Since it takes me pretty much forever to warm up these days I started skating the curb across the street a bit while I was waiting for Carleigh to arrive. I did a few basic stalls and slappy tails and stuff and started to feel warmed up enough to try kick back tails by the time she arrived. I was also trying front 5-0 to switch crooks kind of. Probably the closest I’ve ever come.

Broomfield was not as crowded as we thought when we arrived as it was just Josh Murphy there along with some scooter kids and mongo pushers. Murphy can get down on rails and he was trying to dial in back overcrooks down the double set. I started doing little kickflips on the bump next to the bowl and some basics on the ledges. Around now everyone started showing up for a pretty heated session. Josh Steele showed up on an old Jeff Kendall board that he was “just gonna cruise around on”. By that he means front 5-0s down the double set first try. Chadman was mellow, but still popping nollie front heels up the black ledge. Carleigh was skating the pool and doing lines from pole jam then kickflip the six. Davis was doing every trick down the double set. John was trying to learn front 5-0s until I slammed on one. Sean killed a back nosegrind 180 out down/up the smile ledge. Max front blunted the double set. Man I don’t even know anymmore. I got a front 5-0 shove out on the black ledge and a first ever noseslide 270 shove out. Hyped on that. At the end I was being dumb and tried to go real slow and feel out a front crooks on the black ledge. Bad idea as I slid out and slammed to my shoulder something fierce. My worst slam in awhile, but luckily nothing serious other than a stiff neck/shoulder. It’s dumb because I had told myself if I were to try that trick to go fast and commit 100%. I didn’t and I paid for it.

After that we went to the Think premiere at Crisis which was a blast. Then we stayed up super late drinking beers and talking about how awesome dolphin flips are.

Got home from work and had to do the Null 2011 taxes so Liz would finish up our taxes. That took awhile and halfway through I got a frantic call from 303 wanting more boards ASAP. I wasn’t really planning on skating, but a trip to Denver to sell boards and skate sounded fun. A quick call to Carleigh who is pretty much always down to skate anything and we were off. We met Chad at 303 then headed to the 12th Ave hill to start out. I blew it by not being at the starting line when the light when off and had to sit at the light like an idiot. Cool. I hate how timid I am at the start of sessions these days wondering if my knee is gonna act up. We got kicked out of the art center area before we even snapped our tails. Across the way to the library where we lasted a bit. I was just pushing along as was Carleigh and Chad is nosebonking benches. We did some slappy grinds, wallrides on the beams, etc. Then cruised around looking at some stuff before ending up at the grated manny pad where we lasted awhile. Carleigh was doing wallrides on a 90 sculpture as well as ollieing into/out of the grate. Chad and I were trying lines starting across the street. He would start with switch back 180 up the curb all steezy and then do some crazy good stuff after that I couldn’t really see. I got a line of front 180 up the curb, f/s halfcab flip on flat, ollie in ollie out then a kickflip on flat. I wanted to b/s flip into the street, but traffic prevented that. I got close to another line of front shove up the curb (which took me awhile), ollie in, front 180 out, but slammed and we got the boot. Around the corner we found a crazy banked red curb that Chad front tailed for about 10 feet. I couldn’t slide it even one foot. My arthritis was messing with me. It makes everything harder and makes me feel less coordinated than I already am. Carleigh might have done a couple little back tails on it. We ended up at ‘the only spot in denver‘ yet again. Some old man was there telling us he saw 20 skaters there the day before and “none of them could land shit.” Ha. I told him he was gonna be even more disappointed if he watched us. Chad did manage to kickflip a white pillar in front of him, but he still thinks we should magically be grinding the benches that are skate stopped. Funny stuff. I almost got my manual, powerslide, boardslide line in a couple tries. Carleigh upgraded her best tailslide at the spot. I wanted to ollie one of the white posts and started on the mission. Chad was trying to hype me up with a b/s flip (seriously though if Chad of all people can b/s flip it surely I could ollie it right? ha no) and it took him awhile. It’s ok because I could not commit to the ollie to save my life. So awkward. Chad got a perfect b/s flip and I didn’t get his back. He then rattled off switch heel (first try), nollie half cab (first try) and heelflip before I finally put down the worst ollie ever that somehow cleared the post and didn’t break the tail off in the landing. Whew. I was so sore. I haven’t jumped that much in months. Glad I got it though. Thanks for waiting Carleigh and Chad.

After a fun day of hanging with the family, a couple naps and some cleaning I went out for a quick solo session around the golden hour. I pushed around the parking lot a few times for warmup (once switch), did a couple ollies up curbs. I’m still so hesitant to ollie initially in fear of knee pain. But the knee brace seems to be working so far. I was sucking really bad for awhile. Really really bad. It was depressing. But after awhile I started at least trying harder tricks. Sometimes that’s all I need. I had a line going I was trying. Back crooks the little part of the ledge, front smith stall kickflip out on the curb then tailslide. The crooks started out really bad, but after awhile I was doing them pretty good for me. I never got the smith kickflip out, but I did land on it a few times. I never got a tailslide on the ledge either. I did get one front noseslide to fakie which felt good even though I didn’t slide it much and pivoted the landing like champ. I posed some front smith grinds, landed on nollie varial flip and got a really bad treflip with all hands on the ground. My arthritis didn’t feel very good and flip tricks still hurt. Ugh. It seems to help if I dress warm and sweat it out. Kickflips feel different. It might be because the knee brace sets my kneecap a certain way. Kind of feels like I’m relearning them and mobbing them a little. Great. The only good that can come from that is if I somehow lose the annoying reverse superman I do when I kickflip. Oh well, I skated hard, tried some stuff I don’t normally do and that feels okay.

I love waking up early on Saturdays. I got some Four/Null things done. Played football with Ollie. Sanded the cupboards. Then met up with Carleigh in Crisis (or did I mean Carleigh and the Crisis team) at the same downhill ledge spot we keep meeting up at. Fine with me, I love that spot. I might have even said “Oh wait, there are other spots in Denver?”. Ha. That place is such a great spot to warm up. I did a few runs just riding down the stairs then into the street for some powerslides. I also slammed pretty good trying back 180 off the curb into the street. Carleigh worked on perfecting front tails and I tried a few slow boardslide pop outs. I got a couple ugly ones so I started trying out that dream line of mine again. Got the manual a few times, figured out the powerslide and setup for the boardslide, but never put the whole line together. Stoked to get close though. Blaine was skating too. Conor almost got a sick line. Then we went across the street where Jack did some silly stuff before skating a few blocks so Jack could do some serious stuff. One the way back Carleigh got buck, did here 4 long flat 4 ollies and did some wallrides over a security guard.

Next up was Stapleton so Jack once again could execute technical trickery on his skateboard. Which he did to perfection. Carleigh boardslid it like it was nothing then struggled with noseslides before slamming super hard. I skated too (if you can call it that). I was barely able to boardslide off the two height. I tried a line of switch front 180 down one block then boardslide off the two. It took forever. The only thing I was hyped on was ollieing up all three blocks (one at a time duh) mainly because I haven’t ollied up stuff in awhile. Oh I did pose a few kickflip 50s which I”m pretty sure I could do if my hair was feathered just right. Fun day. Feels good to street skate even if I’ve lost most of my confidence. We checked out an amazing looking bank to curb after that then ate some good pizza and then went to a fun party at the No Love warehouse.

Everytime I go to Fort Collins I’m in love with their skate scene and skaters. This time was no exception. After hitting MRKT up I rolled over to Northside with Jake. The park was almost vacant. Awesome. My arthritis hot pocket feeling was in effect so I avoided ollies for the most part and for the most part kept it mellow (aka my skating was shit). I did manage a line starting near the flat bar of wallie the corner of the mustache barrier, front tail stall on the brick bank, wallie over the other end of the mustache barrier. Jake was ripping some big ollies and 270 transfers on the far side. That park rules. We tried noseslides for awhile. Jake was trying back nose to fakie, fakie treflip, kickturn then front nosegrind. Never got the nose grind. I was trying front noseslides and sucking. Landed one horrible one. Tried a bunch of back noseslide 270 shoves out. Didn’t really get that close. I’ll blame the arthritis. Next was the miniramp for awhile which was pretty fun. I got a few Rampy tricks (front d, back slash revert, fakie back smith fakie) wanted more, but Kyle showed up and shut it down on his opening run. Jake had done a sick no comply 180 staple gun though. Struggled for a rock ‘n roll on the taller barrier then pretty much just dorked around after that. Mike had showed up. Kyle was ripping one footed blunt slides on flat. Mike proved you can do treflips on 8.75″ boards. Jake has tres on lock. I did dumb 2mph back tail stall shoves on the little bank thing near the wall. Even though my arthritis was in effect I had a blast.

Met up with Carleigh, John, Fuzz at Crisis and Jason showed up! We shot the breeze for awhile then headed over to Broomfield park. Jason hung out and watched. So rad. At one point he even gave John some advice on back 50s which worked. Anyway, for me the session wasn’t so great. The chilly temperatures had my arthritis kicking and I could tell as soon as I put my board down that I would struggle to skate decent. Oh well. The things that did make me happy were first try kick back 5-0 (although I came to a halt), front feebs on the quartapotty, trying to boardslide the tiny rail (haven’t done something like that in months) and almost getting front 5-0 shove on the black box. Awhile into the session the arthritis in my ankles became too much and the hot pocket sensation had me on the bench. Carleigh was kinda cruising around on her own. I saw and early flatground kickflip, but she was swearing about how she couldn’t do them so maybe I was seeing things. Saw some nice boardslides on the black ledge, front 50 shove attempts and an awesome varial flip wilson. John and Fuzz were killing it. Fuzz had front nosegrinds, back tails, front tails, front lips, bluntslides, fakie 50 halfcab out, staple guns on the bank (so gnarly) and so much more. John skated maybe the best I’ve seen him skate. Bigspin front noses to fakie, no comply 270 back tails with slides, front tails to fakie, treflips, halfcab flips, and a banger front 50 down the 6 stair hubba. He killed it.

Carleigh, Max, Dean and I headed out to Denver around noon to meet up with Derek at Denver Park. It was sunny and warm and it felt great (unless you are Dean who had the audacity to bitch about the warm weather wtf!). Derek showed up and as expected made our warming up look really dumb. Even Max, who was just sitting around sore from the day before who joined to pursue his social butterfly skills. Derek’s casual frontside wallride became motivation for the rest of us to do regular wallrides. Carleigh has done it before and after a good slam put them down on the regs. Dean and I battled it for awhile and were super close. I finally got one. Then we headed up to the downhill ledge spot for Derek to try a line he’s wanted to get forever.

When we first showed up the Denver Shop crew was there. Everyone was kinda warming up and stuff. Nathan Fantasia was killing it. The gap to manny gap the second 2 was crazy. Tyler had some nice flippers. Carleigh was doing downhill lines. Steven Gritz was killing. It was awesome. I did may manual first or second try and slammed pretty good on a powerslide on the roll away. Scraped up my elbow pretty good. Oh well. Then it was time to film Derek. He got his line! Hyped. After saying goodbye to Derek we went back to the 5 sets of two stairs as I wanted to try the early grab. I got it and it felt as dumb as I had hoped. Felt great to film a trick. Dean killed it too with four firecrackers then a front 180 in front of a cop car.

After that we kinda chased the Denver Shop dudes for awhile then met them on top of the Magnolia Hotel parking garage. They redid the parking lot and now there is a gap over rail. There is also sick concrete there and I basically skated flat for an hour straight while Steve and Nate went for tricks. It was fun and hot and awesome. I did most of my tricks except for the elusive treflip family. My no comply 180 followed by a f/s halfcab flip was my favorite. Most everyone else skated flatground too and it was fun.

After that we ate some food at Wahoos then went to a loading dock gap over rail for Carleigh. She’s 0-2, but that’ll change soon. Then we hit Broomfield park for about 20 minutes of pure awesomeness. Dean was ripping and landing on treflips! Get those dude! The last time I was at the park my arthritis was still too bad to skate. This time I felt amazing and I skated the best I have in a long time. Got back 50s on the blue curb, back 5-0, back 5-0 shove, kick back 5-0 almost, front d on the quartapotty, front feebs, ollied and manualled the downhill blue ledge, nose manualed the blue ledge, basically felt like I could skate again! This knee brace rules (even though it broke kind of)! I want to skate more!

Another insanely nice March day. After playing football with Ollie for a couple hours I skated for about 20 minutes in front of the house. My new knee brace rules! I wanted to add one new flip trick I haven’t done since the pre-itis days and it turned out to be f/s halfcab flip. Love that one. I tried a bunch of nollie tres too and got really close once. Struggled at 3 flips again. Kickflips felt great. Jason showed up and we headed over to Dean’s to work on the magazine.

My new knee brace arrived in the mail and I didn’t hesitate to put it to the test. After selling boards to Crisis and 303 Carleigh, Fuzz, I and eventually John hit downtown Denver for some shredding. A few people we knew were at 303 and asked if we wanted to roll with them. We mentioned downtown streets and the reaction was “Ewww”. They mentioned Denver park and we were like “Ewww”. Ha ha.

The three of us started above the downhill 16th st mall ledge spot at a huge set of stairs. 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2. It’s a great warmup because all we did initially was ollie and firecracker each set. It’s a blast. Fuzz and I did doubles without ollies or firecracker. Pretty funny. A couple older 30 somethings riding down two stairs. It was a little foreign to me initially since I haven’t hit any stairs in awhile. I wanted to early grab all 5 holding on the whole time, but could only do two. We firecrackered out and went down to the ledge spot. Carleigh worked on front tails and got a good one. I tried to manual from the curb cut to the two stair, powerslide, then boardslide popout. Never got close. Fuzz and I messed around with some downhill lines that were a blast. The first one was manual a sidewalk section, ollie onto a sketchy ledge and off, ollie off the curb cut then head on downhill for some powerslides. It was at this point I started believing in my knee brace and really skating. I was so happy after that line I probably had tears in my eyes. We messed around there awhile longer. I failed at ollieing one of the white posts. Had a fun front 180 into the street and a downhill switch 180. We decided to move on bombing the hill and heading right. I blew it though and bailed a curb ollie and got to watch Carleigh and Fuzz cruise down while I ran after my board. Dork! I caught up and surprised myself with an ollie up a curb then somewhat quick front 180 up a two. These are the things I’ve missed so much. I ollied the little curb above the 4 stair thing at the World Trade Towers to 30 stair landing (I was worried that impact would hurt (it didn’t! (whew!))). We went to try some wallrides, but got the boot and ended up at the marble ledge between the Sheratons. Fuzz got a boardslide to manual pretty quick, but had to avoid a taxi on the ride out and hit a crack stopping him. He tried and tried, but didn’t get it again. Not even letting a dog attack and slober all over his board would help. I got a front board transfer to fakie. It didn’t slide, but it felt really good. After no less than 10 calls for directions John showed up. He killed some noseslides and switch slappy front noseslides. We pushed for awhile. I slammed trying to front 180 a manhole. It hurt. We skated a mini curb cut thing. John called out back 180’s as the first trick. They did good ones. Mine was horrendous. I’d rather go backside flip. Ha. Which I eventually did with some nice toe drag. Fuzz and John got some good front shoves. Carleigh got back 180. John, Fuzz and I tried and failed at treflips. My back ankle was hurting in an arthritis type of pain. No knee pain though still!

Man this is a long journal entry because I haven’t street skated like this in so long! We hit this ledge area by the Convention Center that is new and amazing. The ground is perfect. I had fun ollieing some manholes quick. Fuzz did front 180 the first sw front 180 the second. So quick wow. John had some good noseslides and then we started trying lines. I did a no comply 270 to back tail stall then kickflipped a manhole (without popping the tail somehow) and then ate shit on a noseslide. It felt amazing. Sure I would have rather landed the noseslide, but slamming is a part of the game and I haven’t done it enough lately. I got up hyped beyond belief that I was skating for real. John did our trick (no comply 270 to back tail) on a bench (so tall for that trick!). So crazy. Fuzz went off for a minute doing noseslides to fakie then coming around and trying some weird no comply sal flip variation to front tail. He was having troubles missing the grab on his board (that wanted to go far away on a Voyage) so he used my board and nailed it first t.

I thought we were done, but we realized we were right next to a fun parking garage that Fuzz and I have bombed into before. I got a little gap to manual quick for me, but couldn’t manage the speed to get around the corner. John bailed at the first sign of security, Fuzz went for his line still of ollie a kicker, manual then hill bomb. He made it all but the manual. Night ever. Glenny stoked to skate for hours and not have knee pain. Lets do it again friends!

I really needed a day like this. After a nap, basketball with Ollie and some leftovers the kids wanted to watch one of our family favorites, The Incredibles. Even though that movie completely rules (especially the part when Dash starts running on water) we have seen it so many times. I opted to go skating. I decided to wear my big knee brace until the tendonitis brace arrives. I had a brand new board that was still hot off the presses! This is the new 8.125 shape. Seems good. I got deep on the griptape art. Looks simple, but really it’s a pile of rocks to remind me to be patient and get my skating back one step at a time.

I went for a solo session for several reasons. First, I just want to dork around to relearn stuff and I’m too embarrassed to try some stuff with anyone around. Second, who knows how long my knee will hold up. It could be five minutes and I’m done like it was in Denver the other night. I started with slappy tailslides, worked up to front 50s, manuals and then pretty much started trying everything. I didn’t land much and if this was a year ago I’d probably be complaining about how little I did. But for where I’m at right now I was hyped. I skated hard, broke out in a sweat and even slammed hard a couple times. Man it felt great. I tried a line of front 5-0 on the little curb, front tail the taller one then b/s flip on flat. Never got a legit tailslide, they all stuck and I’d get off right away. Got close to halfcab noseslide the taller one then kick back tail the second. Took awhile to get a manual, tried to line it out with kick back 50, but never got kick back 50. I did commit every time and they were close though. Tried a few nollie tres. Got some back 50s. Ollie over a yellow flat bar. Almost got a nose manny. Mostly basics and I have a long ways to go to be happy with my skating, but man it felt so great to skate hard, sweat and fall down.