A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jul 1, 2015 at 9:48pm PDT

After the noseslide marathon I needed new bushings. Rather then buy some I put some old stock Thunder ones. And while I was at it I setup a new 8.5″ null deck and even put some tiny risers on there. It’s kind of an experiment to see if it helps me ollie. I went to Blue Skies for my ‘gym break’ at work. Rather then skate the park I decided what better way to get used to the bigger setup then skate flat? So I skated flat for about 45 minutes. Not too well either. I don’t think I would have skated well regardless, but I did end up landing a large collection of my basics. Couldn’t do halfcab flip though. Got a bad 360 flip. Everything required more effort. Front shoves felt great. I did an absolutely horrible heelflip. Fakie flips were sketch as they board barely got around. Got insanely close to switch flips again. Couldn’t do a b/s flip. Not quite a nollie tre either. With all that said the board felt great.

(setup 8.5 null venture wide lights thunder bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254s)

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jul 1, 2015 at 10:31pm PDT

Well the clip above pretty accurately documents my 3 hour session. Got out of the car, waxed the ledge and started trying noseslide 270 shoves. Bernie and Riley joined. Bernie went right to trying front tail 270 shoves. Riley tried front noseslide 270 shoves, but kind of tweaked his shoulder and took off. Dave showed up for a few minutes before he had a chiropractor appt. I landed a good noseslide 270 shove! I was super hyped to finally land that trick. I have kind of landed it once, but not really. So I setup the camera. Good thing I charged it because it did not come easy to do it again. I had a couple makes that were beyond horrible and barely usable for defense. Riley would get close and then not be close for awhile. Dave showed back up and it seemed like Bernie and I started getting closer again. Then I got the one above! Not super pretty, but it was all I could muster. After that my legs were shot and I mostly just watched Dave and Bernie skate. I was beyond hyped to finally land that trick though. Bernie ended up putting down his trick perfect. Typical Bernie, when he lands something it’s perfect. Dave had his patented boardslide to fakie and some other hot moves. My back bushings had basically completely separated and so loose I didn’t even want to skate my board anymore.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254s)

Went to meet Matt on campus and it started raining. Not so hard so I went under the engineering building hoping it would dry. I had only done a couple 180s and “slappy” noseslides before Matt showed. We kind of goofed around some more and hit the 3 stairs a little. Matt ollied down them and front 50’d up. I back 50’d down. I was thinking of a line of back 50 then front 180 the second set, but I never got there. If I would have I had told Matt he needed to ollie over the rail. Ha.

Then we ended up here for awhile. I didn’t know Matt shot this photo otherwise I would have done switch front crooks instead. Yeah right. We hucked a few impossible flip tricks like nollie f/s flip and switch flip. I think Matt got a switch flip. I did a slappy back 50 and tried slappy back 5-0 and failed. I did the weakest front tail ever. Matt took awhile to get slappy back 50, but when he did it was a rad line of nosebonk a rock, 360 flip on flat then the slappy 50. He may have even done a nollie flip after.

Then we went to the long ledge. It started out fun for me, but I didn’t land much and it kind of bummed me out. Matt got front and back tails. I got noseslide, crooks and some front 50s that were supposed to be front 50 shove out.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushing (which are totally cracked and bumming me out now) 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254s)

Super exhausted after skating so much all weekend. I walked up to the ATM, deposited some Null checks then skated in front of the old Savers briefly. I tried 20 switch flips and 20 switch treflips, did one slappy crook and left. The bike path home was pretty fast and fun.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones medium bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254s)

For more about the artist Frank Zirbel, click here.

After a nice hike and a nap and stuff I met Rob at the newish spot with the manual pad / 2 stair. Rob quickly determined that his leg was acting up and he wouldn’t be able to skate. Doh. I stayed around for a bit and tried to get warmed up, but it was a struggle. I started getting a few flip tricks and about 30 tries I finally manualled off the 2 then kickflipped off the last curb. Then I went to pick up Jake and we headed to campus. The engineering building had a bunch of gravel on the bank/bank spot so we moved on. We had front tail stalls off the little one ledge off the curb. Then we went to the long ledge. No cars again! I was feeling really good at this point and probably skated too hard and didn’t pace myself. I was trying lots of lines. Flippers, manuals, ledge tricks. Didn’t land much on the manny pad or ledge, but flippers went pretty good. I was 2-4 on treflips, but 0-10 on front 50 shoves. Jake and I both got a back 50 or two, noseslides, neither of us got crooks, he might have got front tail, I did a few accidental front 5-0s that should have been 50s. Then we played a game of SKATE that ended with me winning on 360 flip.

We headed to the bank to fence, but ended up stopping at this little bump into downhill sidewalk. Jake put down kickflip first try and I put down b/s flip second try. Then it was off to the races with all of our tricks. I was hyped on fakie flip really quick. It wasn’t much downhill, but it was still a bit of a challenge and super fun. Jake got kickflip, 360 flip, heelflip (first try), f/s flip, fakie flip and almost fakie treflip. I got b/s flip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, fakie bigflip, varial flip, nollie treflip, f/s halfcab flip, treflip and hucked cab flips at the end that felt remotely close at times. Such a fun session.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254)

Up early on another beautiful saturday morning. This rules. Ollie wanted to join in the old man fun as he seems to be into skating lately. The crew was Fuzz, Rob, Dave, John, Simon, Ollie and I. It took me a long time to get going. John was ripping already of course. He’s got it like that early in the mornings. Super graceful b/s ollies over the hip. A lot happened that morning and I don’t remember much somehow. That park is weird. Rob, Fuzz and I don’t get too hyped by it. Fuzz did a cool board stall 180 out on the bottom of the marble hubba. It tried to manual on it, but was too scared. Ollie was cruising around how he does. It was cool he had lots of hip tricks like halfcab, front 180, ollie and kind of f/s halfcab. It’s nice that he’s chill and doesn’t talk and demand attention like a lot of kids do. Rob manualled a long section of the park that involved going up and downhill. Fuzz and I tried to get his back. Fuzz did. I didn’t. Simon was slaying the park. He’s so good. Fuller and I finally settled in on the kicker to kicker ollie challenge. It took landing a flatground 360 flip to hype me enough to commit to the ollie and rideaway stoked, but bummed it took me so long to do it. Dave got my back. We were hyped. Dave got a feeble transfer that he’s been wanting to do forever. So sick. After awhile it was just Ollie and I. Ollie did a fakie shove from high to low near the mellow bank by the triangle flat bar. I took a long time to do a dumb line of kickflip to fakie then turn around and noseslide down the low marble hubba.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 27, 2015 at 1:11pm PDT

Then we got some food and went to this park. It might have been overkill for Ollie because he was over it after doing a few tricks. And it was pretty hot and sunny at this point. I tried hard to do some ledge stuff, but I had no pop. I had a line of wallride, axle stall, boardslide the mini bump to rail, crooks the ledge. I had some other stuff I can’t remember now. Tried to do kickflip pivot on the bank to curb for awhile an failed. Overall a fun day though and hyped that Ollie was down to skate so much.

(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254)

A photo posted by Rob Helmstetter (@43shifty) on Jun 26, 2015 at 4:47pm PDT

Went to Boulder ditch after work to meet Rob and Dave. I arrived first and laid back in my car for a power nap of which I was rudely awoken by Dave. Ha. D5 and Pigeonhole were there skating and it made for extra hype. This spot is a tough warm up, but it ends up working out pretty good. Dave was on fire from the start. 47 and killing it. Everyone seemed to skate pretty good and Rob skated the best I’ve seen him skate there. He had a line with f/s ollie, back smith the curb qp, sick boneless. D5 had rad alley oop rocks, rock ‘n rolls. Pigeonhole had boardslide transfers, boardslides and a big smile. I finally back 50’d the pvc. Had a fun line of front disaster the curb qp, boardslide the ledge then a kickflip. Also the front rock then b/s flip I’ve done before. And some longer boardslides on the pvc. Dave back 5-0d to back tail the whole pvs from crete to crete. Insane. He also did lipslides, front 5-0s, front tails, back disaster the curb qp, drop in on the tire, front 50 transfers on the pvc, front board transfer the pvc, much more. Happy Birthday Dave!

(setup 8.25 null venture light wides bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ quincy 254s (note I was really hyped on my setup today))

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jun 25, 2015 at 9:03pm PDT

Ollie was sitting around playing video games yet again so I asked him if by chance he wanted to go to a skatepark. He immediately replied with sure. Whoa. So off to Lafayette we went for what I figured would be a short session. When we first got there it wasn’t crowded at all. My legs weren’t doing well. I’m not sure why. Argh. We both just kind of cruised around and did whatevs. Ollie still pushes mongo, but who cares. He cruises around pretty naturally. It’s awesome. He front 180’d off the little tight qp at the entrance of the park like 4 or 5 times. Tried to ollie up onto the manual pad and landed in rock, pulled it up with speed. Fakie shoves, back 50s in the mini pool coping in the middle of the park, close to kickflips. I tried a line for a long time of front 50 the manny pad, kickflip on flat then back 180 the tight qp at the entrance. Half the time I messed up the 50 or was cut off by masses of kids. I never got it, but landed on the back 180 a few times. Thats tall for me. Noseslid the hubba, halfcab flip on the bank, rock’n roll in the toilet bowl over some kids board. But for the most part I sucked. My best trick was the fact that we stayed there until 9. It was kind of my personal hell to skate around so many loud kids on scooters and bikes. IF Ollie wouldn’t have been there I never would have stayed.

Rob/Neil/Fuzz edit of the footage from Neil’s GoPro during his visit a couple weeks ago. Fun!