Rain threatening again I met Rob at Broomfield park. I got there first and after doing a few laps of basics on the quartapotty I pumped around the flow bowl. My legs enjoyed the low impact warm up and rewarded me by not being so sore. We each did some laps for awhile and then settled in on some lines on the blue and black ledges as well as flatground. There were only a few other people at the park and as Rob said it felt like skating a street spot. I don’t remember the actual lines that went down, but a lot of tricks went down. Rob had a bunch of back 50s on the blue ledge, nosegrind on blue, sick first try fakie 3 shove, kickflips, back 180s, halfcab noseslides, crooks (I think), front noseslides, front boards, fakie nosegrind on the black ledge, manual up the escalated ledge then nose manual the blue ledge. So sick. I couldn’t quite stand up on nosegrinds on the black ledge and when I tried them on the blue ledge I got the dreaded love tap. Got crooks and crooks fakie on the black ledge, front 50 shove, front 50 front 180, on the blue ledge back 50, accidental back 5-0, fakie nosegrind jib, little switch front noseslides. Flatground was going decent. Had a couple 3 flips, halfcab flips, fakie bigflip, same ol’ then out of nowhere snapped the tail on a nollie tre. Bummer! I have never even come close to cracking a board on a nollie tre before. It worked out though because I wasn’t sore yet, the weather was getting weird and a bunch of people showed up.

(setup amigos 8.38 RIP venture wides bones medium bushings stf 51mm NB+ stratford 479)

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on May 2, 2015 at 7:08pm PDT

Met up with Rob, Riley, Scotty, Bernie and eventually Dave at Longmont park on a warm day with rain threatening. When I got there Riley, Scotty and Bernie were doing tricks up the step up. They would fly around the park and land or slam. Riley rattled off like 10 tricks including nollie inward heel, nollie back heel, switch front heel, switch 360, pretty much everything. I had to do no comply tailslides for the challenge and went to work on them right away until I got the weak one above. It was harder to slide then I thought. I’ll blame the bank for not having wax. Ha. Rob had tricks like the steezy crailslide above, one foot ollies and kickflips. Us older dudes skated the mellow bank for awhile. Dave and I both landed boneless noseblunts. Pretty cool. Dave had a bit of a deck check and I did some sort of “What in the hell was that?” thing. Bernie and Riley skated the manual pad. Scotty joined us on the mellow bank and did a bunch of fakie sweeper combos. Almost got fakie heel sweeper finger flip. So rad. Then we started doing more flip trick stuff. Rob got a b/s heelflip and b/s no comply finger flip. Dave did a really good frontside flip and almost got fakie varial flip. I tried cab flips for awhile and kind of did one with lots of pivot. That would be a fun one to try more. Bernie joined us for a few textbook flippers. Then I tried the big flip for awhile and lastly skated the ledge as Riley front feebled the handrail. I got crooks, a horrible back 50 and a front nosegrind as Dave did back 180 flyouts over a cone. Good times.

With rain threatening and even leaving streaks sometimes we hit Zuni park for awhile. I had to do a back tail to fakie for the old guy game of insta-skate. So I went right to work on the small quarterpipe and managed to land a few! The first ones ever! Dave filmed one then I filmed him do it how it’s supposed to be done. Right to the next challenge I tried no comply tailslides on the big bank for awhile. Kind of did them, but didn’t want to film because it wasn’t very proper. Jake was looking good on his board after meniscus surgery. Back blunt, front blunt on the qp. Dave was cruising around everything and did a bunch of tricks on the little qp. I got a kickflip on the big bank. It started to rain heavier so we just skated flatground for awhile. Jake and I tried treflips for awhile. He got his first and mine didn’t feel good, but we got them. Dave did a bunch of kickflips and tried some treflips. He also got a varial flip! I got a first try nollie tre, bad heelflip, fakie bigflip and a couple others I think. Fun little session after such a long one the night before.

Somehow the stars aligned and things worked out for a downtown Denver mission with Dave, Rob, Fuzz, Jack and me. It didn’t look good initially as it was raining at the gathering point of Crisis and on the road to Denver. We went drove to Cherry Curbs and the security guard was up front preventing us from even getting out of the car. Ugh. Rob killed it by telling the security guard that Dave was trying to learn how to drive an automatic since he grew up driving a stick. And that it was too slippery out on the streets. So funny. We headed back downtown and things were dry. We got the boot from a curb spot then ended up at the 5 two stairs in a row (old guy 10 stair ha). Everyone firecrackered them. Such a good warm up. Jack ollied up them too, but he’s only 20 something. Once even with a no comply flip up the last set. Dave, Rob and I added back 180 off the last step. Fuzz tried to back 180 the second to last set then switch front 180 the last set making for some pretty epic bails and slams. The pitch out to butt looked so amazing off a two stair. I managed to early grab through a couple sets. Fuzz rode down all of them switch. Jack did pressure flip and late shove off the last set. A few fun powerslides later we were down the hill and hitting some curbs. Jack had some long back 50s. Fuzz and Rob had some good manuals. I did some kickflips to feel more warmed up. Then we checked out this bench/stair/rail area. Jack had some long back 50s. Rob no comply’d up the three stair. This is when some clearly mentally challenged dude started following us and telling us not to skate. Well, he may have been mute because he was just shaking his head and waving no with his finger. Some people let it get to them, other just ignored him. Either way it was kind of weird. We got the boot from a real security guard and went across the street to a nice granite ground with some round flower pots that we skated. Jack and Fuzz had some boardslide pop outs. Jack was doing them frontside I think and going across the street to do some wallrides. I get a fun line of front 180 up the curb, halfcab flip on flat then noseslide. Off we went.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Apr 30, 2015 at 11:27pm PDT

I think we ended up at this spot next where everyone boardslid the yellow ledge. Dave and Rob added front board. Jack did 180 switch crooks transfer. Fuzz did halfcab boardslide. Jack rolled off the tall ledge so casual. As we were getting booted I tried a couple of street plant things with my hand on the bar and dropped off. Landed one. It felt so rad.

A photo posted by Rob Helmstetter (@43shifty) on Apr 30, 2015 at 10:26pm PDT

A video posted by Jack Spanbauer (@jackspanbauer) on May 1, 2015 at 3:30pm PDT

I think we ended up here next. We actually lasted for quite awhile. We started with the orange benches were they are. Fuzz killed it with front 50, front 5-0 and maybe a front smith too? I got crooks. After awhile one was pulled out to ollie over into the little downhill of the entryway. Jack and Fuzz killed this too. Fuzz did ollie, manual, back 180 and front 180 all first try. Maybe nosebonk too. Jack got kickflip nosebonk, one foot nosebonk and probably more that I’m forgetting. I tried to ollie it. It would have a really big ollie for me. I committed on the last one as we were getting a kind boot, but didn’t get over the bench. Either way it felt cool to try that hard.

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on May 2, 2015 at 8:44am PDT

After some grub at 7-11 I think we ended up at Skyline park. Jack rode off a ledge to 5-0 a trash can. Dave and I did drops to tail. Dave added a 360 egg plant nose bonk. Yes it was as crazy as it sounds. Actually I should gram the video of it. Ok, gram’d it. It’s above. Yeah for technology. And yes the nose bonk was intentional.

I ollied this gap. Actually kind of surprised because of how sore I was. But yeah, again I was surprised at just how fun it was and reminds me to skate gaps more often.

Last spot was here. We rode off the drops on the other side which was pretty fun. I got a noseslide to ride down. I think Dave did boardslide. Everyone was kind of done at that point it seemed, but I tried a crooks on the ledge and it grinded really well. So I did like 100 of them having the time of my life. I would go between crooks to fakie or forward just kind of depending on how the grind went. I think my longest grind was 4 sections. It felt sooooo good! I did a couple bad back 50s too. Dave did boardslide to fakie, boardslide to fakie 50 halfcab out and front board to fakie. All super good. After that we rolled/walked back to the car. Incredibly fun night for me. These dudes rule. Oh yeah, and I finally crooked through the V!

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on May 1, 2015 at 9:40am PDT

(setup 8.38 amigos venture wides bones med bushings stf 51mm nb+ stratford 479)