges briefly before it rained. Dave got a front nose or two, I got a back nose or two and some tiny crook jibs. Then the rain set it and we were done.

(setup 8.25 null monico deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, es accel slims navy/white asta size 12, gamechanger insoles)

On a rainy night I drove around a little looking for new spots. Saw one great looking new ledge spot, but it’s right by a police station. Looked at red curbs, but it was all wet since the rain was so intense. Ended up in the Steelyards garage. I had my normal setup and an 8.25 with Venture lows on it. I started basically doing a side by side comparison. I would try a line on one setup then the same line on the next. I did this for about 30 minutes and I tried to be as unbiased as possible. Both setups felt better/worse at times. The surprising turning point was how much better I felt popping the board on the smaller setup. I had better kickflips on the bigger board, but heelflip tricks were way worse. Doing little grinds on the curb felt similar. Well, it felt about the same to get in, but I had more control with the lows once I got in. Manuals felt better with the bigger setup, but that might be because I was more used to it. After the 30 minutes I skated the 8.25. I posed ollies over the big cone in the photo. It felt remotely doable and hucking it was fun, but I never committed. I tried the ironman line and had a great feeling kickflip, great feeling heelfip, then sketchy hand down treflip. I counted it. Treflips really bring out how big those shoes feel. I’m not sure I can keep trying to skate them. Anyway, the ironman line came kinda quick so then I tried to do a fakie ironman. I had some great feeling fakie flips, one insanely slow fakie heelflip and didn’t land the fakie tre. I hucked other flip tricks, but didn’t land much else. So yeah, here we go, I’ll probably skate the small board for awhile again, get flip tricks back, then want to change to a bigger setup, enjoy it for a bit, then want the small setup to get flip tricks back again, blah blah.

(setups: 8.38 null perception deck, indy 149 ray barbee trucks, oj 52mm ez edge insane-a-thane wheels, bones medium bushings, es accel slim navy/white asta size 12, footprint gamechanger low profile insole
8.25 null monico deck, venture 5.2 awake lows, 1/16 riser, old 51mm bones stf v1, 3 washers inside each axle, white venture bushings, same shoes as above)

The Wade Desarmo footage was all it took, but throw in some great PRod, Villani and McClung and you got the winner.

#fathersday tradition with @ollie.gillingham. Turn the sound up for some hilarious Ollie commentary. #cigregrettes #nicegymastics #fathersonskate

A post shared by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 17, 2018 at 4:40pm PDT

An unenthusiastic Ollie joined me to Denver for a Fathers Day tradition of skating and making a little montage together. I felt like cruising around spots and needed to get to Denver so we went to the campus there. My legs weren’t feeling very good. It took a bit just to ollie at all. Then a big dog came out of nowhere and scared me and I swore at the dog and owner and Ollie was even more bummed on me. But he started to cheer up when we started filming some stuff. Everything in the clip is in order. I couldn’t ollie up the ledge I kickflipped off to save my life. It sucked. The kickflip was a struggled. I kind of can’t believe I got one. Ollie’s halfcab then back 180 was super awesome. I still couldn’t do a manual there. We went to the little red curb nearby which was fun. Looked at some other stuff then ended up at the line spot I had never seen before. It was setup perfect for lines. After a few poses down the big 2 Ollie started filming me trying the line I needed to motivate myself to jump down it. It was fun, I was skating hard. The first line took about 10 tries. The second line took ~25 tries. The cracks up top prevented a harder flip trick. The crack before the big 2 made it a little scary. I called out “if I get the line this time you have to ollie the 2 stair” and Ollie said OK. So I new I had to do it and somehow it worked out. After this we basically skated back to the car. I was pretty beat after this and Ollie was ready to not skate so we called it a day. I’m happy I at least had some fun trying the lines. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up trying low trucks again soon.

(setup 8.38 null perception deck, indy 149 ray barbee trucks, oj 52mm ez edge insane-a-thane wheels, bones medium bushings, es accel slim navy/white asta size 12, footprint gamechanger low profile insole)