My uncle Frank Zirbel sent me some more Psycho Unity frames to upload. So look for a new one every week or so for quite some time! Hyped! Also, check out some of his movies on his youtube channel FrankJosephZirbel here.

This one probably shouldn’t count as an entry, but I guess I did enough tricks to warrant it. I skated about 10 minutes in a parking garage because it was raining. I had dropped India off at ballet and had two hours of free time before I needed to pick her up. I went to the Valmont garage. I started with some slappy stalls on the parking block. Got most of the basics. axles, pivots, feebles both ways. back crooks. I really hate the Leo Laced shoe. Beyond hating. They feel bad for my feet even just wearing them. I bailed a kickflip and left for Meta to get new shoes. Then I ended up talking to John until I picked up India. It probably took me longer to write this then the time I spent skating. Oh well.

Met Dave at Northglenn park around 9am. There were just a few people there. But one really annoying mom training her kids to be the next Ryan Sheckler. It was ridiculous. There were several kids she was yelling at and encouraging them to try harder, go faster, learn this, learn that. Her voice carried so far. I wanted to focus my board. She sucked. Luckily she eventually left. Dave was ripping as usual. Did his boardslide transfer, feeble stall on the jersey barrier, nice lines around the park. I was kinda sucking. Had a fun line with fakie flip on a bank then a boardstall transfer up onto the marble hubba. Then Dave and I began training for street league. I mean trying tricks we wanted to do at Ambulance ditch. Dave did back 3s over the big hip and I did no comply 270s over the little hip.

So off we went. Dave was first and got his back 3 pretty quickly. I went next and after failing at b/s flips on the far bank for a bit the line came relatively quick. Dave was up next again and tried to frontside pivot the ledge which has a rail a few inches above it. SLAM. Seriously brutal slam with his tail catching on the rail.

Luckily he had a Null 5 Panel on and it saved his face. Check the bent bill! So crazy. He ended up getting up and getting it a few tries later though. We were just kinda messing around and I started hucking f/s halfcab flips. Dave started filming even though I wasn’t really serious about it yet and then I started getting closer and then it turned into a very long ordeal (kind of like this sentence). Some 70+ tries later I landed one! Ha. It did feel great though. Like really great. Really really great. Pretty neat to have to dream tricks for a spot and actually land them and get them on film.

Feeling pretty arthritic and only wanting to skate tranny I hit up Darin to see if he was skating his ramp. Darin’s friends Ivan and Ben joined. Darin didn’t skate much as he was hungover. He did grace the ramp with a bunch of his patented rock to willy tricks. I started out pretty slow bailing a lot of basics. But there were a few highlights like a first try f/s beanplant, a few front tails and front smiths. I bailed a lot of front 50s though and couldn’t quite put down the fakie pivot fakie. Ivan and Ben learned acid drops. Ivan kind of destroys it and Darin filmed this.

So yeah that pretty much summarizes Ivan’s skating minus the really long and fast grinds. Fun session although I was still pretty sore. I went to Crisis after and hung with Fuzz and John for quite awhile. It was cool. Then John and I went to Broomfield park for a mellow session. I had some new shoes. Emerica Leo Laced. I had them because my Es Accents are broken in perfect for Portland and I didn’t want to ruin them. These are cupsoles, and not as flexible as the original Laced. Oh well. We did a lot of slappy noseslide back 270 out attempts. Neither getting close, but they seemed possible if we kept working on them. We played a game of SKATE with Will and John killed it. He landed more tricks then he normally does. I was first out and blame the new shoes (ha). I then spent a long time trying treflips and eventually landed one. That was pretty much it. Fun times.

Slept horrible, worked, then dragged my stubborn ass to the rollerblade park after work. The rain was threatening, but never amounted to more then a few sprinkles. I felt beyond horrible on my skateboard. I struggled to ollie the flat bar and to front 50 the narrow ledge. I did do several noseslides on the tallest ledge in the park though and get a first try ollie onto the long main ledge that I normally can’t even ollie onto. Whew! After that I kept struggling, did a sweeper or to (Dumb and Dumber To reference) and called it a day.

Got the early shift this week. So after a nap, a smoothie dinner (motivated my Reynolds and PJ) and a visit to Crisis I met Darin and John and Broomfield park. They were warming up on the quartapotty so I joined. It was fun. John gots pivot fakies perfect now. Darin can front blunt every time. I got most of my tricks. We tried to manual the blue pad too and I ran into. It wasn’t looking good for ollies. We ended up getting some stuff. Nothing special for me until John got me to ollie into the brown slanted ledge. That was cool! I’ve wanted to do that for awhile. Then we played a game of SKATE that lasted pretty long doing tricks we don’t always do. John got me with impossible and varial flip. I got him with halfcab flip, fakie bigflip, something, nollie tre (first try!) and a fakie varial flip. We hucked a bit more after that, but left as I was getting really tired.

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 don’t have many good things to say about these shoes. The horrible lack of durability is inexcusable. Get it together Emerica. Neither of these lasted longer then a week.

Jake and I went to Valmont on the way to Longmont to meet Dave. We warmed up with some tail scrapes across manual pads and not landing much. I managed the long manual and a nose manual. Jake challenged me to a game of SKATE and it didn’t go so good for him. I got him letters on front shove, fakie flip, halfcab flip, varial flip and one of the ugliest treflips I’ve done to date.

Then we went to Niwot high. It was hot and the ledge didn’t grind well. We struggled. Jake managed front tail to fakie, halfcab noseslide, a front 50 that took way too many tries for him to be happy, front 5-0 and ended on a back 50 that also took a long time. I got a crooks jib, halfcab noseslide, front 50, front 5-0, some bad front noses. Tried to ollie onto a different ledge and kickflip off, but didn’t really get the ollie up. Hucked kickflip noseslides for awhile and got remotely close. Dave showed and we pretty much just left. Doh, sorry Dave.

We went to this new spot. Those banks are steeper then they look. We started off slow not knowing what the spot would entail and it turned into a really fun session. Dave and Jake jumped over a large cable spool via hippy jump and ollie respectively then did front tail and pivot fakie. Sick. Dave also feebled a sketchy flat bar. I got a halfcab flip and then a pivot on the bank coming down past the wood. Neat. Then we skated flatground for awhile and Jake did a bunch of heelflips which he hasn’t landed in years. Rad.

Went to the research ledge after lunch. Got there well before Dave and Rob. Felt slightly less arthritic and had more energy, but skating was still tough. Started with the same routine of some 180s down the hill and noseslides. Tried some crooks posted up for longer. Had a couple good feeling ones. Started trying back 50s and it was a hopeless cause. Rob and Dave showed. Around then I had one of my better lines of the day. Fakie bigflip, kickflip up the curb, crooks the ledge, manual the long pad. Then I flailed at treflips for a good 30 minutes trying to start a line. Eventually landed one poorly and tried to follow it with front 180 up the curb, fakie flip on flat then halfcab noseslide. Didn’t get the hcns. Couldn’t get another treflip. Those dudes were getting in the groove. Rob manualled everything. Dave was doing rad wallie manuals. Then it started raining. Argh. Fuller worked through it though and filmed a super rad boardslide pivot on the stair. In the rain!

Then we went to Red Curbs. I mostly just did front 50s, 5-0s, and front smith attempts on the taller curb. Dave filmed Rob get a line or two. Pretty rad.

We weren’t even old then. Especially Nick and Steve. Anyways this was a clip that I made after a skate trip to LA in 2006. Starring Troy “Chief” James, Josh Pluger, Steve Lynn (needs to start skating again), Nick Wirtz (has anyone seen him?) and me.