Had the day off work to skate with one of my main homies Josh Pluger. We started at Frederick and it was great. Kind of bright an hot, but it was great. Especially when long time friend Andy showed up with his crew of kids in skate lessons. But before that we skated quite a while. Josh adapted well and was rifling off lines. Like most sessions there we warmed up on the bank to curb section and mellow bank. Josh even flipped his board! I had gotten a first try kickflip so he did a first try kickflip to fakie. I was happy that I got a few flippers relatively quickly like kf fakie, fakie flip, halfcab flip and b/s flip. Josh’s slappies were cool. After some chatting with Andy and smoothies we mostly skated the ledge. Josh manned up and front 50’d it, front 50 180, front noseslide, backside noseslide, sw noseslides, etc. Ripping. I couldn’t commit to front 50, but I did get some crooks, switch noses and a very weak halfcab noseslide.

Next up the old Berthoud park. It’s so fun. Josh ripped it. His poppy ollies over the hip alone were sick. Add in some good qp tricks, front axle on the bank to ledge, 50 around the C ledge, front shove to fakie and fakie bigspin. He was ripping. I was struggling, but did get a couple b/s flips in a row over the hip. Josh had one a good back 3 over it. I started doing crooks on the C ledge and tried to varial flip the hip after. Josh got a sense of my temper on that one. Geez, I just could not land it and it was so frustrating. I was so close, but never once got both feet on it. At the end I did perhaps the slowest and worst front 50 on the C ledge of all time.

Then we went the newer Berthoud park after some yummy poke. We played on the tiny qp for a while which was fun. We did a lot of tricks. Then I skated the ledge section doing some noseslide variations and trying to front 50 coming back. Took a while, did some fun noseslides to fakie. Slammed super hard on one though and it started raining so we called it a day.

(setup 2/10 null 8.25 time warp, jessup ultra, venture 5.6 v-cast no big washer, 52mm spitfire f4 99a classic orange/black, new balance numeric 430 size 12 b/w half insole currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 6/10)

After work my good friend Josh showed up and after catching up we went over to the parks. There was no one at Valmont so we started there. Josh went in on the pole jam first. He got it quick, also some of his patented no complies and bean plants. I had some kickflips on the flat bank. We did some stuff around the park, cruising, checking out the stupid curved quarterpipes.

Then we went over to Green Block. Josh was kind of surprised how hard it was to skate. But he still lined things out. Wallies, slappies, 50s, cruising. I was mostly struggling. At one point I was trying crook shove and almost did an accidental nollie heel out. Man I wish I would have landed that because it will never happen again. Josh and I made ourselves do some halfcab noseslides since he struggles with that trick too.

We went back over to Valmont as the toddlers had left. Filmed Josh do the pole jam then he filmed me do the crooks then kickflip.

(setup 5/10 null 8.25 time warp, jessup ultra, venture 5.6 v-cast no big washer, 52mm spitfire f4 99a classic orange/black, new balance numeric 430 size 12 b/w half insole currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 5/10)

Went over to the school to skate flatground. No real plan in mind other than to get 10 flip tricks. I started kind of slow though, took a bit to get fakie flip. But then wow, after that it was so downhill. For like a full 30 minutes I didn’t get beyond kickflip/fakie flip. Bailed trick after trick. Could not get heelflip, treflip. Eventually would get varial flip, halfcab flip, b/s flip, f/s halfcab flip and that was it. Went in on treflips and heelflips and could not get either. It was so frustrating. I felt like I was skating hard and having fun for the early part of this session, but wow did I leave depressed.

(setup 2/10 null 8.25 time warp, jessup ultra, slappy low profile 8.25, 53mm bones stf v1 103a, new balance numeric 430 b/w size 12 half insole and currex runpro insole)
(pain level 3/10)