Easily one of the best bands out. They just reissued their first album and made this amazing video for the incredible song Boring Girls. Love it.

thornton park

Had the day off work. Left my house by 9am solo looking forward to a day of no schedules or anything. Drove to this Thornton park sipping on a smoothie listening to the new J Mascis album loudly. It was awesome. Arrived at the park and there was only a couple dudes there. Had a tougher time warming up then I would have thought, but finally settled into some lines until I got them. Fakie flip on flat, tiny f/s halfcab over a hip, front slash the tight qp. Halfcab flip, kickflip over the hip, feeble stall the qp, bean plant the hip. Switch front 180 into a mellow bank, ollie up the euro, front 50 down the ledge on the back of the qp, f/s flip the hip (only landed one with my hand down). Tried to ollie the three stair then b/s flip the hip, but never got the b/s flip. Another older dude had shown up and was killing some ledges which was rad. He was rocking headphones on a solo tip. I really struggled at ollies again. Couldn’t front 50 a regular ledge to save my life. Struggled on the qp, got a front d. Rolled into the 4 foot section pretty easily.

Went to Lafayette for a short session after work. It was super nice out. When I got there Blake was there. Super hyped to see him. Matt met up too. I had new shoes. Another pair of the NB+ Startfords. They skated pretty good out of the gate. I haven’t seen Blake skate in awhile and he was ripping. Long slappy willy grind on the bank curb. You can tell he skates there a lot. Matt treflipped up the euro pretty quick. My legs were feeling beyond horrible. Basically the only thing I did the whole time that felt worth a crap was a flatground treflip slightly before Matt did a switch treflip. Matt had some good lines with like front lips on the marble flat bar, back tail the back of the toilet bowl ledge. Blake has moves. Good seeing him again.

There are multiple old man nights on Tuesday. The bowl dudes go to Lafayette. We were going to Broomfield for awhile. But Fuzz is fed up with skateparks and wanted to get a downtown Denver mission going. This is why I love Fuzz. I had to leave a little later then everyone because of India’s ballet schedule and me needing to watch Ollie. I parked for free several blocks away from Tabor where I was to meet them. I pushed pretty fast to meet them and kind of hurt my achilles. Well, not it’s above my achilles in my calf which is probably from all the exercises I have been doing to heal the achilles. Ha, it’s a never ending circle when you’re old. I had also put my smaller Venture hangers back on. They felt great. Happy to be back.

Okay so yeah, skating. When I met up with them this was happening.

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Bolts.

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Pretty darn awesome. He was telling us about how he used to go down hills while doing hand stands. We messed around a little. Ended up in a parking lot where Blaine and I dropped in on a bank for awhile trying to get up the courage to ollie in, but we didn’t. Then we hit a fun little garage with a curb cut gap in to manny pad. It was pretty fun. We were starting to get things going when we got the boot. Doh.

We remembered to hit this spot and were blown away by how amazing it is. We skated it for a long time in different waves of sessions. I was feeling like crap on my skateboard. Hurt achilles, my shoes had no board feel, etc. Rob, Darin and I skated ledges on the far side for awhile. Rob had a nice back 50 through a corner. I was really struggling. Then we skated the hill into the spot for awhile which was super fun. Powerslides, ollies, etc. Fuzz and I ollied onto a round bench in the middle. Can’t believe Max ollied the gap. Well, my ollies up were dumb. I like the Bones wheels a lot how they slide so easy. Maybe I’ll experiment with some Spitfire 4s next. Rob had a super sick manual down the sidewalk. Blaine killed some back 180s and the best no comply 180 I’ve ever seen with one foot on for like 5 feet. Fuzz missed a manual for a beer. Unbelievable. Guess he doesn’t like beer anymore. Then we skated the main ledge you see in the photo for awhile. Darin did front, back tails, 50s, looked good. Rob did nose manual front 180 out. Fuzz had some nice back 50s, fakie front 50 with pop out or halfcab out and nose mannies. Blaine darn did a nice manual. I had some of the better crooks I’ve done in awhile. Tried a line of back 50, kickflip a puddle, then crooks. Almost had it, but instead basically rolled my ankle on the crooks. Luckily my past ankle rolls have made my ankle pretty flexible and it was ok. But I am officially done with the Romeros. They are crap. Then we hit a little spot with a cali grind then quick noseslide. Fuzz and I got it. Then we did back 50 on the middle ledge. So fun. That was basically it and we walked back to our cars. Street skating is the best.

Rating: STYLE
Rating: COMFORT
Rating: BOARD FEEL
Rating: BREAK IN PERIOD (Good rating means it doesn’t take long to break in)
Rating: SOLE DURABILITY
Rating: UPPER DURABILITY
Rating: OVERALL

I’m super hyped that Es is back. I’m hoping they put together a small team and keep at it. Anyways I had a few pairs of these. They run big. I normally wear a size 11, I wore a size 10 in these. They are very thin vulcs, so the break in period is almost non-existent. The sole durability is average for a vulc shoe. The top is below average, if I didn’t shoe goo them they would have had a hole in a couple days. The black ones with the patent leather are a bit much, but other then that they are a good looking shoe. I wore these on a road trip and my achilles was super sore by the end from pushing. I’m old though and should probably stick with the added support of cupsoles. All in all a decent vulc shoe.

Worked all morning. Was finally free to go skate a little and it was raining. Ugh. Kicked a soccer ball with Ollie for awhile in a covered section at the school until the rain stopped. Then went to research center feeling pretty tired. Just a couple days after saying my arthritis has benefitted from my new diet it flared up something fierce. It was pretty chilly out. Hoodie weather. I am as stubborn as it gets and tried to skate through it. Had a couple fun boardslides to start the session. A noseslide or two, one to fakie. Couldn’t get halfcab noseslide, but at least I was getting some poorly popped fakie flips before hand. Crookie grinds went pretty good. Got one back 50 that was kind of an accident. I tried to bail at the last second, but it turned out I was already grinding. I took that as a sign that I did not belong on my skateboard and left very bummed. Arthritis truly sucks.

Rob came over around 3 after I had spent some time working in the morning. It was super nice out. We started at the little manny pad by Mikes camera. The asphalt aint so great anymore, but that didn’t stop us. I had a new board (8.25) and wheels (bones stf 51mm thin ones). Rob got the first try manual challenge. I didn’t. Or second or third, etc. Clearly I was going to suck. We tried quite a few tricks and came close on some rare ones. Rob almost got halfcab manual back 180 out. He got a bunch of no comply manuals. Almost nose manual turned to fakie nose manual. I almost got kickflip manual, nose manual shove, nollie shove manual. Tried manual no comply shove out, didn’t get remotely close to that one. My board was feeling awkward.

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Good times and great commentary with @43shifty today. How the heck do you pop up that so easy @maxgarson @stumblin_steele ? #old

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Then we drove around striking out on spots due to cars for awhile and ended up here. I told Rob I had a line on my list there. Several tries later I rolled away from it. Ollie up, boneless wallride, kickflip off. Later on watching the footage made me laugh so hard because of Rob’s commentary so I had to make a little post. I was seriously crying laughing at the stuff Rob said. All in all a pretty fun day. I kind of skated like crap and still managed to get a line I really wanted so that’s cool.

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Senior snaps and a rare park sighting from the man behind our graphics @43shifty.

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At the skatepark.

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After work I met Rob at the Lafayette “skatepark”. I put skatepark in quotes because the park rarely gets used for skateboardings. It’s more of a hang out for rollerbladers, scooters, bikers, parkour enthusiasts, parents, people walking their dogs, etc. We battled through it though and had a pretty good session. We skated the middle section a lot. Rob had some good lines with the ollie you see above, a kickflip on the bank, front slash on the tiny coping and then a boardslide on the curb with tight tranny under it. I did some frontside ollies, wallies both ways on the rock hip, tricks on the tight qp by the entrance and a couple flip tricks on the bank. I had a few noseslides down the hubba that felt really weird. Rob cruised the snake run dodging scooter brawls. We skated the medium bowl for a bit. We ended with a game of SKATE where I couldn’t really land anything and I went down to Rob. The back 360 was a letter for sure, backside shifty one foot too. He good. Fun session surprisingly.

Go see more from Frank Zirbel, Psycho’s creator.

So many good parts this week, but the winner is this “lost” part of Ryan Gallant from the PJLWHL era. That video is my favorite video so to see a bunch of new clips from that era rules. I always loved Gallant’s part too and he has remained one of my favorites. Throw in a few unseen PJ tricks and you got the clip of the week.

Runner up is this Chris Joslin part that I’ve watched like 30 times already this week. It’s mind blowing to me and has that possessed skate rat quality that I love.

Then there is this insanity. Seriously all 3 of these parts are beyond amazing.