Jack and Carleigh came over for a bit to skate Rampy. Within minutes the coping had turned to dust and the cloud filled the air making it impossible to breath as well as grind. Not so stoked. Not sure what to do to fix it. It’s not easy to replace the coping or revert back to steel coping. Jack did rip it though. Carleigh did some good basics too. I skated mediocre. Bumming on what to do about Rampy though.

Had planned an old man late night downtown Denver session earlier in the week, but everyone started bailing so had to change plans. I ended up meeting Derek, Nate and Connor at the Broomfield park a little later in the afternoon. We didn’t stay long at all and headed off to the new hot spot in Denver. This spot is amazing. Curb high manny pads off of 3 stairs, ledges, such an amazing spot. I skated it about long enough to front 180 a little flat gap, halfcab flip on flat, then noseslide a ledge before I started filming. Connor and Derek got some goodies and we headed into downtown. We hit the art museum for a few minutes of fun before getting the boot. My body felt pretty good and I was warmed up enough to ollie onto the ledges. Doh.

Connor and I dropped Derek and Nate off and headed to the northGLENn park. There weren’t many people there and it was still rather warm out. I started out by eating shit rolling up a bank. Lovely. About two minutes later I found a huge hole in a crack and slammed hard on that too. Another minute or so after that I fell on a kick turn or something. As if I don’t already feel stupid enough. Connor quietly killed the park as he always does. Lots of weird/unique lines/wallies/ways to avoid the stairs. He had some ledge lines going with front 5-0 followed by back 5-0. My first main goal was to get a rock ‘n roll on the weird jersey barrier kind of thing. I would do a kickflip or a halfcab flip into the little bank up top and try it. Took me awhile, but I did get it. After that I tried to ollie off the kicker over the ledge to flat and I kept hitting the ledge. Ugh. I even did a b/s flip on the bank and a treflip on flat beforehand to get myself hyped up. I skated the bowl for a few minutes, got an axle stall in a corner I’ve never hit before. Then did bigflip and fakie flip on the flat bank and called it a night. Connor had been mini ramping it between the qp and pyramid and doing some cool stuff. Fun night, sorry how embarrassing it is skating with me Connor.

I had the day off work and after a huge breakfast with Liz and some errands Bernie joined up and we hit Boulder with no real plans. First stop was the ledge near the research center. We didn’t get too tech or stay very long. Crooks still felt good on it. Bernie had some nice tailslides. We rolled around and checked out some ledges near the soccer field that look really good if they were rub bricked (hint hint someone with a rub brick) and went around the rest of the research center building. Bernie and I ollied the four stair. Him doing it way before me obviously. We checked out the front area where Sean and Max have done super gnarly tricks then headed to Boulder ditch.

They put a fence up again at Boulder ditch making it hard to hit the angle iron ledge, but other then that it’s pretty much the same. I had a dream of doing front d then backside flip, but I couldn’t do the front d. I gave up and did the ol’ front rock then b/s flip line I’ve done a few times and it makes me smile everytime. Bernie did a few front pivots on the taller qp too, but that was about it.

Next we went over near Silvermine subs. Bernie did some front 50s on the wavy ledge and wanted manual it, but couldn’t get the angle/speed. I tried to get up the courage to boardslide this weird 3 stair flagstone ledge, but wussed out and almost got a major hipper bailing. Then we went up to the bank spot and Bernie did a trick involving two of the most basic tricks there are, manual and boardslide. But it’s Bernie so you know it’s awesome. Super fun day. Bernie rules.

Got to Broomfield park a little after 7pm. Bernie and John were there, but John had just broken his board (that’s what happens when you don’t skate Nulls (ha)) so John left to get a new board quick at Crisis. He came back with a Null and therefore had super powers. Carleigh, Connor, Dave, Fuzz joined shortly. I felt decent initially and was kind of just cruising around. Got a front 50 back 180 out pretty quick and a manual on the blue box right away which surprised me. I attributed it to having better board feel without my stiff orthodic insoles and was kinda stoked. John and I did lines of back 50 the black box then boardslide the flatbar. John can do bigspin front noses, but somehow has never had boardslides? So funny. Fuzz was skating the ledge pretty good. Back 5-0 followed by blunt to fakie on the brick quarter pipe. Bernie did a run with front tail front 270 out followed by kick back tail to fakie. So good. Connor was doing all kinds of crap first try all easy looking that was amazing. He got a halfcab back 50 front 180 out that took at least 3 tries though. Dave was skating the steep bank a lot and almost got tailslides both ways and doing boardslides to fakie on the black bench. Carleigh didn’t stay too long, but tried a few noseslides with her patented 270 shove out the other way. Fuzz, John and I tried front nosegrinds for awhile. John having claimed he hasn’t tried that trick in years, but came the closest of us. I kept bonking on the way out. I tried a few more halfcab flip noseslides and got kind of close. Fuzz and I tried back 50 back 180 out the black box. He got it, but wasn’t happy with how he did it. Darn perfectionists. It took me awhile to commit to a simple boardslide down the tiny rail. Unfortunately my feet/knees starting hurting and I wish I would have brought my orthodics to switch back to. Bernie almost did bs flip to fakie manual. Crazy crazy. The lights shut off. Fuzz was trying switch blunt though and was angry and wanting to get it which he did. In the dark. Crazy. Dave was still skating too and did a bunch of tricks on the dark. After this we went over to Safeway for a few slappys. My feet/legs were killing me. Bernie did a bunch of long manuals too. It got really cold and we called it a night.

Been fighting a nasty cold for a couple days, but decided a short Rampy session was in order. Everyone else was busy, but with how nervous I am about the sandy pool coping I had painted recently this was ok. First few grinds felt pretty good, but the paint was still chipping off and the concrete as well. Seems like the concrete paint helps a little, but not all that much. Doh. I still like it though. Concrete feels more real then steel any day.

I guess Rampy will be more of a stall ramp. Maybe I’ll figure out better paint to use or maybe I should actually wax it a little. The coping definitely isn’t normal hard pool coping. I figure I’ll ride it out this winter and maybe sometime over the summer get some good pool coping for it. Above are the before and after session shots. I had some new shoes. Shoes that didn’t hurt and give me blisters on every ollie attempt.

Lakai Manchesters. A shoe that’s proven it likes my feet over multiple pairs. As far as skating it was hard, but fun. Rampy is way harder now. I got a large percentage of tricks in my little bag. I tried a few more of those frontside boneless/sweeper things to tail (gotta work on my old guy tricks), an ollie to rock fakie in hopes of maybe someday doing kickflip rock fakie which I didn’t get close to. The other thing I struggled with was front d on the narrow side of the deck which I finally did. I had switched between my normal orthotic insoles and the beefy ones that came with the shoes. I’ve been kinda wondering if my stiff orthodics take away board feel and it really seems like they do.

Here’s my trucks after grinding a lot of paint and a little concrete.