Friday night! Whew! Raining again. I went out to the garage as it was too early to hit up a parking garage. I skated for quite awhile and I didn’t land much of anything. It was kind of depressing. I did huck a lot of different tricks so that’s cool at least.
(setup 8″ null venture lows 50mm ojs emerica westgates grey)
Went out to the garage on another rainy afternoon. I was feeling better and more hyped to skate. I grabbed my regular board and went through the pain of warming up. I started by doing some form a cab. Basically just a fast pivot spin. No ollie in. It lead me to think I’d be able to do a cab if I were to have more room. Then I did a few kickflips, shoves, fakie flip. Started going through the list. Halfcab flips were hard as it’s so narrow with the bikes and mattress. Bs/fs flips. Heelflip. Got to treflip and got stuck. Partly because I couldn’t do it and partly because that trick seems to hurt my shoulder more then other tricks. I grabbed my garage setup and tried on it. Kind of got a couple. Then the real hucking began. I would end up getting a few rare ones, varial heel, back heel (landed 90 degrees and turned the rest of the way) and at the very end a halfcab heel that took a really long time. I had also hucked a ton of nollie heels (not close), nollie flips (super close) and switch flips (relatively close). It was fun.
Went into the garage not feeling good or motivated. Slid the 4 main 180s around to get warmed up. Then just felt tired. Forced myself to try some more nollie heels, but was too tired to try to hard. Tried some on India’s old 7.5 that had trucks, but not wheels. Ha. It didn’t help. Rode my 8.38 setup for a bit. Went inside to go to sleep.
Went out to the garage feeling sick and sore and not very motivated. After a few warm up manuals on the sheet of wood I started hucking nollie heelflips. Over and over, slowly, not getting close at all. I kept trying. They all felt like they would result in the board flipping, but it only flips half way. Out of the blue I landed on one! But alas I didn’t stay on it as I was too surprised. It gave me hope. But I didn’t land on another one. I went in feeling somewhat satisfied to have landed on my first nollie heelflip ever. One of these days I’ll get it! I was riding my garage board. I loved it.
(setup 8″ null thunders 42mm ojs emerica westgates grey)
Went to Safeway after bringing India to her nearby ballet class on a gorgeous evening. I was feeling like crap though. Achy from fighting a cold and my shoulder is not good yet. I started with various no-ollie noseslides. Even pushing hurt. I would get to “nollie” front tails and they felt better then ever. I did quite a few to forward and a few to fakie. Both felt great. I mustered up the strength to ollie into 50s and 5-0s. Tried a few nollie heelflips. Ended trying front lips one way and back tails the other. Didn’t get anywhere near close to back tails, but did get a front lip. I had a few front lips that slid out and went to fakie, it was much harder to keep it steady and land straight. So I was happy to get at least one. I ended the session on a crooks on the fence ledge and I felt better then I did when I started skating.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 1/16 riser 50mm 99a ojs emerica westgates grey)
Not feeling so great I went to Boulder park in hopes of doing a Creeper for the old man game of SKATE. There was hardly anyone there. Some scooter kids and Travis from Longmont who was ripping. I basically only tried Creepers and managed a couple bad ones.
I sent one off to the judge and went to this spot. For awhile I skated flatground and after landing a trick would manual from the curb off the two stair. Tried nose manny too, but the cracks were too big. I didn’t get so many flip tricks because my shoulder was hurting worse. Then I started trying a hard line for me. From the right, ollie up the curb, ollie up the two, kickflip off the curb, kickflip up the curb, front 180 off the little drop. I was going way faster then normal and the first ollie up the curb was scary. I wanted to to the whole thing without pushing. It took a long time, but I would get it and I was very hyped. I did have to push after the kickflip up the curb, but it was only because I was kind of going the wrong way and had to slow down to turn around a bike rack. I was hyped though.
Then I met Nolan at the Brohlder park again. This time there were several people there. Nolan was bumming on it. Some dude kept trying similar tricks. It was funny. Then I tried Creepers forever until I got the one above. Nolan did front pivot to back pivot to fakie.
Then we went to the old folks home bank to curb/fence. It was immediately more fun. I got back axle, back pivot, front tail and no comply to tail all pretty quick. Nolan did a couple funny back tails, front pivot to fakie and a fence bash ollie out.
My shoulder was feeling a little better. Birthday girl India was at ballet and I couldn’t resist the urge to skate any longer so I went in front of the house. I actually felt decent. Some tricks like halfcab flip hurt my shoulder too much so I avoided them. I ended up trying nollie heels for about an hour straight. I got super close to several of them and feel like I made some sort of progress towards actually landing that trick.
Then I went to Southern Hills for a bit because I wanted a change of scenery. The stair was waxed up pretty good so I mostly skated that. I did some 50s both ways, front 5-0s then pretty much settled into a routine. Back 50, nollie heel attempt. Going frontside I was trying nosegrind shove out. I got close once or twice. Then I would try 360 flips. As I was skating a crew of parents and their middle school girls showed up waiting to get into the gym for a volleyball meet. It was super weird. I just kept skating anyway as they all watched me. And of course right as the guy came to unlock the gym door I decided to head home.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows with 1/16 riser 50mm 99a ojs emerica westgate cc grey)
After work I skated flatground in front of the house for awhile. Josh told me if I did less then 20 flip tricks I would lose against his 5. It took me 3 tries to land a kickflip. I would skate remotely ok. Got most of my basic tricks. Hucked ones I can’t land because it felt better then not landing tricks I’m supposed to land. Got really close to nollie f/s flip which I’ve never landed. Landed on halfcab heels both ways, fakie tre, nollie tre, but didn’t get them. Had a few treflips.
Then I went to Broomfield to meet Carleigh, Fuzz and Darin. I arrived first to a very crowded skatepark. I didn’t let it get to me though and was having fun and felt warmed up quickly. I don’t remember doing anything special, but I was happy with how I was skating. This wouldn’t last long though. I started losing pop quickly. Carleigh showed and rattled off tricks on the brick qp. Fuzz showed around the time several carloads of grown men with beards and rollerblades. It got weird. Everything got waxed. Rollerbladers were flying out of everywhere. We skated the quartapotty area. Doing some rock ‘n roll stalls on the edge of the escalated blue ledge. Carleigh learned front rocks on it and I think back rocks too. She had the best front rocks on the quartapotty. Soon I slammed really bad on a back 50 attempt on the blue box. I don’t really know how. Fuzz was flying around ripping. It was great to see. Front board to fakie the angled brown ledge. I got crooks on it. Carleigh was ollieing on to the escalated blue ledge. I got a few crooks down it. I slammed really hard on a switch front noseslide attempt. Ugh. Darin showed. I was trying front 50 shove out on the black ledge and failing. Took awhile and got halfcab noseslide. Fuzz was having heart issues and chilled. Carleigh and I skated flat for awhile. She had a lot of good kickflilps. I had a lot of missed b/s flips. It cleared out, Carleigh did 20 back disasters on the brick qp then left to tend to her cat. Darin was trying back tail shoves on the blue box, a guy named Justin was trying kick back tails on the black ledge. I started hucking halfcab flip noseslides on the blue ledge. Fuzz joined in on the fun with noseslide to crook attempts. He had a really funny slam doing the splits across the box. Darin got his first and it was sick. Justin was next. Darin also did front blunt and back noseblunt on the quartapotty. Wow. Then I ate complete shit on the halfcab flip noseslide. I was getting really close, but wasn’t up on it. It got in, but fell under. I did a horrible dance to save my ribs and messed up my shoulder. That was it for me. We watched Justin rip the bar. As I type this I don’t know how bad my shoulder is. It’s not so bad I need to go to the doctor, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to skate much for a few days. And I have a 3 day weekend. And the weather is perfect. Argh!
(setup 8.1 null venture lows with 1/16 riser 50mm 99a ojs emerica westgate cc grey)
Went out to the garage feeling really tired. Set the sheet of wood in the middle and proceeded to do various nose manual tricks and even a switch nose manual. What a fun way to not really skate. I even wore my old Accel Slmis for the heck of it.
On a really nice night I picked up Matt and we met Nolan, Darin and Dave at Erie park. It was crowded when we arrived. Well, maybe not crowded, but certainly annoying. High school flyout kids, little biker kids doing laps, tech deck kids and a few rippers. Matt and I weren’t hyped. Nolan wasn’t either. No one did much of anything for awhile it seemed. We all posed some kick back tails on the tiny ledge. Things cleared out a little and people started doing their stuff. Matt back 50’d the whole long ledge. Nolan did grinds off the qp into the bank. Darin got switch front d on the qp. I took a long time to get a boardslide on the bank to ledge. Fuller 50’d it. Matt had noseslide first try, 10th try, 16th try and 23rd try. Ha. Also an awesome back 50 down the little square rail followed by back tail on the ledge and then a bailed axle stall. Ha ha so good thanks Matt. Nolan got the T-Puds challenge, feeble to back tail x 2. I had some crooks, some bailed kickflips, some slow front 50s. Tried a line for awhile of flip trick up top, noseslide into the bank then front 50 the mini bump to ledge. Got it. 9 club material. I had to get through 8 flip tricks to get the line though. While 8 flip tricks doesn’t sound like much it would happen to be the same amount of flip tricks that Josh did in Seattle the same night. It would be tough for me to deal with knowing he did more then me in one night. Nolan did a cool boardslide cannonball. Darin split. Dave was lining out tricks on the bank to ledge with front board to bennet? grinds on the mini bump to ledge. I think he got it eventually. I tried an ollie challenge. Ollie up a ledge then ollie up another slightly taller ledge. I know it’s slightly hard at least because when Matt did it first try he actually grunted. It wasn’t a fake grunt either, it was real. I would go on to get both ollies although the second was totally an over 40 make. I was actually quite hyped on this though. Dave was the last one skating of course. He always is. 25 days left until 300.
(setup 8.1 null venture lows 1/16th riser oj 50mm wheels emerica westgates grey)