Rolled up to the park at lunch on a really warm day and my new homie Luke was there. He challenged me to a game of SKATE so that’s how I spent most of my lunch. I struggled with treflip and heelflips, otherwise it probably would have been over pretty quick. He got me with f/s flip and hardflip and a couple other ones. Earlier in the day on gchat I made a deal with Nate that we would learn kickflip backside noseslides so I wanted to try some. I wasn’t close. I didn’t get to skate the park much actually since most of it was spent playing SKATE (which isn’t all bad).

And it’s appropriate today.

On another beautiful day I went o the ledge park at lunch time. This time someone was there skating. Whoa. He ended up being pretty cool and was another older dude on lunch break from Seagate. Skate nerds unite! It was a little weird sharing the park, but it worked out. Then the parks dept starting draining the sprinklers around the park and spots got wet so that made it worse. Another dude showed. I guess they go there at lunch every day. Cool. I started trying some front tails on the mini banks. Then a few front 50s on the little ledge. Ollies over the flat bar. Almost got a line with ollie over the bar, front 50, kickflip fakie, halfcab noseslide. I was 1-10 on treflips. Was about to finally try and front 50 the tall part of the little ledge, but the sprinkler behind it came on. Ended up playing a game of SK with my lunch break buddies. I got a letter on treflip, but won. They left and I failed at ollieing up the tall ledge for awhile then started trying kickflips to fakie on one of the little flat banks. With that big crack at the bottom and my little wheels it was hard. I would eventually land one although the crack tossed me. Oh well. I really wish there was one perfect ledge rather then them all being so tall except the narrow one against the grass.

I tried @neilsoffire but this was all I came up with before I gave up on filming. I have a new respect for how hard it is to make a #neilsdailyvid. Either way ditching out of work to skate for awhile rules.

A video posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Nov 11, 2014 at 2:17pm PST

Shortly after lunch and a meeting I bailed to the nearby park. It was sunny and warmer, but still cool with a crispness in the air. I felt stiff, but I suppose it gets old reading that every time. Anyways warming up went somewhat ok. Had some better then usual front 50s on the little ledge and ollied the flat bar way quicker then normal. Ollies were rough though and the tall stuff there wasn’t working. I couldn’t get on the tall ledge. I tried filming like Neil does for a minute and above is seriously all I got. I didn’t feel like dealing with the angles and hitting record so I stopped. I couldn’t ollie the little part of the angled ledge. I tried getting over it at a taller point though. Got one flatground treflip. Came remotely close to some really slow bigflips. Had some front boards on the flat bar that may have slid over a foot. Believe it or not I’m hyped on that. I really like skating this park by myself. I skate different then I would around others. It’s fun. Maybe I’ll get better at taller stuff, maybe not. But it’s way funner then just going to the gym at work.

@43shifty crailtap

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Nov 11, 2014 at 2:24pm PST

I met up with Rob and Dave at the only spot in Denver after making a run to Emage. Dave had to setup a new board. Rob and I cruised around the area a bit then mostly hit the hill. I didn’t do much of anything other then powerslides. These STFs slide so good. Rob and Dave tried the wallride thing for awhile. Then we pushed for awhile to get to the bank spot above to meet an old friend of Rob/Dave’s named Brian. He’s rad. We skated this spot for awhile. I didn’t do much of anything. Rob had the crailtap above, b/s flip, and some more. Dave had some rad roll ins and front pivot. We moved on. Hit some weird building structure with some yellow curbs and this weird angle iron you could ride on. Rob killed it with a first try back 360 off a curb cut and a lot of back 50s. Brian and Rob did manuals to grind. Dave had some manuals. I took a lot of tries to do a cali grind to one foot long nose manual turned to disaster. More moving around. We went by a spot with a tall ledge and wallride. Rob had many radical wallrides. I got one noseslide. I tried a line with ollie onto a bench then treflip then noseslide. Never got the treflip. Then we went to some bank spot, but on the way I noticed a really fun 4 stair section that everyone else passed up. Ollie a 4, cross the road, ollie up a curb, ride off a 2 stair, ollie down a 4. Man it was fun. I would have loved to skate it longer, but I had to catch up. We skated this steep driveway for a bit. I kickflipped and fakie bigflipped into it. Thanks for spotting Dave. Rob and Dave had some rad no complies sideways into it off a weird curb. I’m probably missing spots. We were really street skating. Just pushing from spot to spot having a blast. I think we ended up at the Denver art museum. I was bummed on how I couldn’t ollie up the black ledges easily. Those dudes were on the far side. I got booted so met up with them and there was a gap to sidewalk that seemed fun. I front 180’d it then met up with everyone at a cool little wallride. We all did regular wallrides. I think Brian and I got frontside ones. Dave almost died trying a wallie. Rob did a sick alley oop wallride. We chilled for a minute then started heading back towards our cars. Dave and I did the wallie out of the grated thing by the library. We skated a little manny pad for awhile across from the world trade center. Dave has a casual manual. Then we went across the street and actually lasted quite awhile. Dave had some really good wallrides. We all had some fun firecrackers. I did one followed by the worst wallies ever done. I had fun ollieing up the 3 stair part then bean plant over the little curb thing and kickflip up one stair and front 180 it. Dave firecrackered the 4 stair. I think that was pretty much it. That was some real street skating. When it was all done my trucks looked like they had covered a lot of the city.

Scenic autumn colors. Today was awesome.

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Nov 11, 2014 at 8:25pm PST

Carleigh, Rob and I rolled up to Fort Collins in the afternoon. We went to MRKT first and Skelly and Mike were there. Perfect. We rolled with them and another old dude Chip and his friend Eli to the slappy post office spot. The weather was perfect. Mike broke a baseplate on one of his first slappy attempts, but luckily he had an extra in his truck. Rob was killing it out of the gates. Slappies both ways, slappy crooks, manuals, manual 180s, everything. For whatever reason I don’t like that curb so much. So I just kind of skated around more then the curb. There was a new gap across the street. Young guy Eli and I checked it out. It was off a beveled ledge, about a 5 or 6 stair drop, but only a few feet in distance over a little bush. Eli did it first try and back 180’d it too. I took too many tried to commit, but finally committed to the ollie. Didn’t land ride away and security came by so I didn’t get another try. Doh. I was hyped to actually try it though as it was a big gap for me. I filmed everyone skate for awhile. Rob got a couple of his moves, Carleigh got a really good slappy or two, Mike had a rad line, Skelly did a backside no comply over a curb.

@skelly #ftc

A photo posted by Rob Helmstetter (@43shifty) on Nov 11, 2014 at 4:52pm PDT

Then we went to this bank to curb. It’s harder to skate then it looks, but it’s a blast. Skelly rattled off like 20 tricks. Most of them first try. Rob put down a lot of moves too. We skated there quite a while. I did a front tail shove which I don’t think I have done on a bank to curb. Carleigh learned axle stall then did back feeble first or second try. Skelly had front feeble, front d to fakie, bean plant fakie so many more. Rob had back shove nose stall and some crazy feeble smith dance. I added a kick back axle and then rolled into the far side which was really scary avoiding all the death traps. Mike got a really sick halfcab nosestall. Fun times.

LaLuzers post awesome awesome

A photo posted by glen gillinghammer (@corpoglenny) on Nov 11, 2014 at 7:14pm PDT

Then we had a nice dinner at LaLuz. Yum.

Flatground Friday! I can never tell when I’m going to skate flatground good. I was mentally hyped on it today, but it became apparent pretty quickly that I wouldn’t land much. It was cold, but not that cold. My board was flat and slippery from the water dunk it took last week. That’s not really much of an excuse, but oh well. So yeah, I went to the hockey rink instead of the gym and skated flatground for about 45 minutes. The rink has a slight slope to it. Going downhill I would try tricks I should be able to land. Going slightly uphill I would try new ones. For a long time I failed at fakie double flips up and treflips down. I gave up on fakie double flips and tried switch varial flip rewinds. Both were close at times, but never that close. I landed on about 50 treflips, but never rode away. Then I randomly started trying varial flip sex changes and they felt close. A few tries later I sketchily rode away from one. Cool! So now I’m only one month behind again. So then I started trying treflips until I landed one. Took like 10 minutes. I was upset. But landing one made everything feel alright.

I met Dave at Boulder ditch after work. Warming up was not fun. I bailed curb high ollies on the regs. I would eventually have fun trying to ollie over the pipe then boardslide transferring back into it. I did a couple other dork around things. I filmed Dave do a couple rad lines. Here’s a screen shot of one. It looks easy to 5-0 that right? It’s not. Not at all.

Then we ate and went to the newish ledge spot at Pearl & 30th. We started slow as we were sore by slappying up the angled part. We looked pretty darn old I reckon. But we stuck with it and had fun. Dave had some really long slappy back 50s, some to tail, slappy crooks, boardslides. I had a few decent frontside slappy 50s, regular front 50s, front 5-0, front 50 180 out, a couple weak crooks and one lousy back 50.

Instead of taking my typical mid morning gym break I went to the nearby skatepark again. I was really upset with how poorly I skated last night and wanted to redeem myself. I did. I skated faster, harder, did some new stuff and had fun. Pretty early on I had a great feeling treflip on flat. The best one I’ve done in awhile. I had some front 50s on the little ledge, crooks on it, crooks on the taller part of it, halfcab noseslide. I was determined to ollie onto the middle ledge near the flatbars. I got close, close, then somehow a miracle happened and I was riding on top of it so I front 180’d off and smiled. I also got crooks up one of the escalator ledges which felt great, front 50 too. Last two things I was trying were front shove off the main ledge (without ollie’ing up sorry) and ollie over the small side of an escalator ledge. Got the ollie pretty easy and instead of trying the front shove again I left. Hyped.

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