Had thought that maybe with how much shorter Aces are that I’d want a wider board.  Nope.  As soon as I set the 8.5 down I disliked it.  My wheel fell off twice in the early stages which bummed me out.  Turns out Ace axle nots pop off on front slappies.  I was a little late and Rob had already fizzled out.  We played a game of SKATE.  I think Rob one it on a cab.  We did some fun one foot and no comply variations.  I came close to 360 shoves, but couldn’t get one.  

(setup 8.5 smoke valley null, jessup pj ultragrip, ace af1 low 55, 52mm bones stf 99a v3 slims, new balance numeric 288S green/gum no insoles)
(pain level 4/10 achy)

After some OCD obsessing over the new Ace AF1 lows I went to 303, got them, set them up, then went to the empty tennis court spot and gave them a whirl.  And my first impression was excellent.  Even though they are lows they seemed to turn similar to AF1s, but a much lighter pop.  I went on to have a decent session even though I started hating the new 425s and all the heel lift I was getting.  Flip tricks worked well and heelflips felt surprisingly good.  I skated the ledge alright for me.  Crooks and slow front 50s, noseslides, switch noseslides.  Slappies felt good.  Decent first session on new trucks, shoes , wheels.

(setup 8.38 smoke valley null, jessup ultragrip, ace af1 low 55, 52mm bones stf 99a v3 slims, new balance numeric 425 black/gum size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

For once a later session was planned. Noon at dog park. And it was quite cold out in the morning so that worked out well. I arrived early and was surprised to see Sean, Jack and Riley already skating dog park. It was Rob’s birthday, he’s pretty low key about it but I think everyone still at least said happy bday. Kevin, Jake, Dave were also there. Hayden, Bo would come too. It was a long session. Dave, Riley and I started with a few laps around the concrete pump track then went to the official pump track. It’s quite rough and we did a couple laps. I didn’t last long at Valmont park before heading over to dog park. I had two goals for the day. Kickflip up the C ledge finally and a couple halfcab heels. Warming up was going alright for me doing normal tricks and I was getting close to the kickflip up when Jake suggested a game of SKATE. Got it next try. Was quite happy. Game of SKATE was Dave, Jake, Bo, Riley and me. No surprise Riley won. And I think he only had S. It was fun though a good warm up and I didn’t get letters on too many tricks I can normally land. It was pretty crowded in there. Riley, Jack, Sean all killing it. Jack fakie tre wallie world. Riley fakie shove manual anything. Sean was trying to front nose the upper deck. Man there really was so much going on I can’t even begin to remember all of it. I never got any halfcab heels, but was close. Near the end I tried a bunch of halfcab crooks again. Was close. Saw Jake do some nollie back tails. Dave killing full metal jacket. Rob lining out his moves. I somehow didn’t see Kevin skate much and he had hurt his wrist.

We went to a nearby spot where I rolled down a weird wood bank a few times then filmed the Nullers do a million tricks into/out of it. Fun day!

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer night skate deck, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 lows no big washer, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic shape 3 rings inside, new balance numeric 288s grey size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Heard about how Mesa Univ remodeled and made all of their ledges skateable so went there on Liz and I’s mini trip. I had heard they were all tall and that was accurate. I cruised around and didn’t see anything I wanted to so we left. Went to the old skatepark there that I haven’t skated in 20 years. Last time was with JP and Jason! Or maybe even the NE dudes and Jeff, but wow it’s been a long time. I was excited, but the wind and my sucking drained me quick. The curbs on the banks looked fun, but they were all super crusty and didn’t grind well. I tried a line of kickflip on a bank then kickflip to fakie the next bank. But I took way too long to land one kickflip. I skated the ledge for a bit. Had some okay crooks, noseslides and one bad front nose that was in Jason’s honor. Couldn’t get a front 50. There was a dude there that could hardly ride his skateboard, but he could pop super high onto tall flatbars and stuff. It was a weird scene. The wind kicked in ultra fierce so I called it good.

(setup null smoke valley 8.3, venture 5.8 titatnium, bones medium bushings, 52mm spitfire classic shape f4 99a, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 2/10)

Feeling a little better after a couple days of feeling run down I went out to do a couple slappies. But the main old section is junk now. So I went down to the hook and did a few front slappies then made myself kickflip and then slappy. Grinding that thing is fun. I was bummed on how many tries a decent kickflip took. Oh yeah, I had changed back to 8.25 with Ventures.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast plate v-hollow hanger, bones medium bushings, spitfire 51m 101a f4 classic shape, new balance numeric 288s grey size 11.5 with 440 insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Woke up early on a Friday and I like skating early on Fridays so I’m less sore on Saturday.  I had another setup change and I liked it.  But man the first couple pushes I thought my knee may give out.  Ugh.  I would go on to skate pretty well for a bit and felt agile.  Had some fun warm ups and little pops over the hips.  Had a couple warm up lines going.  West I did noseslide to fakie then fakie big the hump.  Then crooks followed by kickflip over the front hump which I did not do well.  East I tried a line of front disaster, kickflip the back hump, front 50 shove.  Never got the kickflip.  I had put tablets on, I blame them and their dumb square non-flipping shape.  Pain started to kick in pretty fierce.  Argh.  I was trying front 50 back 180 the bank to ledge and front 50 shove the bench.  Was close, but got neither.  After a while I slammed on a noseslide on the bank to ledge and slammed way harder than I should and decided to call it.  Argh.  Skated terrible again.  I did mostly like my setup though.

(setup null smoke valley 8.3, jessup ultragrip, royal 149 lights, 52mm spitfire f4 99a tablets, 288s grey 11.5 no insoles)
(pain 6/10)

I hyped up the tennis courts to Rob as a chill alternative to the dog park.  And luckily when we arrived there was no one else, but it would soon get quite crowded.  Argh.  Guess it has been empty for me since it’s been winter.  Cass showed pretty quickly too.  I was wearing different shoes and had a major setup change so nothing felt good to me.  I would have some okay crooks, switch front noseslides, a slow fakie front 50, slappy crooks and a couple slow kickflips.  Rob had manuals, nose manuals, almost no comply shove manual, halfcab nose and halfcab boards.  Cass manualled the ledge, back 50, can’t slappy crook, switch board the parking block, a good heelflip.  We started a game of SKATE.  Somehow within a couple minutes Cass was out and neither Rob or I had any letters.  Donnie showed and we got to chatting/skating so the game never continued.  Donnie did a few basics, but mostly skated fast and didn’t launch over the fence or anything ha.  I didn’t skate very well and was kinda bumming that the warmer weather means other people will be skating there.  Oh well, luckily there are like 4 parks now.

(setup null smoke valley 8.5, jessup pj ultragrip, royal inverted 144, spitfire f4 99a classic 52, 272 black 12 half insole)
(pain 5/10)

Out pretty early on a very nice Saturday I met Cass, Kevin, Venture Dave and Jake at Golden park. There was still quite a bit of snow and we shoveled and squeegeed the little ledge section. Which is kind of funny because we never actually skated it, we just hit the main park as it was mostly dry and it was super fun. I had switched back to lows and would love it when I hucked a b/s flip early on and mostly landed it. We were up top doing some ride on grinds, qp and flatground up to start with. Kevin was rattling off trick after trick. Then we settled in on the east side of the park having some fun lines with the ledges and banks. Dave was manualling the west side deck, shoves and impossibles on the bank. Jake and Kevin did rock fakies on one of the steep qps. Jake almost got a back blunt on another steep qp. Cass had some good noseslides, crooks. Kevin was landing everything. 50s up the ledge, crooks down, nollie varial flips, nollie treflips. Cass never quite got the front board shove. Jake said our physical challenge should be boardsliding down the ledge. I baby stepped to it and would get it. His knee started hurting so he forfeited the win to me. I was hyped to get first try kickflip, fakie flip, varial flip and fakie varial flip on the bank. I was working on fakie tre when the wind kicked in fierce. We skated a while longer, but it was tough so we took off.

Jake and Dave were done. Kevin, Cass and I went to triple nipple. The park itself had no snow in it, but snow runoff made the ledge unskateable. Doh. It took me a bit to find a fun way to skate it considering half the park was wet. But it ended up being a pretty good time. The little transfers over the spine are so fun. I had some front 50s, first front feeble in a long time and took a bit to get the disaster to sugarcane. Kevin had lines for days and worked for the switch flip. Cass on the other hand gets off the bench, does the front shove second try then goes back to chilling. My kickflip felt about as bad as it looked, but it was still fun. Pretty awesome day really.

(8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 lows bones medium bushings, spitfire 51mm 101a classic shape with 2 washers inside, new balance numeric 288S b/w size 11.5 440 insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

After another Sunday getting stuck working way longer than needed I eventually made it out to a parking garage off Valmont to skate some flat. I avoided the library spot only because I was in a super foul mood after working and didn’t want to be around people. One of the better garages for flatground is now totally vacant and I made good use of it. Well, I skated in it for an hour and a half or so. I had brought my 8.5 and 8.25 setups and after a quick spin to compare realized how stupid 8.5 feels to me. I got to my warm up line of kickflip, no comply 180, fakie flip pretty quickly. Then I went in on 2 trick lines. Fakie flip followed by halfcab flip. Halfcab flip took too long, but then started a line with it then did b/s flip. Did quite a few cruddy b/s flips and couldn’t get fakie bigflip after. Gave up on that one and then everything kinda turned into random hucks. I would get a first try fakie varial flip, eventually a fakie bigflip, couldn’t get a heelflip to save my life, f/s halfcab flip, super close to nollie varial flip and somewhat close to nollie front heel. I was kind of close to nollie treflips so I setup the phone to have one clip of the session and much to my delight I landed one in a few tries. I didn’t have much time left to skate so I called it on a good note. I was pretty bummed on how I change setups all the time making these tricks harder. And the fact that I spent another week basically on 8.5 when I should know by now that I always end up disliking 8.5. Argh. I can skate 8.25 better. I should stick with it and I really hope I do for quite some time.

(8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast plate titanium hanger, venom 91a bushings, spitfire 51mm 101a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S b/w size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 2/10!)

Feeling lazy after a long week of work I eventually made it to Square House to meet Jake, Garrett, Joe and Donnie. Jake and I were there first and started on the ramp. No surprise, but I had changed my setup. 8.3 with mini logo 8.3 trucks, 52mm classics. It felt great on the ramp. Jake and I both seemed to be skating pretty well at of the gates. He had front blunt, blunt to fakie, front d revert and a lot more. I had back 50s to fakie (the cheater way), inconsistent with front disasters and my first couple hurricanes in a long time. Garrett, Joe and Donnie warmed up with a game of SKATE that took a while and had some crazy tricks, makes and slams. I think Garrett ended up winning it. He had some nice kickflips to fakie, back blunts, flows really well. Joe probably did front crook to fakie before doing an axle stall. Ha, but he really did skate the ramp like a street skater. Donnie had some high speed antics as one would imagine but I’m not sure if the got the grind off the extension to lower section. I really like this ramp.

Then things started to thin out so we went to the “street” section. This is when I really started to dislike my current setup. Took me like 10 tries to get a kickflip on the little bank. I had some crooks and noseslides, didn’t get b/s flip over the hip and never committed to ollieing up the 3. Not my best skating. Donnie was a mad man. Grinding off the higher qp to the lower and managing not to kill any kids in the process. It was close though. He had some high speed 5-0s on the little qp, transfers, front 50s on the ledge. Garrett shredded. Treflip to stairs to kickflip fakie the qp, switch heel the stairs, front feeble the tall qp, died hitting a crack and dove into the qp at full speed. Joe had some incredible lines like back tail the bump to ledge, fakie hardflip the stairs, switch hard on flat with both feet behind the back bolts. It was pretty amazing. He also ollied up the stairs super easily, heelflip, hardlflip down, nosegrinds down the ledge.

Near the end the dude working was skating and nearly died trying to front 50 the rail. It was the worst slam I think I’ve ever seen in person. Pretty sure he broke his thumb while taco’ing the rail with his back. It was so brutal. After that we had lost some motivation and played a game of SKATE in which I was quickly out. I used Garrett’s board and I liked it at first, but not after a few missed halfcab flips.

(setup null 8.3 smoke valley, jessup ultragrip, mini logo 8.3 trucks with royal bushings, spitfire 52mm f4 99a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S white size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)