I really feel old lately. After driving down from my Mom’s I played basketball with Ollie for awhile and I felt so slow, uncoordinated and old. I met Neil and Blake at this spot for a weird session. Neil was in a daze for obvious reasons. Blake killed it and Neil filmed him get a rad line of ollie’ing off a ledge into a bank, ollie up the curb then gap to noseslide. Neil skated for awhile though and had several nose manuals, manuals and easy ollies anywhere. Halfcab up the first curb, ollie up the second, back 180 up the third. Sick. I struggled for awhile, but just kept skating. Kind of early on manualled the medium pad into the other curb and had a really rare nose manny the long bottom pad to front 180 out. Hyped on that. I couldn’t ollie up the tall ledge. Early on had a fun first try line of front 180 up the hard way the low curb and fakie bigspin off. Neil mostly chilled. Blake was skating the 3 curb area doing some no comply 360 attempts and halfcab firecrackers (ha). I finally started feeling motivated and tried to kickflip up and off of the tall edge (going from low to high). The kickflip up is really hard because of the weird angle in. I kept missing and tore half of my griptape up. I managed to get up a few and land on kickflips off, but not ride away. Neil kept wanting to leave and I kept saying one more and I would get close enough that he wouldn’t leave. I gave up on the kickflips up and just tried the off and got even closer. But no cigar. They left. Doh. At least the chinese nollies into the curb cut that Blake ollied into were fun. I kept skating for awhile. Tried to do some more lines up/down the lowest curb. Tried pop shove up, back 180 off for awhile and failed. Moved on to back 180 up, halfcab flip off. Got that all slow like. The angle is harder then it looks, dodging the handrails is kinda hard and I was getting on between the narrower ones. I mean I could get on later, but that would mean I wouldn’t have enough setup time for me. Started trying switch front 180 up and 360 flip off. I was sweating and having some fun, getting close and missed a 3 flip and lost my shit.

I really don’t know what happened. I’ve been pretty frustrated with a lot of things lately and I guess I took them all out on my skateboard. I literally threw that thing around for 20 minutes straight. Then after awhile would start throwing one side at the other side. It was kinda fun for awhile, but the fact that I was mad at skateboarding just made me madder and the cycle continued for a long time. I almost left them in the parking lot, but I had new wheels so I knew better. I’m gonna take some time off from skating. For me, that’s probably only a few days, but I need it. My quads hurt just as bad as ever so I don’t think cupsoles are really helping that which I’m sure added to my frustration. Getting old f’ing sucks.

Needed to make a run to MRKT and Jake, Carleigh and Jack had expressed interest in it. Jake had his girl friends car and offered to drive. I cannot even remember a trip to Fort Collins that I didn’t drive. Ever. Sick! We picked up Jack after work (thanks for the burrito!) and made good time up to Fort Collins. After stopping at MRKT we rolled right into campus and ended up at an old epic spot that I skated with Jason and Josh a long time ago. It’s two ledges going down a banked sidewalk that has been knobbed for a long time. Forever ago Josh, Jason and I did quite a few things on it. I know I got front 50. Josh probably did lipslide pop out (he’s goofy) and I’m sure Jason did boardslide popout. Next to it is a weird 2 flat 2 flat 1 flat 1. Jack ollied the 2 flat 2. Carleigh rode down all the stairs. I took a long time, but rolled down them all too. Jake started doing tricks into the bank and that ended up being the spot for quite a while. Jack did like 100 tricks into it like 3 flip, nollie heel, impossible, a bunch more. Oh yeah, I had to setup a new board after cracking it the day before. So I had a new board and decided to put my old Thunders on instead of the Ventures. I also had some new wheels. Bones STF 51s. I’ve wanted to try them for awhile to compare to Superthanes (they flat spotted right away so clearly not as good). So flip tricks to start the day were a little weird. I did get kickflip and front shove pretty quick. We were all having fun. The rain was holding off. I did a front 180 off a nearby 2 stair and got a first try halfcab flip into it. Jack backed me up with an impossible to accidental manual (so sick!). Then Jake got his back with a kickflip. Then to complete the 4-4 Carleigh came in hot with a nollie shove. Everyone was hyped. Rather then take off we stuck around. Carleigh got some kickflips. Jake and I failed at fakie flips. Jack added more tricks like switch front heel. I should have gotten the fakie flip. Oh well, ollieing up the 3 felt pretty good.

Sean, Mike, Taylor and Jason showed up and we went over to the Clark building area. Us older dudes skated the hip mostly for awhile. I managed kickflip in a couple and front shove first try. Carleigh and Jack ollied the stairs all easy. I failed getting Carleigh’s back. But after Jack ollied the rail then boardslid it I had to get his back and scratched a little 12 year old no pop ollie and landed. Felt great. Jack went off for awhile. Boardslide, feeble and bluntslide the 5 stair rail. I have video of it, but the youtube editor wont work now. Look later. I got a few more tricks on the hip. A really bad frontside flip and a halfcab flip where I popped after the hip. Ha. Jake got a solid kickflip and Mike did a few front shoves, a full cab and more. Sean was skating it like a bank to curb. Carleigh starting going for kickflip. Jake got a buttery fakie bigspin over the hip. I started messing around with a line starting with a front 180 off the top 3 and ended up doing one of my favorite lines ever. Front 180 down the 3, curve around then pop shove, ollie onto the little ledge near the 5 stair (on the left of the photo), scrape the tiniest no pop ollie off the drop (tall for me!) then did one of the best frontside flips of my life over the hip (that’s not saying much though). Seriously, one of my favorite lines I’ve ever done. The frontside flip wasn’t even in my plan, I guess I was just surprised to land the drop and kept going. Carleigh kept attacking the kickflip, but we ended up getting the boot. Off to Northside it was.

Northside was pretty packed with the Fort Collins heavy hitters and of course they were ripping. Xavier and Dana are insanely good. I didn’t really seen any of our crew skating as there were so many people. I had a couple lines around the place that felt good. Some little wallies and grind on the brick qp. Then Jack and I played a game of SKATE in the parking lot that lasted a really long time. I landed pretty much all of my tricks except for nollie tre and was up SK to SKAT, but couldn’t land anything else to win it. The treflip felt great. I liked having the Thunders. Maybe I’ll stick to them. But wow, what a fun day of skating. Thanks for diving Jake and Jack and Carleigh for being such awesome friends and being down to skate anything.

Got out of work and what do you know, my car wont start. Had that problem in the morning too and had to jump it so it looks like it needs a new battery. Rather then taking care of that I did a few things and watched the Nuggets somehow destroy OKC for their 13 win. So awesome and so nothing to do with a skate journal. But its the reason I didn’t get out until 9pm. It was way colder then it should be. In the mid 40s, but with a cold wind. I had setup some new wheels. Some little Pig 50mm wheels. They had been taunting me at Crisis for a long time so I got some. My first non-Null wheels in years. Out of the gate they seemed great. And I warmed up pretty quick and had the drive to push a little faster then normal (not saying much). I had some boardslide pop outs and noseslide pop outs to get warmed up. Then came kickflips and some stalls on the curb. The box in the photo wasn’t there initially. I got some crooked grinds on the middle section. They felt super good. So good I kept doing them. I guess the narrower wheels let me lock in a little better. I got a couple treflips after, but both were super bad. Looking back I hardly landed anything frontside. Did I even try? Man, I landed like two front 50s and a really bad front tail. Oh and a couple front noseslides to fakie. I tried a bunch of flip tricks. After bailing a frontside trick I would do a nollie heel or nollie flip attempt. Those weren’t close. Well, the first one was close, but it must have been luck. I tried a bunch of fakie big flips going fast. That trick isn’t working lately. I got one. Coming back I would try the fastest nollie tres I’ve ever tried. I got one. I landed on almost every one of them though. That trick rules. Later on I put this box after it and ollied it in a couple tries. It felt neat. I put it upright too which was way taller and didn’t have the cajones to commit. I got tired quick around then and the wind kicked in overdrive so I went home. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a bad day skating when I land a nollie tre. Love that trick.

Ollie totally wanted me to sit and watch the Nuggets game with me. I was so tempted. My legs were still really sore. But with the threat of snow a day away Liz made me go skate. Ok, well she told me I should. Good woman. I had finally setup some new wheels. As you can see those little 50mm wheels had worn out quite a bit. I’d say they were 48, maybe even down to 47. So bad! So I went back to the good ol’ supernullethane. When I got to the park there was about 5 people total there. For such a huge park that is almost nothing. I just cruised around for awhile not doing much of anything. It was a blast. I pumped the vert wall of the snake run a few times and probably got about 3 feet from the top. That thing is gnarly. Did some tricks on the tiny qp above it for awhile and ended up with a really fun run. Front feeble on the tiny qp, front 50 the ledge into the bank, ollie into the next bank, ollie into the next bank over the mini step up, ollie up the euro (missed the manual), backside flip on the blue bank. Good times. For the most part I didn’t really skate anything for longer then a few minutes. It was fun cruising around and hitting stuff. In the mini ramp it took a few tries, but I got a run with a front rock, front d and a fakie back smith to fakie. Doing flip tricks was a bit harder getting used to how the bigger wheels rotate. I didn’t land many of them. Then again it was in the low 30s and I was wearing long johns and a jacket. At the end of the session I battled back 50s on the little granite Pier 7 replica thing. It basically took until 30 second left of light to get it. Whew. I’m not sure what’s up with me enjoying skating parks so much, but I’ve never really done it solo before and it’s fun working on stuff I would never do in front of people.

Of course now that I have to take some time off for my shoulder injury it’s super nice out. I haven’t set up a new board in a long time and needed something to do. If you know anything about me, you know that I obsess over really dumb stuff. Well lately I’ve been watching a lot of Westgate footage and read something where he said low trucks have better pop. When I had cleaned my garage last weekend I found an old pair of Venture Lows (8″) and I felt like giving them a try. They are probably at least 8 years old. Pretty funny. I put the Venom bushing in there for the heck of it. I also had some really old 50mm Null wheels that wouldn’t sell so I threw those on there too. I am now almost a 40 year old with Venture Lows and 50mm wheels. Aka I’m a dork. I went on a hike with Liz and got back kinda early in the afternoon and just couldn’t avoid skating anymore. I figured the safest thing to do was some slow flippers in front of the house so that’s what I did. I’m not sure if the lower trucks really help or not, but the new board felt awesome. I did some of the best feeling kickflips I’ve done in awhile. They board sure flipped around quick. I suppose the lighter wheels help too. I did a few more flippers too. Everything felt good with the exception of treflip which seemed a little harder since the trucks don’t turn the same. I got one kind of though and put my arm down and felt a tingle in the shoulder that reminded me I should probably stop while I’m ahead. I’m hyped my shoulder didn’t hurt at all while skating, but still gonna rest it so I don’t hurt it again next time I fall. Hyped on my new setup!