Tired from a busy day at work I went out to skate with some new and old stuff. I had a new deck (8.1 this time) and had put some old STFs on. The board and wheels felt great. But the shoe/insole game is a constant struggle for me. Orthotics or not? Cupsoles or vulc? Argh. This night I went with the thinnest shoes in my quiver and some flat insoles. NB 212 with FP 5mm insoles. They felt good, but very thin. I didn’t feel good out of the gate. And it didn’t really get better. The ledge had sand all around it so that didn’t help. I got some noseslides and noseslide to fakie to get started. Then I wanted to do back 50. Bad choice. Just like Sunday I wasn’t able to do one. I tried for awhile too. The worst part is I wasn’t even getting close. I eventually gave up and cheered myself up a little with a couple crooks. I randomly tried nollie back 360s which I got close to and cabs which I didn’t get as close to. I did manage a quick jib front 50, posted up on some front noseslides that stuck, got a couple bad halfcab noseslides, a switch front nose. Hucked a few flippers. My legs felt good for awhile, then got really tired. At the end I hucked noseslide back 270 out and noseslide front 270 shove out. I got remotely close to the 270 shove out. Depressing night.

(setup 8.125″ null maze deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, 52mm bones stf v5, bones medium bushings, new balance numeric 212 green size 11, fp 5mm flat insoles)

You know when Venture puts out a part it’s gonna be good. Nick Matthews is no exception. Great music and great street skating combine for a super fun part.

And yes I know Nyjah put out this part last week too. There is no chance this could win because of the filming/editing. Not that I really even care for handrail parts, so it wouldn’t win even if it was filmed decently. But seriously, Ty Evans, you made this part unwatchable.

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)

Epic spot ✔️ Epic crew ✔️ Epic tricks ✔️ @baffoos switch backside flip

A post shared by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Mar 3, 2018 at 4:55pm PST

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)

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)

I love long lines with lots of flipper in them.

Went to go skate the bikepath/hip spot, but it’s no longer lit at night. The nearby Pearl ledge had snow and water around it. Ended up at the nearby bus station. Went to this little ledge and stayed put for 30 minutes or so. I was not wearing my orthotic insoles. I’ve been reading a lot about how you shouldn’t wear them and I’ve been doing lots of foot and leg exercises. So I wanted to see if my legs and back can handle it now. It felt fine. Other than it feeling really weird to not have a solid sheet of wood underneath my feet. Which is obviously a lot! Ha. I actually bailed on the little hill on the bikepath because it felt so weird not having the stiff insole. So yeah it took awhile to get used to, but I did eventually feel fine. The little ledge is pretty sick, but the bump before it weirded me out for awhile. I eventually got a few kickflips and noseslides. A line with front shove then back 50. Back 50s on that were really fun. I of course was getting on where it’s lowest. It would be fun to go back when it’s daytime and can see it better. Someone 50’ing the whole thing up and over could be cool and there is lots of line opportunity.

Then I went up and skated the tall ledge above. Which felt extra tall. I could barely noseslide it and a tiny slow crooks jib was a battle.

(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)

Ollie, Gabe and I showed up at Louisville park around 6, but the lights wouldn’t turn on so we went to Lafayette. The park was pretty chill, some people and some snow, but mostly skatable. Ollie and Gabe mostly hung out near the entrance at first. Doing stationary shoves and hitting the bank. Gabriel hasn’t skated a park so it was all new to him and he was scared just rolling down some of the banks initially. I had a pretty good slam on a nollie back 180 on a bank to start my session. Not sure where that came from, but it hurt. Ollie was doing fakie shoves and f/s halfcabs on the bank. Gabe did an ollie to fakie which kind of blew me away having not skated a bank before. I had fun with the rock corner wallie. I was trying to skate the black ledge, but people kept hanging out by the landing so it was kind of annoying. I struggled with the angle for front 50s, but would get front 50, front 50 shove, front 50 front 180 out and then a manual which was the hardest of the lot for me. Gabe got a clean ollie onto it. What the heck? Kid is gonna be a ripper. Ollie got on it too with a quick jib, but had some nice 180s off. We hit the toilet bowl for awhile. Gabe managed the easy roll in entry and got a few kickturns. Ollie kind of did some grinds. I didn’t get much, the coping there is weird. Some dudes came and put the parking block after the little bank and had a fun session going. I tried to no comply flip into the bank. Got close a few times, but was struggling with the flip. I got halfcab flip on the easy bank. I tried front shoves to fakie on the narrow bank by the snake run for awhile. Ollie came in and did a few tricks to hype me up. Then moved on to skate with Gabriel before I landed the front shove. We ended by ollieing off the tight qp by the entrance. Then Ollie front 180’d it in a few tries. Man it was cool seeing Ollie skate so hard. Him having a buddy to shred with is great.

(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, custom orthotic insole)