Woke up motivated to skate after seeing Jack’s video the night before. Motivated to film too. Neil was in. Blake and Ollie joined. But first I skated flatground in front of my house. Started off slow, but got to the point where I was trying treflips. Then we went to campus and started at the stone manny pad spot before I quickly went around the corner to this and had Ollie film me practice some break dance manuevers. Ok I did a few early grab cali grinds off it. Believe it that was a trick on my list. Blake ollied off the dock into the little bank.

Then we went to head into campus and ended up stopping at this spot. Neil did a kickflip into it, Ollie manualled the sidewalk, Blake ollied the rock into the path and I tried for a long time to do front tail 270 shove out on the rock and land into the path. I got really close and giving up on it was really frustrating. Next I battled a stupid b/s ollie onto a stair and then ollied a somewhat long 4 stair which felt good to land. Then we went to go to the car to get water and put away my camera bag, but by the time we got there it was snowing super hard. Ugh.

We dropped off Ollie then went to this spot. It was a short drive. When we got out of the car I was so sore I could not believe it. So insanely sore. Before moving the bike rack we all skated it where we ollied up the two stair then ollie the gap off it. I had a run with kickflip a manhole to start. Then we put the bike rack up. I tried the same line as Neil, but a bailed attempt over hurt way too much and I lost motivation. I did get a similar line with a kickfilp off the side by the 2 stair instead.

We moved the bike rack to try and boardslide the end of it. I couldn’t commit, but Neil did.

I forced the legs to keep working and took way too many tries to do this wallie. Then we went to the little DIY spot on Moorhead. Neil and I were so sore. I forced my legs to try and work. Did a couple crappy lines, hit a lot of rocks. Blake back 5-0d the box that was setup kind of over a gap of gravel mess. He almost crooked it too. I struggled so hard at front 50s, but made myself keep skating. Ended up getting front 50, front 50 180 out, front 50 shove and a front 5-0 that didn’t quite go the distance. Have I mentioned how much I hate my shoes? Probably not even going to put them on again.

Got out of work on a pretty nice friday afternoon and met up with others at Rock Creek. Neil and I arrived at the same time. We took a few runs on the ramp to get the legs going which was fun. Then Blake showed and after a little more ramp skating we played a game of SKATE. I wasn’t landing much and Neil ended up winning. He got me with fakie f/s bigspin, 43 shifty, a couple others and halfcab one foot was the last trick. I was close. Then Jack and Carleigh arrived and we skated the ramp some more which was fun. Neil and Blake mostly chilled. Carleigh was landing lots of front d’s and got a line with a back d in it too. Hell yeah Carleigh! I had quite a few tricks for me. I did some tiny fs ollies and maybe my first real fs smith grind. Jack said it was a real one so it counts! Then we skated flat again. Everyone working on their own tricks. Blake has heelflips good and got one. Maybe a back heel too. Neil kind of got bs flip and maybe a heelflip. Carleigh battled heelflip for awhile, but stomped a mean one. Also came close to clean b/s flips. I got a lot of my tricks. B/s flip, fakie bigflip, a not so good treflip and ended with a nollie tre that resembled my Off The Couch nollie tre with some toe drag and phone calls from Busenitz. Then it was off to Crisis for the premiere of Dork Vid #1 and Parque 2. So much fun. Jack, it’s an honor to be in your video. You are the best.

Plans didn’t work out earlier in the day so after some basketball with Ollie and then dinner I set out for Louisville park. I had changed out insoles from the Remind ones to my old carbon fiber orthotics hoping that it would help with leg pain. The board feel is no where near as good, but I wanted to see if they helped with the pain. It was apparently from the first push that my old insoles were better for my legs. Wow. The lack of board feel was hard to adjust to initially, but I felt like I was rehabing my legs so I was hyped. Since no one else was there I cruised around for awhile doing nothing but carves and cali grinds. It was fun. Then I settled into a line that took me at least an hour to get. It kind of varied initially with cali front 50 or reguular front 50 or front 5-0 on the ledge in the background, kickflip on flat, roll into the qp by the flat bar, kickflip to fakie over the slight hip in the banks (where the coping ends on the right). The roll in stoked me out, but the kickflip took forever. On the way back I would do crooks or try back 50s, some other stuff. Landed a back 5-0 that was supposed to be a 50. I’ll take it! I eventually got the line. Front 50 front 180 out, halfcab flip on flat, roll in, kickflip to fakie over the slight hip. It felt super good. I was most hyped because I did a ton of front 50s on the ledge. Lately that much jumping would have wrecked me. I dorked around a little after that then took too many tries to noseslide the hubba and called it a night.

On a colder night after playing indoor basketball with Ollie and then watching the Simpsons with India I went out to Rampy for a short one. I mixed it up pretty good with ramp and flat. One rare trick on the ramp was a fakie front pivot. Ended the session with a run of back 50, back slash to fakie, tail stall, fs ollie. On flat I did ok. There was a point where I wanted to throw the Lakais out, but I stuck with it and by the end of the session I was liking them. I got a few treflips. Some other tricks.

After a 303 mission Matt and I skated a couple blocks away from the ‘only spot in denver’. We hit the curved ledge mostly. Matt front tailed it real quick. By the end he added back tails, 50s both ways and front 5-0 too. Chadman met up with us pretty much right away. He was more cruising all over the place. I had new shoes and a new board.

Lakai Guy XLKs and the board I setup was 8.1 instead of 8.0. It shouldn’t make a difference, but coupled with the new shoes it became apparent on my first noseslide attempt where I ran into the bench that I would be skating like total shit all night. Ugh. I got a crappy front nose to fakie, tiny crooks jib and failed and front 50s. We moved on by bombing a hill that Nate and I used to do all the time. With my new wheels I did a foot drag once to slow down a little. Doh. It was still fun though. We got booted from the world trade tower right away. Booted from First Bank pretty quick. I was skating so bad I didn’t even ollie the little marble gap.

Next we ended up at this weird blue ledge / bank spot. Chad did some cool f/s pivots and stuff on it. Matt noseslid and crooked it. I was unable to jib it like Chad due to lack of any coordination on my board. Matt got a sick front board to fakie into the bank. Chad taught us fakie bonelesses although I don’t think I actually rode away from one. I finally landed a couple tricks with kickflip fakie, b/s and f/s flips on the little bank. We cruised around and after Matt ollied a long five stair while being beamed by security we ended up at Civic. I was pretty exhausted and unmotivated by then. I think we all were. Chad tried to manual the whole thing (photo above) but didn’t make it. That was pretty much it. Good weather, good crew, but man I couldn’t ride my skateboard and it was depressing. Especially because my knees didn’t even hurt much for the first time in awhile.

Had a long day of driving down from the mountains then playing tennis with Liz before getting out to enjoy the 70 weather on my skateboard. I had some new Stratfords on that I think I’m going to save for tennis shoes (ha) once I score something else. But since I’ve had so many pairs they skated fine right out of the gate. I also had some bigger wheels. Bones STF 51s. “Bigger”! ha. My “warm up” spot was above. Ollie onto the narrow curb on the far side and then ollie onto the ledge. It took me a long time. I rarely made it to the point of ollieing up the ledge as my balance was off. I would have to push once on the narrow curb which was so hard. I did manage to get it twice. Then I went to the gray butter bench and had done a noseslide and gotten into front 50 when my brother called. So I talked to him for awhile and my legs locked up so I walked around to find something else that didn’t involve ollieing so high. I ended up at the front of the student center and tried a line forever. F/s halfcab flip on flat, curve down the handicap ramp to noseslide the unwaxed sandstone ledge (to make it slide they could not be posted up so they were ugly as hell), 360 flip on flat, front board a ledge. I never got all 4. And the one 3 flip I landed I cracked my board really bad. Argh. It still skated though. Most of my f/s halfcab flips were crap, but there were a few I felt really good about. I hope my knees start feeling better again, it’s been rough and I’m too stubborn to not skate.

Met Fuzz at the puddle ridden Safeway ledges. We didn’t feel like ollieing at first so we just did various slappy nose/tail variations. Then we started doing front and back 50s. We were both bummed on how are back 50s tic tac and were trying to make them better when Matt showed and did a perfect one first try. Cool dude. Ha. My legs were still feeling very heavy and stiff. Flip tricks after ledge tricks were not working. I got a very sloppy kick back 50. The worst front smith ever done. Matt added a few more tricks like front tails and front 5-0 fakie. Fuzz struggled with front tails and decided to call it a night.

After a meal at Subway Matt, Neil and I went to the Broomfield park. It wasn’t too crowded and more importantly there weren’t too many bikers. I played on the quartapotty mostly for awhile and ollies didn’t really seem possible. Ugh. They eventually would, but it was tough the rest of the night. My heel was blistered and bleeding. I got a few back 5-0s on the blue ledge, no comply 270 to back tail on the blue ledge, boardslide down the tiny rail, crooks the black ledge. Matt was killing the ledges with back nosegrind, front smith, and skating the taller one (above) where he ended up betting back tail shove, back smith and maybe front crooks? Neil was raging. High speed front lips up the happy ledge, no comply boneless on the bump up top, one foots over the rail. The crew at the park was fun and it kept getting funner with people like Darin and his crew showing up. I skated the bump up top for awhile too, got f/s flips pretty quick and then struggled, but got a couple halfcab flips on it. Played a game of SKATE with Cameron and Matt that I completed sucked it up in and was the first one out. Argh. Then skated the quartapotty with Darin for awhile and he got me to try rock to feebles and I got them! Hyped, got a bunch of them. Then later on tried them on the brick qp and struggled before finally getting a very “over 40” make. Darin killed the qp with back smith, back d to sugarcane, so many tricks. What a night. Lots of skating.

Went to the hill to sell my old Iphone charger through craigslist. I hadn’t put my contacts in and I went to cruise campus and realized how blind I am at night in my glasses. It sucked. I did a couple slappy crooks near the tunnel, pushed around. Ended up at the downhill ledge/curved ledge plaza. Ollied onto the ledge. Noseslid, front boarded the corner of the downhill ledge. Did a kickflip or two. Walked back to the car. Neat. Oh yeah. I ate pizza at Crisis the night before which was the first time in almost 5 months I intentionally ate gluten and holy smokes I felt horrible all day. My legs, especially my knees, felt pains they hadn’t in a long time. Arghh, so bummed, but I guess that confirms it. Gluten Free I be.

Had the day off work and it was nice out in the low 50s. Had a nice morning with Liz then Jake and I rolled to the Thornton park. I was sore and took a long time to get going. I didn’t ollie for awhile. Jake didn’t hesitate though and was doing hammers out of the gate. I finally got it going with a line of kickflip over a b/s hip, feeble stall on the tight qp, push hard then b/s flip over the same hip. Jake had some good runs going with f/s halfcab the hip then front blunt the tight qp. Geez. He also did a bunch of tricks on the bump to ledge like front 5-0, front tail, front lip. Most before I had even ollied. Must be nice being so young. John showed up and slammed hard on a front shove into the bank. Ouch. But then felt good and ripped it. Some other dudes showed as well which were fun to skate with. John and I were skating the ledge on the outside of the park which is pretty tall for us. I managed front 50 and crooks and was content. John got front 50 and his patented switch front nose. Then a treflip party began with everyone there while Jake tried to get front tails in the biggest part of the bowl. He got it. Gnarly. But he didn’t land a treflip like the rest of us did. Ha! Just kidding obviously I would be hyped to front tail such a gnarly transition. That would mean I’d have to try though. My feet were killing me. Not only are these NBs giving me a blister in the heel, but they seem smaller then all previous pairs. I guess they aren’t perfect. Doh. Jack and Carleigh showed and cruised around getting warmed up. Jack lipslid the round bar all easy. Carleigh did a front 50 up the little ledge to front 50 down the bank. So rad. I got a couple more lines I was hyped on. Wallie, back 50 the bank to banked ledge, no comply bigspin the bank. Ollie the three stair, front 180 on flat, horrible fakie bigflip the hip. Jack looked like he was getting in the groove and then rolled his ankle trying to noseblunt the bump to ledge. Argh. Carleigh noseslid it, maybe noseslid shoved it and almost front 180 nosegrinded it. Jake learned front tail shove on it. End of session.

Well, except for the reverse coffin session in the parking lot on John’s cruiser board. Then we went and hung out at Crisis. It was a fun day hanging and skating with friends.

Been way too busy at work and skating a lot outside of work so this journal is way after the fact and I’m sure I will forget a lot. Jake, Matt and I got to Arvada around 6:30 on a somewhat cool evening. The park wasn’t all that crowded. I remember seeing Matt do some good ollies right away. We were all kind of all over for awhile. We hit the pole jam area for a bit. Jake and Matt did regular pole jams, I failed at no comply ones. Then the bump to marble flat bar. Matt front lipped it easy and I think back lipped it too. Jake and I boardslide it. Tech. Then we mostly hit the blue chip, bank, flat bar area. Matt boardslid the jersey barrier. Geez. I got a b/s flip on the little bank, Jake noseblunt, Matt blunt, I got a bigflip on the blue bank. Off to the Pier 7 area. Dudes were lining up for hammers so it was weird lining up next to a street league vibe. One dude stood out and did the biggest cab on the qp hip ever. There was a dude with dreads skating with us that was super nice and fun to skate with. Matt did a bunch of tricks on the manny pad. Nollie manual, halfcab manual, maybe kickflip manual. I guess that isn’t a “bunch”. I tried kick back 50s forever and didn’t get that close. Jake tried crooks and got a fakie front 50 f/s halfcab out.