Picked up Jason, then met Dean, Derek, Blaine, Connor and John at Crisis and went to Valdez in Denver. Super fun spot. Lots of ledges. A really long ledge. Max, Jeff, JJ and Sam met up with us. Max is the only one I saw land anything on the long ledge with a lipslide. All the other young kids came close. John and I had some fun lines going. John had noseslide shove, no comply 180 then switch noseslide 270. I never saw him get too close on the last one. I was kinda dorking, trying halfcab noseslides and then coming the other way a boardslide firecracker down the side of the 3 stair. Pretty fun. Derek did a sick switch front tail 270 out. Connor almost got bluntslide across the gap. Crazy. Then we got the boot.

We went to the nearby curb cut hill spot so Derek could do his b/s flip which he did rather quickly. I skated the hill a little after too and had one of my favorite runs in awhile. I did nothing cool, but did a bunch of powerslides that were super fun. Powerslide, ollie the curb cut to the street (barely popped it), a bunch of powerslides, barely ollie a manhole, powerslides. I wasn’t going all that fast, but normally I lose control after awhile and just bomb until I run out of it rather then control it the whole way. Super fun. Jeff popped over the big gap too and had some fun hill lines. Next up we went to a little curb cut over a bench that the kids weren’t feeling so much. They moved on and I tried to ollie it a few more times, but couldn’t quite pull the trigger. Doh. It had a weird backside carve into it. Last spot is what you see in the photo. I filmed Connor get a rad line, then played a game of SKATEBOARDBEYINDTHEREALSPOT with Connor and John that was uninspired, clumsy and kind of fun. After that it was a night at the movies and we went to see the Danny Way documentary. Pretty gnarly.

A cold front was moving in and it felt way colder then it’s been in awhile. The kids were having sleepovers at friends so Liz and I were gonna have a date night. That gave me a little over an hour to do some skating. So I stopped and hit campus. First spot I found was this. Carleigh and I had seen it a long time ago, it’s a little off campus. But somehow I remembered and after some pushing around I went at the ledges. Frontside there is a weird crack right before you ollie, but they are still really good. I was skating pretty bad, but I think it’s the first time the bushing had frozen up in awhile and I wasn’t used to it. I did a few front tails on the lowest one and was trying halfcab flip noseslide coming the other way. I actually got into one and was thinking today would be my day. Instead some lady that claims to have raised 10 million dollars for the building decided I shouldn’t be destroying the concrete. I think she was a little weirded out when I peacefully asked her what other purpose the ledges served. Ha. I left though. Ended up near the rec center area and took a bit to get a fun line of back 180 up a sidewalk, switch front 180 off, wallride a jersey barrier then pole jam this little midget pole jam that was on the edge of a sidewalk. Next I ended up at the parking lot below the 13 where I posed some ollies over one of the red barrier things. I almost got to the point where I could pull the trigger, but not quite. I went for some flat ground by the art building and since I was sucking I told myself I had to do 20 tricks before I left. It took a long time. There were a few 180s, no complys, etc in there, but lots of flippers too and I eventually got 20 tricks and bolted home. My flippers are not on point lately. I couldn’t even get remotely close to a treflip. Glad I skated though.

Unloaded a bunch of boards, set up a new one then did a few kickflips in the living room. Not sure this should count as a skate journal entry, but it’s more then some sponsor me tapes I’ve gotten.

On a super warm night (55!!!) I headed downtown craving bricks after unloading a bunch of new boards. I parked right by Wells Fargo and started on the QP area for a bit. I would do a trick up the curb, trick on the qp, then trick off the curb. It started with ollie, pivot, 180. Then 180, fakie pivot, back 180. Kickflip, front tail, kickflip. Rad. Moved onto the brick section, skated the red ledge for a front 50 or two, but the lights turned off. Moved over to the corner and was working on line of ollie onto the little ledge and ride around it, cross the street, ollie up the 2, kickflip off. Came kind of close to first try, then got worse and then got kicked out.

Then I went over by the tea house which I have no idea why I haven’t headed over there before. There was all kinds of fun to be had. I posed a few ollies down the 5. Not sure why I didn’t commit. Ollied up the curb above then over the curb in the back to the bike path. Came from the bike path, ollied up, 180’d the 2. Really fun. Tried a line from almost Arapahoe where I did a no comply 180, sw 180 up the curb, ollie onto the second stair of the 5, but I couldn’t commit to that. My legs were not somehow not hurting after all these ollies. I rolled around for a bit looking for a good flatground area to do a few tricks before calling it a night. Ended up by the Walnut rail when some wasted girl came over wanting to ride my board and would not leave me alone so I left. Ended up at the Wells Fargo parking lot and did a few treflips before cracking my board really bad.

Which is kind of awesome considering I got new boards that night. I had a blast. It was such a warm and awesome night. I had my mp3 player on shuffle. My legs felt good. I think there was an exercise at the gym I was doing that was hurting my knees. I stopped doing it and my knees feel better. Hopefully that’s the case and skating gets a little easier again.

Jack and Carleigh came over for a bit to skate Rampy. Within minutes the coping had turned to dust and the cloud filled the air making it impossible to breath as well as grind. Not so stoked. Not sure what to do to fix it. It’s not easy to replace the coping or revert back to steel coping. Jack did rip it though. Carleigh did some good basics too. I skated mediocre. Bumming on what to do about Rampy though.

Had planned an old man late night downtown Denver session earlier in the week, but everyone started bailing so had to change plans. I ended up meeting Derek, Nate and Connor at the Broomfield park a little later in the afternoon. We didn’t stay long at all and headed off to the new hot spot in Denver. This spot is amazing. Curb high manny pads off of 3 stairs, ledges, such an amazing spot. I skated it about long enough to front 180 a little flat gap, halfcab flip on flat, then noseslide a ledge before I started filming. Connor and Derek got some goodies and we headed into downtown. We hit the art museum for a few minutes of fun before getting the boot. My body felt pretty good and I was warmed up enough to ollie onto the ledges. Doh.

Connor and I dropped Derek and Nate off and headed to the northGLENn park. There weren’t many people there and it was still rather warm out. I started out by eating shit rolling up a bank. Lovely. About two minutes later I found a huge hole in a crack and slammed hard on that too. Another minute or so after that I fell on a kick turn or something. As if I don’t already feel stupid enough. Connor quietly killed the park as he always does. Lots of weird/unique lines/wallies/ways to avoid the stairs. He had some ledge lines going with front 5-0 followed by back 5-0. My first main goal was to get a rock ‘n roll on the weird jersey barrier kind of thing. I would do a kickflip or a halfcab flip into the little bank up top and try it. Took me awhile, but I did get it. After that I tried to ollie off the kicker over the ledge to flat and I kept hitting the ledge. Ugh. I even did a b/s flip on the bank and a treflip on flat beforehand to get myself hyped up. I skated the bowl for a few minutes, got an axle stall in a corner I’ve never hit before. Then did bigflip and fakie flip on the flat bank and called it a night. Connor had been mini ramping it between the qp and pyramid and doing some cool stuff. Fun night, sorry how embarrassing it is skating with me Connor.

I had the day off work and after a huge breakfast with Liz and some errands Bernie joined up and we hit Boulder with no real plans. First stop was the ledge near the research center. We didn’t get too tech or stay very long. Crooks still felt good on it. Bernie had some nice tailslides. We rolled around and checked out some ledges near the soccer field that look really good if they were rub bricked (hint hint someone with a rub brick) and went around the rest of the research center building. Bernie and I ollied the four stair. Him doing it way before me obviously. We checked out the front area where Sean and Max have done super gnarly tricks then headed to Boulder ditch.

They put a fence up again at Boulder ditch making it hard to hit the angle iron ledge, but other then that it’s pretty much the same. I had a dream of doing front d then backside flip, but I couldn’t do the front d. I gave up and did the ol’ front rock then b/s flip line I’ve done a few times and it makes me smile everytime. Bernie did a few front pivots on the taller qp too, but that was about it.

Next we went over near Silvermine subs. Bernie did some front 50s on the wavy ledge and wanted manual it, but couldn’t get the angle/speed. I tried to get up the courage to boardslide this weird 3 stair flagstone ledge, but wussed out and almost got a major hipper bailing. Then we went up to the bank spot and Bernie did a trick involving two of the most basic tricks there are, manual and boardslide. But it’s Bernie so you know it’s awesome. Super fun day. Bernie rules.

Got to Broomfield park a little after 7pm. Bernie and John were there, but John had just broken his board (that’s what happens when you don’t skate Nulls (ha)) so John left to get a new board quick at Crisis. He came back with a Null and therefore had super powers. Carleigh, Connor, Dave, Fuzz joined shortly. I felt decent initially and was kind of just cruising around. Got a front 50 back 180 out pretty quick and a manual on the blue box right away which surprised me. I attributed it to having better board feel without my stiff orthodic insoles and was kinda stoked. John and I did lines of back 50 the black box then boardslide the flatbar. John can do bigspin front noses, but somehow has never had boardslides? So funny. Fuzz was skating the ledge pretty good. Back 5-0 followed by blunt to fakie on the brick quarter pipe. Bernie did a run with front tail front 270 out followed by kick back tail to fakie. So good. Connor was doing all kinds of crap first try all easy looking that was amazing. He got a halfcab back 50 front 180 out that took at least 3 tries though. Dave was skating the steep bank a lot and almost got tailslides both ways and doing boardslides to fakie on the black bench. Carleigh didn’t stay too long, but tried a few noseslides with her patented 270 shove out the other way. Fuzz, John and I tried front nosegrinds for awhile. John having claimed he hasn’t tried that trick in years, but came the closest of us. I kept bonking on the way out. I tried a few more halfcab flip noseslides and got kind of close. Fuzz and I tried back 50 back 180 out the black box. He got it, but wasn’t happy with how he did it. Darn perfectionists. It took me awhile to commit to a simple boardslide down the tiny rail. Unfortunately my feet/knees starting hurting and I wish I would have brought my orthodics to switch back to. Bernie almost did bs flip to fakie manual. Crazy crazy. The lights shut off. Fuzz was trying switch blunt though and was angry and wanting to get it which he did. In the dark. Crazy. Dave was still skating too and did a bunch of tricks on the dark. After this we went over to Safeway for a few slappys. My feet/legs were killing me. Bernie did a bunch of long manuals too. It got really cold and we called it a night.

Been fighting a nasty cold for a couple days, but decided a short Rampy session was in order. Everyone else was busy, but with how nervous I am about the sandy pool coping I had painted recently this was ok. First few grinds felt pretty good, but the paint was still chipping off and the concrete as well. Seems like the concrete paint helps a little, but not all that much. Doh. I still like it though. Concrete feels more real then steel any day.

I guess Rampy will be more of a stall ramp. Maybe I’ll figure out better paint to use or maybe I should actually wax it a little. The coping definitely isn’t normal hard pool coping. I figure I’ll ride it out this winter and maybe sometime over the summer get some good pool coping for it. Above are the before and after session shots. I had some new shoes. Shoes that didn’t hurt and give me blisters on every ollie attempt.

Lakai Manchesters. A shoe that’s proven it likes my feet over multiple pairs. As far as skating it was hard, but fun. Rampy is way harder now. I got a large percentage of tricks in my little bag. I tried a few more of those frontside boneless/sweeper things to tail (gotta work on my old guy tricks), an ollie to rock fakie in hopes of maybe someday doing kickflip rock fakie which I didn’t get close to. The other thing I struggled with was front d on the narrow side of the deck which I finally did. I had switched between my normal orthotic insoles and the beefy ones that came with the shoes. I’ve been kinda wondering if my stiff orthodics take away board feel and it really seems like they do.

Here’s my trucks after grinding a lot of paint and a little concrete.

Had a early morning ‘old man session’ at the Thornton park. Nate, Carleigh, Jake and I got there around 9:15 where Sam and Neil were sitting in their cars waiting. When we arrived there was a person with a remote control car and about 7 scooter kids. Great. This sort of crowd bums out Fuzz a ton. Luckily the remote control car was put away before Fuzz got there. Neil and Jake were killing it out of the gate. It was crazy. I felt like a zombie. I hate skating early in the day. I took several tries to do a simple wallie then could not commit to the 3 stair so I gave up, pouted for a second then went and skated the tiny manny pad for awhile. Sam joined me. We did some manuals, nose manuals, wallrides, etc. That thing is super fun. I also got a back 5-0 and came close to back nosegrind. Sam had to go open his shop so I went and joined the crowd again. Everyone was ripping. Some of the tricks I saw were Carleigh boardslide the little trail then noseslide back shove out the bump to ledge. Jake had a marathon run that started with a boardslide, polejam/wallie, front smith the deep end and then a frontside flip on the bank. So good. Fuzz mannied the top of the ledge above the 3 stair, gapped over the step up to blunt slide on the flat bar, sick front ds everywhere, low to high rock fakie, front noseblunt on the qp to kinked bank. Nate wasn’t supposed to be skating, but was rolling around on my cruiser board and did some manuals, kickturns and wallrides. Even popped an ollie once before we yelled at him. I finally ollied down the tiny 3 stair that everyone else ollied first try and then was turning around and trying to fakie bigflip over the hip. Unfortunately my feet would kill me on every bail as the blisters were getting really intense. Neil and Fuzz had to go. The rest of us skated the little manny pad/wallride thing. It was fun. We all did some different wallrides, manuals and you could grind it too. I technically landed a back nosegrind, but it was like a nosegrind turned to willy and since it’s curb high and I just rode off. Still, it was the first back nosegrind I’ve landed in a long long time. Then it was off to lunch and hang with Jason for awhile as my toes burned in these god awful Slash’s. Look for them in my trash can tonight.