Jake and I went to Erie park on a very nice morning to meet Bernie, Nolan, Riley and crew. We started with a game of SKATE up on the top area. It started slow, but ended up being decent. I got a couple letters on tricks I shouldn’t have. But landed treflip, heelflip and f/s flip. Jake got 4 tries on the end fakie tre and landed a good one. I landed on my two tries, but didn’t ride away. Oh well. Everyone else was killing it. I tried some front 50s on ledges and could not do it. At all. It was depressing and when I realized chasing a dream of 300 days is just stupid. My body can’t handle it anymore. I tried a line of crooks a ledge, b/s flip on a bank then front 50 the bump to ledge. Never got it. Jake was ripping. Ollied the bump to gap in lines. Got me to commit to a 3 stair gap I haven’t done before, but I didn’t roll away. Riley was killing the handrail. And even kickflipped the big rail first try. Wowsers. Nolan can shred anything and did a bunch of flat bar tricks. Garrett is getting better everytime he skates. Teagan kills flippers. Bernie was hungover. At the end Jake and I raced to kickflip back 50s on the little ledge which I got first. But it was a bad one. I’m tired and sore. Wah.

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)

Today was a good day.

A photo posted by carleigh samson (@gnarlycarleigh) on Jan 17, 2015 at 6:57pm PST

@brianlstrickland stoked beyond belief at @dnutz37 ramp. Ha, it was a blast Darin!

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jan 17, 2015 at 7:36pm PST

After a difficult family morning and then some basketball with Ollie I went to Darin’s ramp and skated with Carleigh and crew, Dave, Darin, Strickland and a few others. As always the ramp was fun. There was the added mud factor if your board went off the ramp though and Strickland may have gotten it the worst. Doh. I skated ok initially, went through my normal phase where I bailed axle stalls, then skated ok again. A fs beanplant to tail was about the only trick I was actually hyped on. Carleigh was doing front d’s all over the place. Fuller flows like water. Darin’s switch f/s disasters surprise me every time. Brian had some posted up front tailslides and bean plant to disasters.

Then I took off to meet Bernie, Garrett and Nolan at a bank spot down the road. I did b/s flip and took a long time to land a boneless. Garrett had some rad front tailslide variations. Bernie kept it mellow. Nolan did a noseblunt slide first try then we filmed a nose manual nollie flip into the bank. Gnar! We mesed around on a log for a bit.

Next we went to the Ambulance bank/hip spot that rules. Bernie did kickflip pivot, Garrett slammed really hard, I was hyped on a no comply bigspin and Nolan did a bunch of lip tricks and a couple hip tricks like f/s 360 and switch b/s flip.

Nolan and I still wanted to skate so him and I met Derek at Nutty Block aka Northglenn park. We arrived to two huge groups of scooter kids racing around the park with no clue. They left after awhile. Watching Derek and Nolan skate together was awesome. Those two skate so different, but similar somehow. As Derek would say, “we both like to jump”. Ha. They were busting ollies everwhere. Derek has so many cool lines at that park. They both did back noseblunts over the hip. So sick. I didn’t really do anything in particular to note, but had fun cruising and just tried to make it through the park with similar lines as Derek and Nolan which was fun.

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)

Lunch break Blue Skies session with @fullertrron.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jan 16, 2015 at 10:41am PST

Went to Blue Skies skatepark for my lunch break. It was 40 degrees. 20 degrees shy of the forecasted high. There was goose crap all over the park. I actually went through the effort of kicking lots of it out of the park. Then I had to clean my shoe in the grass. Ugh. The main bank was snowy. I skated for quite awhile before Dave showed. It was fun, but the lines were messed because of the goose crap traps everywhere even after I tried to clean it. I got on some fast feeling front 50s, front 50 shove, posed some noseslide bigspins out, posed front smiths on the ledge, did some horrible slow front boards on the flat bar, noselid the flat bar, hands down 360 flip on flat, couldn’t get up the big ledge. Was hyped to get a line of crooks the low ledge, ollie a flat bar with enough speed to then back 180 the curved round bar. Couldn’t kickflip the round bar, that’s a goal. Also want to switch front 180 it. Dave showed up. He was doing fakie shoves on the main bank in the narrow path without snow, boardslides, front 50s, flowing on the little banks, one foot front tail on the qp. I didn’t do much new after Dave showed. Tiny crooks jib on the flat bar, posed kickflip noseslides. It was the best I’ve felt on my board mentally in awhile though. Oh yeah at the end we posed front 50s on the flat bar. We set our boards on and then ran and jumped on. Well, Dave ran and jumped. I was scared and barely did it. So the photo above isn’t a real front 50, what are you gonna do about it?

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)

Got out of work when it was 50 and sunny. By the time I made it into Boulder the sun was behind the mountains and it didn’t feel too warm anymore. Rather then skating I went home. Rested for a bit, ate dinner then went to Matt’s house. He had a friend Osagie that was gonna join us. Right when we started we saw Meta Sam and chatted with him for awhile. Osagie was hyped to be on a skateboard though and was pushing fast through the mall. It was rad. Then we started skating. Didn’t really session anything due to cars in the way of spots until we got to the yellow curb area. Matt hauled ass ollied a median then 5-0’d around the corner curb. Oh, and of course did a few treflips. I was kind of lazy. Got close to kick back tails, did some slappy tails kind of around the corner curb. We chilled for a bit, ended up at the granite ledge in the alley for a minute. I did a 270 no comply to tail and a kickflip back 50. Then we peeped Widow Maker and went to Pete’s for a fun night of looking at our phones. I mean socializing.

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)

Round 3 @boredzinejp! I had to put my slappy noseslide in slow motion as proof that it slid. It was harder then I thought it would be. Next I challenge you to a no comply flip! #theglenandjoshOLDFARTlongdistanceinstagramtricksuperchallenge #horribleeditchallenge @the_neviathan you are two behind now!

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Jan 14, 2015 at 9:46pm PST

Went to Red Curbs on a crispy night with temperatures slightly below freezing. I had to do a slappy front noseslide per my game of #theglenandjoshOLDFARTlongdistanceinstagramtricksuperchallenge with Josh. I pretty much just started with it. You know, straight to hammers. I did a few really bad ones, a lot of bails, some slams even before getting the tiny one above. It was way harder then I thought it would be. This game will quickly show how much of a better skater Josh is then me. Oh well, I’m used to it. I did a few other things at Red Curbs like posing front shove back 50, slappy crooks and back 50s.

Then I went to Blank Curbs since it’s a bit warmer then Red Curbs and it has parking blocks. I wanted to do a no comply flip as a return challenge to Josh. I set the camera up right away as that trick is a crap shoot and who knows when/if I would land it. Turns out it was like 3rd try. Hyped! I tried a few more with a better angle, but decided to just skate instead. Tried a line for awhile of kickflip over that parking block, b/s flip on flat, fakie flip on flat, fakie flip to front tail. I did get really close once though. I was pretty unsuccessful at 360 flips. All in all kind of not so motivated which was weird. I need to skate different spots and I want some warmer weather darn it!

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)

See more from the artist Frank Zirbel here.

Way less motivated to skate then I would have expected and still pretty sore. It’s kind of scary how little motivation I have to skate every day considering I have ~290 more days of skating this year to meet my goal. Doh. So instead of going to Red Curbs or something I just went out to Rampy. I told myself no more then 15 minutes and I kept it to that. Tried more runs without the tail stall/rock fakie combo. Had a good feeling bean plant. Did a few kickflips on flat.

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)

Was so tired from the day before. Needed one of those short “day off” sessions on Rampy. I ended up getting kind of excited to skate though and probably skated for about 30 minutes. I tried to do fewer tail stall/rock fakies as setup. It’s going to take awhile for me to get out of that route. I didn’t realize how badly I abused that until I saw a clip that Carleigh filmed the other night. I also randomly decided to try some ollie to rock fakies. I ended up doing a few of them. Fun trick. I probably need to ollie much higher for it to count as an “ollie” to rock fakie though.

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)

Woke up at 6am on a cloudy January morning with the temperature in the mid 30s. Not bad. I had planned on watching football with Ollie and wanted to skate before, but since I woke up at 6am I had much more time then I thought. I drove to Denver drinking my smoothie which makes me really cold, but I had the heat cranked Jason style. I went to Denver park to get the legs warmed up. There were a few other people at the park when I got there. I literally did nothing for quite some time other then push around and realize that I like Denver park more then most Team Pain parks. Wow. I finally started doing a few kickflips and back 50s on various quarterpipes. Then I skated the rocket bowl. Well, the shallow side. Did a few basics. I ended by ollieing the curb into the thruster part of the “bowl”. Neat. That was all I needed for a warm up and I drove off in hopes of feeling better then I did at the park.

I went to Auroria campus in hopes of skating the long black manny pads, but they were covered in snow and ice. So I pushed on excited to skate something I’ve never skated before. I’ve really only filmed on the campus, not skated it. The spot above was the first spot I skated. There was a mini kicker back to the right. I did a horrible line. Halfcab flip, kickflip up the curb, front 180 down the 3. A cop drove by and didn’t seem to care I was there. I guess when you are skating by yourself at 8:30 in the morning on a cold January morning they cut you some slack.

I ollied off the 2nd level and went for the 3rd and totally bailed. I realized then I was even more sore and tired then I had anticipated. I also tried to ollie a weird ledge near there.

I came upon this next. I’ve been wanting to work on my narrow ledge ollie game. I took a few tries to ollie onto it (from the far side), but it felt really cool. I did it several times and tried to back 180 off, but never really rode away from it.

Then I was stoked to find this spot. I did a line that took awhile of crooks between skate stoppers on the ledge, kickflip on flat, ollie up the really weird two stair, ollie onto one of the weird manual pads, then ollie the 3.5 stair to icy slide out. The whole area was covered in salt, ice and water. It was weird. I had a few flippers on the sidewalk setting up for the ledge that were fun. A 360 flip felt really good. After awhile I started walking back to my car, but realized I should check out this one other building.

But I came upon this and could not pass it up! I just wanted to manual it, but my body was saying no. I literally could not ollie up the curb high side the first few tries. I knew I was in danger of getting hurt because of how stiff I was, but I didn’t see the slam coming when it did. On a manual attempt I hung up and ate shit so hard. The brutal jump to the body slam. I sat around for awhile in disbelief that ollieing up a curb high ledge could cause that much pain. But I didn’t leave because I am too stubborn. I did a few flippers to get the blood flowing then started trying the manuals again and felt better. Got one. Whew. I was so hungry, tired nauseous feeling. Went to my car. Ate some fruit, drank some water. Stared into the clouds for awhile.

I drove to this ledge as it was the one spot I wanted to skate. It’s been awhile, I just wanted to grind some granite and it was all I could think of. I was feeling a bit better after the rest. Crooks on it felt great. But front 50s were another story. I only landed 1 out of like 40 tried before realizing that I should just leave before I get hurt more. The crack in the frontside approach kills me. I’m definitely feeling the effects of skating every day. My body is extremely sore. I’m still happy I explored a new part of downtown though, that campus area is awesome.

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)

Went to Arvada park on a super nice day. I guess word was out that it was dry and everyone went. I was to meet Carleigh there. I started in the little bowl and did a few back 50s. Carleigh showed. I posed some tricks over the hip for awhile, front heel and b/s flip. Got front 5-0 on the Pier 7 ledge, felt neat. Then Carleigh was trying front boards down the long mellow rail. Pretty gnarly. I hadn’t even tried to boardslide it before so I figured I should at least try it. After a few poses I did it first try. Cool. Carleigh was getting closer and closer to the front board. I started trying a line of crooks on the ledge above and then baordslide. Did it once with a really bad boardslide. I was hyped though. Tried it a bunch more times and was doing better crooks for awhile, but then I just moved on. Carleigh landed on the front board, but never quite rolled away. So sick though. I ended up skating the blue dish for awhile. I love that bank. Actually got treflip to fakie like 3rd or 4th try. Joel Freeman ended up joining me for the flat bank session. He did back 360 no comply finger flip. Yep. Also a switch no comply 360. I also got b/s halfcab flip, fakie flip, f/s flip, couldn’t land fakie treflip and came close no f/s no comply 540. Lots of pivot. I would have been hyped though! Then I went to 303 and intended to skate downtown for awhile too, but ended up being too tired and headed home.

(setup 8″ venture lows bones med bushing spitfire four 50mm wheels)