skate journal: leadville park then leadville park with another solid crew (june 30, 2018)
We were up pretty early at a cold campsite and headed into town to get some grub and use toilets. It was a bit of a rough go for awhile, but before long we ended up at the Leadville park. Joel met up with us and cruised around. A few of us played SKATE to get warmed up and although Kevin got everyone with the nollie/switch flips it was still a good warm up. It’s hard to remember the difference between the morning and evening session, but I’ll try. It was cool that Chris Albright showed up and ripped. There was another mountain dude ripping so hard. He did a fakie flip up the euro! I managed a 3rd try kickflip up the euro which really surprised me. Chris got my back with heelflip I think. Then we both did early grabs up which was kinda scary. Rob had back 180 up. Joe was scared of it, but when he finally ollied it he did it super easy. I tried a few noseslide 270 shoves on the bump to ledge, but never got me feet on it. Rob did some cool front board pop outs. I got a treflip out of the bank opposite of the euro which felt great. Jeff and a few of his friends showed up. I was pretty beat at this point. Eric was sitting it out as his knee was too sore. Rob was chilling. Joe was still going of course. Front pivot on the bank to curb then front 50 down the hubba. Kevin was doing tricks up the euro too. Nollie flip and nollie b/s flip! Jeff went buck with the switch tre up and nollie hardflip up.
Then we took a much needed break in the frigid Turquoise. Kevin, Eric, Jeff and I were the only ones that went all the way in. It was cold. We thought we were so cool and then we look out and there were people water skiing without wetsuits. Ha. The cold water really seemed to reduce soreness for us though.
So then we were back at the skatepark. Eric was finally able to skate and it was great to see. Again it’s going to be tough to remember what went down as it’s been a few days. Rob and I were skating the round manny pad area. I struggled to get a manual. Rob however did manual drop down to manual into the curb cut. And then he does back 50 to manual. So crazy. I struggled with nose manuals for awhile then out of nowhere locked in and lined it out with a kickflip up the curb then a b/s flip on the humpy hip. That line made my day. Kevin was shredding the bump to bar. Front board super easy, a few more tricks and I’m not sure if he got the front feeble. Joe was lining out the hubba. Jeff was doing back tails on one gnar bank and back heels on the other. He also did a crazy front big heel. Joe, Kevin and I had a race to b/s flip on the bank that Jeff did the back heel. Kevin got it first. I got a sketchy one second. Joe got a super solid one third. I figured the only trick left for me to get was the noseslide 270 shove so I battled that for quite a while. I would try to ride down the ledge then ollie back up on the way back and it hurt so bad. Argh. But as you can see above I kind of got the ns 270 shove. It felt awesome. I chilled after that. Keggen1 showed up and wrecked it. That was fun to watch. Eric and Kevin skated the elevated pool corner for awhile. The session ended with Joe doing front 5-0 down the hubba and Kevin not quite front nosegrinding down it. He was locked in so good though. Then we went back to the camp site and drank way too much whiskey. What a fun day.
(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 low profile insoles)