The weather was rainy and in the low 60s. What an unusual day for late July. I was feeling really run down and sick with a cold. Doh. I had gone to Meta earlier and picked up some new Thunders that hopefully wouldn’t have axle slip like my old ones. While I was at it I got new bearings and fruity colored hardware. So there you go, a new complete!!! I went with Null 52mms. Maybe I’ll be a normal skateboarder again.

On top of that I had new shoes! Lakai Guys. I’ve been waiting and waiting for the Nikes to die so I could wear these. They seemed good out of the box and they don’t have a stupid swoosh on them!

We went around to the side of the school we don’t normally skate. There are tons of pebbles everywhere, but we ended up having a blast and skated it in totally new ways. My shoes felt amazing. My complete felt like a new complete. I did keep my old bushings going so it wasn’t completely night and day. The bigger wheels really cruise over cracks easier, but they also gave me wheel bite as I’ve gotten used to tiny little wheels. Ollie was killing it. He did a fakie back shove out of the curb cut back onto the sidealk, front 180 off the stairs (above) and halfcab off the curb, back 180 and f/s halfcab out of the curb cut into the parking lot. The f/s halfcab was new for him and he did it really good. For how sick I was and mellow I was feeling I skated pretty good. From right to left in the panorama I worked up to a run of kickflip up the curb, front 180 off the 2 stair then fakie bigspin off the curb. From left to right I did ollie up the curb, front 180 onto the loading dock then halfcab flip on flat. Fun, brief session. Stoked to have a somewhat normal setup that makes cruising around a little easier.

Blaine rolled to Boulder then we picked up Jack at Meta. Warm up was at Southern Hills. Blaine cruised around. Jack tried some gnarly tricks on the bench to bench gap. I did a warm up line of kickflip, front noseslide to fakie, halfcab flip, front board. Was trying a line of ollie the two stair, front 50 a ledge and something else, but styruggled too much with the front 50. Then we went to a 6 stair spot nearby for Jack to do a wallride. He did it quick. He also did another trick. I tried to ollie the six. Well, I posed it out and it ended up really hurting. We had a rain delay and some yummy chai thanks to Jack before ending up at the old folks bank. It’s been years since I’ve been there. Rho had joined us. We had a fun session. I tried a couple kickflip pivots and Blaine showed up with the camera. Apparently Jack had told him to film me and as Jack predicted I said it wasn’t worth it. Ha. It took me a long time and I never got the pivot, but I did it with axle stall and no lunch break so I was pretty hyped. That place is a lot of work. Jack was doing all kinds of tricks. Warllride pop out, wallride to tail bash, Front pivot to fakie, backside boneless wallride to board shoot out into Blaine’s head, and more. We ended the day by me suggesting Jack try two hard tricks combined into one. Initially he even thought it was a good idea! Ha. Sorry it didn’t work out Jack. I guess I know why I was so sore as I’m pretty sick now while writing this. Ugh.

I feel like I’ve been doing alright at life lately. Been spending lots of time with the family, keeping null going, not having many beers and getting to skate a lot. The one thing I’ve been blowing it at though is hanging with my friends. Luckily Andy at Launch has “Over 30 night” once a month and I was invited to roll with an awesome crew of people I need to hang out with more. I got off work a couple hours before the Square State Bus was supposed to head out and Dave could get out early too so we went to Longmont High. I felt better then normal, a little numb in the legs, but good. We skated for about an hour. Dave ollied up onto the blocks easy and started trying front 180 nose manuals. He got really close. He struggled with kickflips, but had some nice back 50s on the long ledge. I could not ollie onto the block. I blame going back to high trucks! Ha, I think I have a couple more days of adjustment that I can list as an excuse. I had better front 50s then last time on the long ledge, switch noseslides both ways, ollied some flowers, didn’t land many flip tricks. Then we were off.

Then Dave and I got picked up at SOL in the Square State bus. It was a fun ride. Lots of old dudes watching old OJ skate videos. We got to Launch around 8pm. No dinner stops. I ate gummi bears and a cliff bar from 7-11. The ramp wasn’t crowded so I got on it right away to get my initial bails on axle stalls out of the way. It got crowded quick though and I retreated to the little ledge and skated it with Mike and Skelly (Skelly is back!!!). Mike was killing back 180 nosegrinds and fakie nosegrinds both ways. Skelly did a front nosegrind 180 that I swear he never touched anything, but the kingpin. It was rad. He had lots of 5-0s and stuff too. I did a few basics. Had some kick back 50s, one bad kick back tail, switch noseslide shove, a few back hurricanes that I was hyped on. There was a lot of yelling going on the ramp. I normally missed what the tricks were, but it seemed like everyone was ripping and having a good time. I would skate the ramp when the deck cleared out a little. I didn’t get anything new, but didn’t bail my basics too many times. I saw Brian do a rock to fakie on an extension and ride fakie through the lower level. Unreal. Fuzz did sugarcane easy. Orlando destroys. Fuller looked good on a new Null board! Oh, and he ripped too. Mike has a rad line with a switch carve through the corner to Hewitt grind to forward. Man there is too much to list. I wish I had skated the ramp more, but I just didn’t feel like waiting and I suck in snake sessions. When it got crowded again I joined Rob, Dave and Andy and skated flatground. Dave got a couple over 45 makes on switch front 3 and a steezy f/s fakie bigspin. Andy rattled off tricks that looked really good and were gnarly. 3 flip, varial heel, hardflip. Geez. Squeeks would join us too, but he’s only 20 something so we’ll ignore what he did. Rob did some rad no comply and fastplant variations. Skating flatground is the best! I had fun even though tricks took longer then normal. My favs were treflip (took a long time), nollie treflip and f/s halfcab heel. At the end I did b/s flip and kickflip to fakie on the little roll-in in the street course. The kickflip fakie was super hard because of how the roll in is rounded. But that was really fun and my favorite trick of the night.

We eventually stopped skating. Everyone had grins on their face. Ric even gave out some prizes and just made the night more special by being so into it. Seriously fun night. The kind of night that we keep doing this for. Awesome.

Chadman showed up at my house before Liz and India got home so we convinced Ollie to join us on campus. I had put some old Thunder trucks on (Titanium Lights son!) so was prepared to deal with having taller trucks again. We cruised around a bit before hitting the UMC area. Man my legs were feeling weird and my trucks felt really tight. I have to admit the Ventures turn nice, but only for a tiny bit. Ollie was in full on skate mode. Trying tricks non stop. Chadman’s warm ups were pretty impressive. Kickflip up the 3, back 180 down it. It would probably take him longer to kickflip down it. Ha. I had fun with manualling down the wheelchair ramp then riding off the 2 then 3. Also ollied onto the far ledge and rolled off the drop. Felt fun. Ollie ollied (ha!) off a ledge and so I had to show him up with a front 180. He was popping his ollies higher and trying lots of kickflips and shoves too. We went up a little further on campus.

Hit the slappy curb for a bit, but it wasn’t very waxed anymore. Fuzz and Blaine joined us. Chadman kindly got me a gatorade. Dude rules. We had a fun downhill cruise back to the UMC so Chad could do some stuff up the 3 then 5, but it turns out Sean had already basically done it in the latest Meta video. The downhill was fun though weaving through people and for me watching Ollie cruising fast and weaving through people. He even went out of his way to say it was fun. Down at the UMC everyone was kind of just dorking around doing some weird crail tailslides on flat. Rob joined us. Everyone was swearing a bunch and seemed to not care that I had my son with me so Ollie and I moved on and rolled down stairs:

We were having a good time with it. Eventually the others joined us. It’s harder then it looks. Ollie is smaller though and it was super easy for him to ride down them all and he almost got back 180 off the last one. I would try pivots on the stair above then come into the stair set, but it rarely worked. I did manage some faster rides down though that were fun. Everyone did it at least once or twice.

Then we ended up at this area for quite awhile. Ollie beat me to ride down all the stairs to front 180 off the last one. When I finally got mine I followed it with a fakie flip though. Take that Ollie! Max joined us. Everyone either sat or skated flat for awhile. Fuzz clamied he can’t do no comply 180s, but did two perfect ones. I tried for a long time to get kickflip off the last stair. So hard with the quick setup. Liz came and picked up Ollie as it was getting late and I resumed tries to kickflip off the last stair and eventually got it. Felt great. We hit some other nearby spots. Ollied a little gap, Fuzz and I slammed trying to manual after a little gap and hung up in a big crack. Max tried to film a line at Poser Atlas, but was too tired. Or too much of a poser! Ha ha. I sat there trying to ollie up the ledge in the dark over and over. So stupid. I need to learn how to ollie. My legs were finally feeling warmed up though. This whole protein thing Brett was talking about might be right.

After a very long hike with the Mighty LZA I still managed to get out and skate with Ollie later on. We went to what I think is Ollie’s favorite spot. Someone had waxed up the really low curb and immediately I was like, ok Ollie, lets see your first front 50! Several tries later he scraped a little one or two. So awesome! While he was trying them I surprised myself with a switch front 50. Couldn’t do it backside though. Ollie did a bunch more of his patented quick feet ollies on the little flagstone steps. I tried over and over to ollie up the second tallest ledge and eventually got it. Whew. Got a few back 50s. Came super close to back hurricane. Did a line of manual through the first couple ledges then front nose 270 the next ledge and bailed a 3 flip. Back 180 up the little ledge, fakie ollie off the next one, halfcab flip on flat. Heelflip on flat, front tail the second lowest ledge (one even slid!). I guess I was skating ok. I was really tired from the hike though. Ollie was rusty and didn’t land many of his 180s. He was getting cleaner and poppier ollies up the low curb though. At the end I struggled with switch front 180 up the 2nd lowest curb then front shove off a later one. I was struggling so hard, tic tacs, wheel bite. At that point I knew the Venture lows were done. I ended up getting the line, but went home and put some old Thunders on. I can’t win. Ha. I nerded out on truck heights for a bit. The axle of Venture Lows sits about 1 3/4″ off the ground. Thunder Highs (but with the thinner baseplate) site 2″. Venture highs 2 1/4″. Yes, me a nerd. 2″ seems good. What else is there at 2″?

After running some boards to SOL and Firestone I met Brett and Dave and Longmont High. The spot was my idea, I guess I was just craving something other then Rocky Mountain Elementary. At first we all seemed a bit skeptical, but it ended up being a blast. Brett slammed hard out of the gates on the little metal beams on the ground (not in the photos). Ouch. Dude slams so hard early in the session, but man he really got it going. We were mostly doing lines connecting the taller ledges and the lower long one. He did noseslide then noseslide shove super proper. He also manualled one of the ledge blocks. So gnarly. Also kickflip into the mellow bank next to the ledge and a bunch more I can’t remember right now. I took the photos after Brett left unfortunately. Dave killed it. He manualled a ledge while holding onto a trash can. So sick, look for the footage in his youtube video coming sometime in the distant future. He also had noseslides both ways on the square ledge, little back 50 on the long ledge, boardslides, a bunch of front 5-0s (even though the photo is a pose) and a completely amazing front 5-0 to switch crooks. Yes folks! 45 year old Fullertron got mad tech! front 180 up onto the square ledge (photo) was sick too. I felt good, but didn’t skate all that great. I started to realize how much the low trucks are messing with my flow. I was tic tac’ing a lot and even getting some good wheelbite. I love how they work for flip tricks, but have been in denial about how much they mess with normal skating. Anyways, skating was fun though. I had one run of 360 flip on flat, front 5-0 down the long ledge (although I didn’t grind long) and then bailed something on the ledge. Had some other lines. Didn’t commit to kick back 50. Barely ollied onto the square ledge. Dave was making that look so easy. I did have fun with slappy switch noseslides both ways. Came kind of close to back hurricane grind on the long ledge. At the end got a front 50 front shove out on the long ledge that took way too long. It was fun times though. So glad we weren’t stuck in a crowded park.

While walking all over Montreal I saw a million things that would be fun to ollie over, but knew that I couldn’t ollie over any of them. So it made me want to work on the ol’ basic again. Ollies. For some reason this stupid rock on campus stuck in my head as a good place to start. It has a horrible approach. Down a sidewalk then have to turn at the rock last second. After cruising around the parking lot below it for a bit I went at it. The approach was so much harder then I remembered. Then a car parked pretty much right in the landing so I went and did a few flip tricks and cruised the lot for a bit. They stayed there forever just sitting in the car with the lights on so I went down the hill a little. Found a fun line of ollie up a curb, ollie down a 3 then kickflip a small crack to crack gap. Went back up and the car had finally left. I struggled and struggled and finally managed to get a couple ollies that might have gone over the corner. I don’t even know. Maybe I’ll learn how to ollie some day. Oh yeah, had some new 50mm STFs. They good. Not supernullethane good, but I like the little size a lot.

On our last morning in Montreal i went to go to the crazy DIY spot I saw, but it had already been destroyed by the city. DOH! Luckily I like street stuff a lot and this was right across the street. I only had about 15 minutes before we needed to catch the airport shuttle. I manualled from right to left and noseslid to fakie up the ledge. That was all. That spot has a lot of potential for lines. Maybe next time. Ha, as if there will ever be another time.

I had done some skate spot research before going to Montreal. I watched this Adidas clip and this Barry Walsh clip and Carleigh (who lived there for awhile) pointed me in the right direction. Thanks Carleigh! This ledge was really close to the hotel and in a park that Liz wanted to walk in. So it was a win win. My legs were really shot from walking so much over the previous couple days. Liz refuses to rent bikes, cars, take busses, anything. We walked everywhere. I wish my legs didn’t got sore so easy, but they were wrecked. I was still hyped to skate though. On the way there Liz walked (of course) and I skated mostly just doing kickflips and ollieing up curbs and stuff. This was the longest I’ve gone without skating in a long time and I was pretty rusty. We got to this spot and of course the ledges seemed weirder then they look. First the amount of wax on the two main ledges was insane. And it was super hot and humid and it would splash up. This scared me on front 50s so much. They weren’t all, but the shortness of them weirded me out too. Luckily since it had been so long since I skated the thing I missed the most was flip tricks and doing them on granite is extra fun. For some reason I had f/s halfcab heels stuck in my head and started trying them. I ended up getting a few of them and tried to follow them with front 50s, but would normally just slide around on the ledge and jump off because of all the wax. There was also this mini kicker thing that I would kickflip out of sometimes. Going the other way I tried lines of crooks, noseslide to fakie then fakie varial flip. I might have gotten that. Got a couple treflips. I was really struggling though. Liz showed up ready to go and I hadn’t really landed much of anything. I finally got a front 50 and a front noseslide to fakie. She took a couple photos and we headed out. The one below is of me showing my frustration of how bad I suck on ledges and what a sweaty mess I was.

Still glad I was able to skate a little though and now I can say I’ve skated in three countries. Neato.

Ollie and I got to Arvada park around 8pm on another nice, warm night. The park was super crowded so we hid in the bank to curb corner. It was fun though. I had a new board. It’s the Hair Club For Null deck. Stoked on that older one I traded out at 303 for a newer one recently. Hurricanes happened first try on the noping section. Cool. Ollie did a front slash and front rock quick too. We went to the blue bank area for a bit, long enough for me to get my first two 3 flips on the new board. Guess a new board helps for that trick. Back to the bank to curb/noping area where I kept almost running into the same people standing in my way over and over. I managed to not get too angry and land a new trick I’ve never done in a few tries. F/s allie oop fakie front 50. Stoked! We played on the pier 7 thing a minute. It was crowded. I tried to boardslide the long curb, but the wax killed me. Trent was there skating it uphill so only waxed a bit of it so it went from death scary fast to regular and it kept throwing me off. Back to bank to curb land for awhile. More weaving through people, trying to avoid getting angry, bikers, scooters, lurkers. I was doing runs starting with either hurricane or allie-oop fakie front 50 and almost hitting people every time. It was kind of fun. I ended up getting a bunch and got a front d on the upper quarterpipe in the snakerun above the small bowl. Stoked me out. Ollie was doing fun little lines of rock to fakie then halfcab off the kicker or grinding the edge. Then we mostly skated the “beginner section”. I boardslid the granite round bar, front 50’d the rainbow ledge. Ollie almost b/s 180’d the A frame kicker. At the end of the night I front 50’d the mini hubba. Man that thing is scary to me. First couple attempts were sooo slow. Felt good to do it though. Skating with Ollie is always a blast.