On a cool and rainy fall night I went to my favorite solo parking garage on Valmont. I started just rolling around doing wallies over the parking blocks and being happy that my achilles is letting me push again. It took awhile before I started trying kickflips and other flippers. I was 0-20 on treflips, but I blame not being able to jump. Something is wrong lately. I have no energy to jump. But I kept at it. I would try a bunch of flippers or slappy tricks then on the tiny curb would either try kick back tail or fakie flip front tail. After awhile I put the newspaper stand out and tried to ollie it. Failed, but committed. Skated around some more. Was feeling kind of down, then all of a sudden did one of the better lines of my life. Ollie the news stand, no comply front 180 and then landed my first ever fakie flip front tail. I rolled away (at 1mph) in disbelief and the stoke hit me. Gonna have to keep trying that one! That ended my session.

Ok who am I kidding, any skating I do would be considered ‘dorking around’ by anyone else. Took the top washer off my trucks just to see how loose they would be. They were too loose. I pushed around the school by my house, slammed on some back 180s and called it a day and put the top washer back on.

Loading

Riley in the flow section. 7.3. @siouxer666 #nullskateboards #notinthenineclub

View on Instagram

Picked up John then met Scotty, Riley, Nolan and Garret at the Erie park to get our Street League on! Warm up qualifiers were rough for me. Dyrdek wanted more hammers, but my body wasn’t able to ollie much. Part of the problem might have been new old shoes (Emerica Romero Laced) and new Bones soft bushings. They actually felt great though. I don’t remember much of anything at this point early on other then Riley was tearing it up as documented in the clip above. I should have wrote this journal entry as I really don’t remember much. There was a good stretch where everyone but me was talking and I was just trying to do a line with a front 50 on a regular ledge and it was killing me. Eventually others were skating. I finally got a front 50 on the ledge above the manual pad. John was doing switch noseslide to front nose and got a fakie front 50 fakie ollie out. Then a quarter pipe session ensued which I mostly filmed for awhile. Nolan was doing gnarly trick after trick and Riley did one heck of a front noseblunt slide. I actually joined after awhile and it was the funnest part of the day for me which is pretty odd. I tried a few “Working Mans” as Riley called them after Nolan did it first try. Basically a fakie hurricane. I never got it, but was close. Felt good to huck on tranny. Got a fakie back smith to fakie and a backside kickflip about 1/5 of the way up a 4 foot quarter pipe. Ha. That park is really fun, I should skate it more.

Took Ollie and his buddy Otto to Stonehenge on a super nice fall day. I felt pretty sore and tired initially, but started doing some of the fun basics. Front smith and kickflip back axle stall were my favorite. Ollie did the three versions of rocks. None decked. Suck it. Otto pushed around. I started trying kickflip front axle stalls as that is a trick on my list. I started getting kinda close so I posted up my camera. Ollie and Otto were just goofing around, but wanting to go. I finally got one. Not super clean, but I don’t think I’ve ever done that on a bank to curb. Pretty hyped.

Then I dropped the boys off and went to the research center. I started with some noseslides and then crooks. I got a bunch of crooks in a row. I was hyped. Took a bit on halfcab noseslide, got a couple tic tac’y back 50s. I was trying a bunch of treflips before the ledge or switch flips coming back up. Didn’t get close to either. Stupid trefilps. Then I started trying this really long line. There is a little curb cut kicker I hadn’t noticed before at the very top of the hill. I did back 180 on it, switch front 180 a manhole, kickflip, no comply 180, halfcab flip, kickflip up the curb, crooks the ledge, manual. Can’t believe it, but I did it. The kickflip and no comply 180 were really bad, but everything else felt good. I ended the day with a crooks to fakie. I love fall weather.

Met Rob and then Matt on a pretty warm afternoon at the Safeway ledges. I got there first. Actually started out pretty good and got front and back 50s pretty quickly. I was wearing some new insoles. Footprint “Gamechangers”. They felt thicker in the arch then my other orthotics, but thinner up front. Rob showed. Around then I had a really great feeling run of crooks the lower fence ledge, front 5-0 the main ledge then a pretty good feeling backside flip on flat. I was hyped. I also got a front smith and a couple kick back 50s complete with tic tacs. I didn’t skate flat a whole bunch. This was the most I pushed in awhile and at times it still hurt pretty bad. Rob had a nice first try back 180 fakie 50, nollie front 50, fakie nosegrind 180 out, nollie front lip, back 50s and back 50 on the fence ledge. Sick! Matt showed up and after one ollie I yelled that he should do a treflip and of course he did. He had a lot of flatground moves. Switch f/s flip, nollie flip, switch flip, switch tre. Geez. A line with back 5-0 then front tail to fakie on the fence ledge and almost a switch tre in a line. In the end Matt did a fakie 5-0 pop out all steezy. Rob was working on a few. I was trying halfcab crooks. Rob and Matt left, I kept trying. I got a few treflips in a row and eventually got the most over 40 make on a halfcab crook ever. Oh well, I think that’s a new one.

Loading

View on Instagram

After setting up for the Crisis art show Matt, Chad and I went to the Broomfield park where nearly everyone in Colorado was. Wow it was crowded. I mostly just dorked around. Had some crooks on the brown box and never really did much else. Riley was destroying the place. Just look at the clip above. Wowsers. Matt tried kick back tails for a solid hour and got a super clean one. I played a game of SKATE with Garrett, Riley and Chad. As you may have predicted I was the first out. Oh well. Then I did boardslide transfers to manual on the brown ledge/bank. Ted was trying boardslide to fakie nosegrind. Bernie was doing kickflip manual twist all over the place on the brown bank. Him and Chad were having fun goofing around together. Then it was time to go to the art show which was a blast. Congrats on 4 years Fuzz!

Had the day off work. Chilled with Liz in the morning then went to Broomfield park around noon. I didn’t really hit anyone up because I wasn’t sure I could push regular there long enough to call it a session. It felt decent though and Rob would come meet up. It was really fun skating an almost vacant park. For awhile I was the only one skating. I took it kind of easy though and didn’t really do any tricks that required much speed/pushing. Tried front noseslides on the black box, kind of got one. Got front 50, front 5-0, noseslide, noseslide fakie, crooks. Almost got a fun line starting at the top of the park with a kickturn on the steep bank, fs ollie on the little hump by the bowl, nollie into the bank, crooks the black ledge then a b/s flip on flat. Never got the b/s flip. Rob showed and warmed up by doing boardslides and manuals on basically everything in the park. The manual up the longer escalator ledge followed by nose manual the blue box was hot. I couldn’t do the darn nose manual on the blue box. Came close to kick back 50 and fakie nosegrind on the blue box. Then we played SKATE. It was a fun one with lots of no complies and flippers. Rob got me with cab, back 360 and something else, but his back of tricks that almost always getsme letters (back 180 one foot, back 180 no comply, 43 shifty, etc) was eluding him so I eventually won with a fakie bigflip. Then we mostly skated the blue bank. Rob worked on no comply manual up and around it and would eventually get it. I tried to manual up it, fs slash the top then manual down. Came pretty close, got lots of manuals, but never with the grind. Still fun though. I also gave kickflip onto the bank, then kickflip to fakie a few whirls, but never did that. Then we headed to Crisis and chilled awhile. Twas fun.

After helping the kids with homework and all that I went to skate some flat again at Valmont. For the most part I skated switch or pushed mongo to nollie tricks. did push regular a few times to test out achilles and do a couple kickflips. It felt decent, but I wanted to give it another day or two. Since I was so close with nollie fs flips the last time I started with them. I don’t think I ever got as close as the previous night. Doh. I tried switch b/s flips too. That trick seems remotely possible. Came super close to a switch flip or two then started trying a couple random ones. Big front heel and fakie hardflip. Big front heel wasn’t close, fakie hard seemed very possible. I have landed that trick once back in 2008 so it’ll still count as new in my book. I didn’t skate for nearly as long as I was pretty tired.

Okay so I didn’t last too long not skating. Two whole days off. But I made a deal with myself that I would not push with my right foot or do any flip tricks where I popped with it. My achilles is doing better, but I’m still limping some. So yeah, switch/nollie tricks do not hurt my achilles in any way. So I went to a remote parking lot (Valmont) where no one would see me skating switch and therefore not landing anything (at all). I tried switch front shoves for awhile and they sucked! I may have gotten one that would have counted on defense in an over 80 game of SKATE. Then I went for switch flips. I’ve only landed one in my whole life, in my garage before rampy existed. I should have just landed the first one because it was right there. Instead I would struggle for an hour on it and never get both feet on. Some were close. I also tried switch heels or switch f/s flips. Not close on either of those. Then started trying switch varial flip rewind which was kinda close. I tried this for like an hour straight. Ugh. In the end I started pushing mongo to try nollie f/s flips and got so insanely close. So close I don’t really know how I didn’t land it. Ugh. So this is the first month this year I didn’t land a new flip trick in which was my goal for the year. Luckily this is skateboarding so I’ll just shoot for two new ones in October. All in all I would say the night pretty much sucked though. Not landing anything at all is depressing. Hopefully my achilles will allow me to push again soon. I can tell that cupsoles are helping it a bit too.

Around noon Rob and I headed to our staple, the research center ledge. We started near the Max Rail goofing around. I love that area. Oh yeah, I was wearing some old Lakais I had lieing around as I wanted some cupsoles. The Marianos. They felt pretty good. We headed down the the ledge. I was really ignoring my achilles pain. Rob skates that ledge uphill mostly and I skate it downhill. He had some nice boardslide pop outs, halfcab boardslide, noseslide, crooks. Carleigh would show too and quickly did noseslide and kickflips. I guess since I had skated so much flat the day before I didn’t put much into flippers. I tried crooks forever. Some felt amazing, but I wouldn’t get out. Carleigh tried heelflips for awhile and got into front 50s. rob added crooks and manuals down the whole hill. Once I had gotten the crooks I started trying lines again. Front 180 up the curb, halfcab flip, crooks. I think I got that, maybe it was a noseslide though. Then I tried a line of front 180 up the curb, fakie flip, halfcab noseslide. But I couldn’t get the fakie flip. It sucked. I seriously spent like an hour trying it. Even switched to slow and pathetic fakie ollies up the curb and still couldn’t get the fakie flip after. I ended up just giving up on it. We skated there for quite awhile and our trick total was probably like 5 tricks. Ha. We went and hung with Jack at work for awhile.

Jack thought of this spot so Rob and I went there. I was hoping it was shady, but it wasn’t. It was quite hot. I couldn’t even ollie up the little curb initially I was sore and my achilles was killing me. We pulled through though. First was some ride down manuals which were fun. Then ollieing up the curbs, etc. Rob and I did the main manual starting near the stairs and coming towards the camera. Neither of us got all that we wanted. I worked on kickflips up the glorified curb and eventually got one. I wanted to follow it with a kickflip off, but was going too slow and just bonelessed instead. Rob had a rad line up the stairs of ollie, manual and ollied out of the manual onto the top level. Super clean too. So sick. I ended by doing the quick up then ollie the little gap past the curb. That spot reminds me of Neil and I wish he would have been there to skate with us. :`(

Lots of skating so that was cool, but I got home and my achilles was really swollen. I did some research and that is not good at all. So I might not be skating for awhile. Knowing me it’ll only be a couple days because I’m stubborn like that, but who knows. Not being able to even push comfortably is no fun.

Somehow my achilles felt better. I wanted to skate flat and went to the hockey rink by the rollerblade park near IBM. It was really hot out. My board felt rather large. Guess I’m still not used to the big setup. I skated pretty hard, but my achilles was definitely still effecting me. Got a few clean treflips which is good for me these days. Took a long time on fakie big flips. Other tricks went alright. Wanted to start a line with nollie tre, but never quite got one. I should do this more often. Although when I got back to work I was super sore. Turns out those Etnies RCTs are pushing my big toe in all weird. Ugh. Skate shoes. Ugh.