Back to the dog park right after a painfully slow day at work. I had setup a smaller board and trucks. 8.25 with 8″ high trucks. This was my original goal for the year so I’m not too mad at myself. I was incredibly sore so it wasn’t magic, but I did flip my board easier. I was feeling better about most tricks I did. I landed a very bad halfcab heel, but it felt better then anything the day before. I landed a 360 flip second try and it made me so happy. Came really close to nollie flips. Dave was skating decent too. I’m forgetting his early tricks, but at the end he was insanely close to 360 flip and his pop shove body varial. It felt good to leave in a good mood. It might have been partially because I was wearing some old PJ shoes found in the closet too.

(setup 8.25 null awkward vector, venture v-hollow light 5.2 hi, venom 88a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 white/gum)

With Fallen Footwear going under the shoe debate has become a hot topic again. I get bummed out on some of the stuff people say that isn’t correct. So for whatever reason I decided to document my current stance on the whole corporate vs skater owned shoe argument.

For years I took a ‘skater owned brands only’ stance. This changed when New Balance Numeric came around and gave PJ Ladd a shoe. Why? Because I’m a huge PJ Ladd fan and because the shoe seemed perfect (note – it is perfect). Lets start by listing a few facts about all skate shoe brands.
1) All skate shoes are made in China by non-skaters. From Vox to Nike, no skaters are manufacturing the shoes.
2) All skate shoe brands have a skate team.
3) All skate shoe brands have skaters involved in running the team and helping with shoe designs.

With that said what makes skater owned brands different from corporate companies? I think there are two main differences which can be broken up as a pro and con. The pro is that the bigger brands have access to better technology which in many cases make better shoes. This isn’t always the case, just a general consensus. The con is that a non-skater bigwig executive type could pull the plug at any point. It’s my believe that a skater owned brand would hold onto their company longer then a major corporation trying to make numbers. Obviously there is a point where even skater owned brands shut down. Both the pro and con are huge though.

Another aspect of the skate shoe world that often gets overlooked is the environmental aspect. I live in Boulder, CO. I am kind of a hippy. So this is probably a bigger deal to me then others, but I want my shoes to last as long as possible. Both for financial reasons and to minimize my waste.

I guess overall to me the biggest thing is that you buy your shoes at your local skateshop. Whatever brand you chose as long as the local shop benefits I’m down. I personally do not like Nike though. Nike continues to steal riders and make way too much of a point of being everywhere. I want variety in skateboarding. I do not think badly of any other company. I am a little upset that the skater owned brands didn’t immediately improve their quality once bigger companies started moving in, but I think there has been more effort for quality lately.

Thanks for listening. Have fun. Go skate.

A couple random notes:
Supposedly the process of vulcanizing a shoe is incredibly bad for the environment. Why isn’t this a big deal?
New Balance isn’t actually a corporation, but a privately owned company. I didn’t know that until this week.

This part is excellent.

Right after work on a nice day I went to the “dawg park” to meet Dave and Rob for some flatground. As I pulled up I saw a little kid on a bike trailing Rob around the slab. Pretty funny. His name was Levi. He was having fun on his bike. He left after a little while though. Rob was once again the first one landing real tricks. Kickflips, no complies, manual to ollie over a rock, back 180s, no comply shoves. Dave seemed to go right from warming up to trying switch front 360s. I felt like I had gotten warmed up and was trying tricks beyond kickflip, but just not landing them. I landed one heelflip and felt stoked. I should not be that stoked to just land a heelflip. We played a game of SKATE. It started by all 3 of us bailing our first trick “go to” trick. Awesome. I forget what Rob went out on, but he was the first to go. At that point I had SKA and Dave only had S. I struggled to land a couple flippers to get him closer then he got me with the pop shove body varial. What a crazy trick. After Rob and Dave left I told myself I would do 10 treflips. At 0-20 I lost it and focused my deserving board. Good riddance to the big setup.

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 88a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, es accel slim black/white)

Met Dave after work on a cool, but nice, afternoon right after work at this ol’ bank to curb spot. I got out of my car excited to skate, but the first few pushes were so painful my excitement diminished a little. Dave was struggling so it made me feel alright. Nose stalls to fakie, boardslides were the warm ups. Eventually tech tricks like switch nose stalls. Ha. We were both doing our things. I finally managed a slappy crooks there which is really hard since the curb is over vert and I’m not Max Garson. Dave did his boardslide 270, close to front hurricane, a lot more. I was trying to ollie onto the low step and back 180 into the bank. It was so hard. I would eventually get one. Then I tortured myself by trying a really long line. Kickflip out of the curb cut, ollie onto the step and back 180 into the bank, switch noseslide something. After a few tries to get the kickflip I slammed super hard on the step. It hurt bad. I can tell when my arthritis is bad because I could barely move my arm for awhile it stung so bad. I got up to try it again and slammed just as hard on the kickflip. Somehow it made me laugh hysterically. Falling skateboard can be such a great experience. People need to fall more, it rules. Anyway, while I was laying there laughing a construction worker came over and asked if he could ride my board. Sure. He took a sketchy cruise on the sidewalk and left my board with mud all over it. Thanks dude! While I was trying my line Dave was trying switch nose stall to shove out and landed a couple of them perfectly. I kept trying the line and would eventually technically get it. The kickflip was fine, but the back 180 off the sidewalk was more like a slow fall that turned into a tic tac 90 degree turn. I wanted to shove out of the switch nosestall, but instead I just did the stall. Oh well, as bad as I had been skating it felt good to try so hard.

Tour de bank spots with @fullertrron this afternoon #day111

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Apr 20, 2016 at 7:49pm PDT

Then we went here. Dave had never skated it. We started out just doing kickturns. Rock ‘n roll. Dave smoked me in the rock to fakie race. In fact he did the roll in before I did the rock to fakie. We ollied up a couple times.

Then we went to Stonehenge. Dave had never been there either. Unbelievable. It’s a little harder to skate then it looks since the curbs are angled on the bank, but it still rules. After going through some basics we both worked on nosepicks as I had just been issued the challenge from Josh. I got a couple, but they were bad. It took me awhile to get a good one. Dave of course got a good one and moved on to backside nosepicks. He got a good one of those too then spent the rest of the time working on bag lady which he never got. I never quite got a backside nosepick. I say ‘quite’ because I technically landed it and it will show up in the challenge clip. But it was not a real nosepick. It’s hilarious. Long day of skating!

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 88a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, es accel slim black/white)

Went to the garage for a minimum session. Didn’t even bother moving in the manny pad. Ended up trying to spin cabs around the right way then did a couple with tiny ollies. They might have been my first legit ones ever. that would be a cool trick to finally learn.

@siouxer666 fun in the cold.

A video posted by Null Skateboards (@null_skateboards) on Apr 18, 2016 at 9:03pm PDT

Went to Broomfield park after running boards to Crisis. Riley, Garrett, Ladd and I. The park was really wet from the snow run off. The quartapotty had a path of water in front of it making it unskateable so the warm up process was harder then normal. Those dudes played skated while I pumped the bowl. Having the looser bushings felt really good. After a bit I filmed Riley do the gaps over the puddle. The front 50 gap out was 2nd try. So gnarly.

Best kind of session. @forde_photo me @siouxer666

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Apr 18, 2016 at 9:27pm PDT

Ladd and I played a game of SKATE to try and get warmed up again. He won with tricks like switch and nollie flip. You know, basic tricks I should be able to land by now. Then we had a black ledge session. Riley has such good halfcab crooks and back tail shoves. Ladd had 50s so easy. Garrett had to leave. Then we kind of just dorked out doing the triple rocks. They were a blast. It made my night to land it, they are much harder then they look.

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 88a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, es accel slim black/white)

Was thinking I’d be in a parking garage for sure, but late in the afternoon the temperature went way up to 40 and the snow disappeared from the cement (it was still all over the grass). I started at this bank. Since I had blown out the PJs I was doing some closet cleaning and skating an old pair of Es Accel Slims. They felt decent, a little thin compared to what I’ve been used to so I was scared to commit to flippers sometimes. I started out on the bank. After some warm up carves and nollie shoves I started in with the flippers. The kickflip took awhile and then varial flip took so long I gave up and decided to go with 360 flip to fakie. I got a couple where I put the hands down, but that was about it. 45 minutes of frustration. I would try nollie flips or switch heels on the way back. I got close to nollie flips, but never put my feet on it.

Then I went to the other side of the building and tried to line out the manny pad for awhile. I was really hucking and posed some 360 flip disaster stalls on a curb. Got close to manual and nose manual front 180 out, f/s halfcab heel. I had begun realizing I would not actually land anything this day.

I went to leave, but saw this little curb cut I’ve never ollied. I wanted to line it out. Flip trick in the street, ollie up the curb, ollie the curb cut, do a downhill manual on the sidewalk across the street. I started by not being able to land halfcab flips. I chalked it up to new shoes and stuck with it and started landing them. I was hyped on how fast I would ollie up the little curb, but never got the curb cut. I’d say the angle was wrong, but really, it’s just me. It was depressing.

So I tried to cheer myself up with a couple more flip tricks on the bank before leaving. My first fakie flip was a total shinner. Ugh. Then it took like 5 more tries to land it. Man what a day. I did kickflip to fakie and then tried to do a cab tailblock. Got kind of close before posing 10 switch flips on the bank and calling it a day. At least I don’t expect to land a switch flip. Pretty rotten day, but was happy to be able to skate outdoors.

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 88a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, es accel slim black/white)

Ok @boredzinejp here is the failtage you deserve. It's not much of a hip, but as you can see it's snowing like crazy so I don't have other options. I now have O-L-D in #theglenandjosholdfartlongdistanceinstagramtricksuperchallenge I put a bonus slappy crooks in just so you can see the snow in the background.

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Apr 16, 2016 at 5:19pm PDT

Another late spring snowstorm. This time of year is hard to get motivated to skate a parking garage. I went to Meta beforehand and got some softer bushings as I’ve been a little bummed on how stiff the 91a’s are. They felt good. Warming up somehow wasn’t too bad and I mostly tried some lines. Back 180 over a parking block, halfcab flip on flat, frontside slappy, front 50 over the parking blocks. Got a switch ollie or two over a parking block which felt neat. Got into a couple back tails, slappy feeble, kickflip over the parking block. Tried a line of switch 180 over a parking block, heelflip, slappy front crooks, but never got the heelflip. Doh. Got a few slappy front crooks that felt good (they felt so good until I saw the footage) and regular slappy crooks on the red curb. After awhile a car came and parked in the garage. They just sat their smoking weed. It was weird. They almost seemed to not even notice me. They were right in the middle of where I was skating. I tried a few flip tricks. I tried to not let them bother me, but it was just weird skating around a car with people sitting in it so I left. I was getting tired anyway.

(setup 8.38 null control room, venture wides, venom 88a bushings, bones stf 51mm v2, nbnumeric pj stratford 533 steel/gum)

Seriously incredible ATV action. CK1 effect?