After a nice day of chilling with the family and eating Thanksgiving leftovers for breakfast Jake and I rolled to Longmont to meet Dave and Rob at Rocky Mountain Elem. It’s one of those good winter sun spots. Dave and I talked about our rough starts. I figured after a long walk and an earlier work out I would be feeling good. Nope. I think I was 1-5 on kickflips to start. Yikes! Someone has been giving the curbs there some love and they were extra fun. Nollie front lips were had by all, what a fun trick. Jake pretty much stuck to the curb. Good slappies, slappy crooks, his first ever nollie back lips and a second try pop shove lip. Rob had a banger line going. High speed ollie up the curb to beautiful no comply, back 180 up the curb switch boardslide. Had I brought the camera I would have requested to film it. We all tried regular front lipslides too, Rob being the first to land one. I think he got the shove in variation too. Dave was the second to get a front lip. He was charging some high speed ollies up the curbs to tricks on the medians like front 180 nose manual, kickflip onto one, a crazy pop shove with a sideways land that he survived. He almost got a sex change on the bank. Boardslides to fakie, some flippers and ended the session with a front 50 on the ledge second try that was way better than any of the ones I did. I pretty much tried two lines the whole time. Flip trick, front 50 the ledge, lipslide the curb, flip trick. Backside kickflip low on a bank then crooks shove the ledge. I would get quite a few kickflips on the bank with varying degree of cleanliness. A few crooks shove felt really good and close, but I never got my feet on one. The ledge is growing. And it’s not just because I’m getting older. It’s actually lifting for some reason. Anyway flip tricks were a struggle to start lines, but I did get a few halfcab flips. 1/10 on heelflips ugh. Got a halfcab 90 heel, one incredibly slow treflip. I think I only got a couple front 50s, they were so hard for me. I would get the lipslide at the end, but went to fakie. Oh well it was fun sliding some. That spot is hard. I was skating with some good motivation, but I was pretty disappointed in how badly I actually skated. At least the crew was a good one and the sun was nice.

(setup 8.25 303 clfx spirt deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 trucks (cast baseplate titanium hanger), venom 88a bushings, 52mm spitfire classic shape f4 99a, 3 washers on outside of wheels, new balance numeric 212 blue/gum size 11.5 stock insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

I had about an hour to kill before an old guy curb session I brought LGJ out to a dry asphalt parking lot behind the research center by Foothills Parkway. I wanted to do at least 10 ledge tricks in an hour. It sounds easy, but LGJ is hard. Sorry I forgot to take a photo again. I am not good at quick ledges. Especially when they aren’t short. I started off terribly. Oh yeah, I had a new board. A 303 CLFX deck since I’m out of 8.25s and I want consistency these days. I had new wheels too. Spitfire 52mm F4 classic shape. I am hoping I this wheel flips faster than the radial slim and I like them this time around so I can stick with it. I should find a better parking lot, but this one worked. I got boardslide, noseslide, noseslide to fakie quick. Front board. Almost a couple good front noseslides, but instead I settled for a really bad one. I tried to do a line of fakie flip, halfcab noseslide, b/s flip. I got all the tricks, but the halfcab noseslide was super hard for some dumb reason. I had put a plastic pad under LGJ and it helped prevent it from sliding away. Got a switch front nose or too, switch backside was hard I kept moving the ledge when I’d get in. I had a good slam trying fakie nosegrind. Got a couple incredibly slow front 50s. Lots of crooks, a crooks to fakie. Couldn’t get close to halfcab crooks. Got halfcab noseslide to fakie. Landed a terrible treflip.

Then went and met up with Eric, Saul, Ed, Jake at Glenn Close. Miles from Square State would randomly show up as well as a young kid. It was fun. The classic shape wheels definitely slappy easier than a more square shape. Since Jake was the first to leave I’ll start with him. He was going in on slappy shoves for awhile. I tried some too and we were looking for motivation so I jokingly said if we don’t get it in 5 tries were doing 20 pushups. We both did 20 push ups. Jake had bluntslide, may have gotten the slappy shove, frontside slappies, slappy crook shove. Ed has one stylee slappy and was ripping some energetic lines with pops off the curb cuts and manuals. He ended with such a good front slappy. We can all thank Saul for shoveling the spot earlier in the day. He bashed the scary spork deck into the curb for some good slappies both ways, did the hook, I think got slappy crook. Eric was on heelflip tip. Off the curb cut, over the tiny bank. He had a good slam off the curb cut on one. I’m not sure if he even hit the curb, but he did go for a few long manuals. Miles was fun to skate with. He had a mean kickflip and treflip. I had my normal slappy tricks, but couldn’t get slappy front feeble or the slappy shove. I came close to switch front 50. I was inspired to get a better treflip than earlier so I tried a line of front slappy (or slappy front crook) then a slow treflip. I needed to get going after that as did everyone else. Fun crew. Wish I would have taken a photo of all of us together.

(setup 8.25 303 clfx spirt deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.8 trucks (cast baseplate titanium hanger), venom 88a bushings, 52mm spitfire classic shape f4 99a, 3 washers on outside of wheels, new balance numeric 212 blue/gum size 11.5 stock insoles)
(pain level 4/10)