After swimming a mile around the lake at the reunion and a round of golf (never playing again) I met up with the Fremonsters at the York park. It ended up being such a rad session. Those dudes all rule.

Dan claims to not have skated well. Maybe he didn’t, but he still smiled the whole time and manualed the box to front board off followed by a manual to back board off. As well as the rad grass stall above and a fakie inward heel on the bank followed by a fakie heelfip first t.

Eric fell a lot at the start. I made a lot of jokes how that isn’t the Eric I remember. He killed it in the end showing that he skates that park every day and pushes himself. He killed the mini ramp (staplegun, feeble fakie) and all kinds of unique lines around the park. He even ollied at the end of the session. Yes, an ollie!

A friend of Eric’s named Justin was there. He ripped. Front nosegrind across the stair, ollie up the tallest ledge, front tail to fakie the mellow bank to ledge, back smith the weird kinked flatbar, back blunt on it too, pole jams like they was nothing, a lot more.

I skated decent. Got a front smith on the mellow bank to ledge and a first try front tail. I didn’t skate the mini or flatground too well. I had a lot of problems just ollieing up the curb because I kept missing my tail. I had fun with the early grab cali grind even though I took a couple good slams on it. Also had a fun line of kickflip over the hip then front 50 back 180 out on the little ledge. Got frontside flip on on the top mellow bank then b/s flip on the bank to the mini and some other flippers on the bank next to the stairs like fakie varial flip. At the end of the session I gave my deck to Eric as his was totally trashed and I don’t want such a big board anymore.

Matt is so freakin’ good at skateboarding. Back nosegrind the top stair, almost back 5-0 front 180 out, front nosegrind the mellow bank to ledge, quick up back 50 off the ledge contraption, boardslide shove the kinked flatbar, back feeble it, tricks that started with nollies (ha), so much more I can’t remember right now.

Joe took more tries than me to land a front smith on the mellow bank to ledge! Ha ha Joe! He killed it though. Front 50 to front board, front 50 shove, front smith on the mellow bank to ledge. Did his patented “Joe Hamilton” on the mini. Did a line of front tail on the top bank, turned to boardslide off the ledge into the lower bank then front smith on the lower ledge.

All in all a really fun session with a really fun crew.

At a cabin in Nebraska on a family reunion for Liz’s family.  In my stupidity I decided to use a few free minutes to skate in the driveway at the cabin.  It went OK initially which was surprising considering how much I had swam and stuff earlier.  I did several of my easier basics, but struggled on the harder ones.  Landed on a nollie varial flip, posed double backside flips, ended with a crappy treflip.  Getting sick of how hard flip tricks are with the big setup.

Slept in kinda late and slowly packed for our family vacation. Then finally realized it was Go Skateboarding Day and I needed to get skating! Ollie loves GSD and decided on Valmont as our first spot. We started on the manny pad area. He had a couple clean wallie manuals (one of these days he’ll care enough to do a clean ollie). I almost got manual drop manual up to nose manual. I would have been so hyped. Then we went across the street to the bank above. Ollie did pop shove fakie, fakie shove and halfcab both ways. I started trying no copmly bigger spins and ended up figuring out how to add a heelflip to it and somehow the stars aligned for me to do a no comply lazer flip. Or no comply bigger heelflip. I don’t even know, either way I was pretty hyped. Ollie filmed it, but had his finger in the way. Maybe it adds something to it. Ha.

Then we went to good ol’ Stonehenge after picking up Jack. It’s been forever since any of us have been there. It was slightly harder to land tricks then I remember. Ollie did rock ‘n rolls and then skated the loading dock into the slight downhill sidewalk. He got halfcabs and fakie shoves into it. I just skated the bank to curb. Got most of the basics, struggled with front disaster for some reason. Got a kickflip axle stall, kind of a kickflip pivot and a really great feeling kick back tail that took awhile to get. Jack did all kinds of awesome tricks including the kickflip pretzel rock ‘n roll above. Also front smith to fakie, pivot fakie (totally messed up), blunt fakie, bigspin pivot bigspin out. Geez.

Then we dropped off Ollie and met Dan at Crestview. It ended up being pretty fun. Jack did boardslide push along to boardslide 270 shove out. It doesn’t even make sense. He also did boardslide to front 5-0 shove out. Then he ended up filming Dan and I try tricks. Dan did a sick switch front board transfer. Actually, he did a few of them. None were perfect for him, but they were all sick. I was trying boardslide drop down to back 50. I got pretty close. Almost did one with a feeble grind. We were all beat, but played a game of SKATE. I was the first out. None of the tricks I got letters one were out of my range. Oh well. Jack broke his board on a hardflip. Doh. I think Dan ended up winning? I’m not even sure. But Jack’s board was super cracked and he did a pressure flip and the baord broke in half. It was really funny.

Lastly we ended up at Boulder ditch after grabbing some drinks. It was an awesome ender to an awesome day. Jack rode Ollie’s board which was still in my trunk. Some basic stalls / rocks were done on the qp and some boardslides on the PVC coping. Not much more. Then we hung out and talked skateboarding. It was amazing. Jack and Dan rule. I had a great day.

After getting out of work early on a hot Friday I went to Crisis to sell boards and hang out with one of my favorite dudes. I ended up being there for quite a while. Then I went to the Broomfield park for what turned into a pretty depressing session. I skated the black ledge for awhile. Managed to back 50 it a few times which is tall for me. Especially considering how bad I was skating. Got a line of front 5-0, kickflip to fakie on the mellow bank then halfcab noseslide on the black ledge. Then I went up to the bowl area. Had fun pumping around it. Did some back 50s in the corner I hadn’t before. Tried to roll in and totally failed (thanks JP). Then took a really long time to do a axle stall on the pool coping section. As bad as I skated I still felt somewhat stoked when I left. Maybe I was happy because I realized I haven’t been skating parks lately? Cool.

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

My first Vans in forever. I’m gonna say that although the sole blew apart I still really liked these shoes. The board feel and grip was amazing. They kinda hurt my feet when trying flip tricks, but whatevs, they are great shoes. Stylee as most Vans are of course.

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

Actually experimented with a corporate shoe. Everything about this shoe is great, except the sole blows out immediately. Which is a big problem! The sole was bare of tread within a week of skating. If you are gonna whore yourself out in corporate shoes, they should at least be durable!

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

This is not a good shoe. I really don’t have one good thing to say about it. The fit is horrible. The sole is kinda thick which could be ok, but combined with a super thin upper it’s just weird fitting shoe. Neither the sole or upper last long. The style isn’t all that either, but at least it doesn’t have a swoosh on it.

After work I played football with Ollie for awhile then unloaded ~600 pounds of skateboards. I was super tired and exhausted, but it was so nice out I wanted to enjoy it for a bit. For the most part I enjoyed it, but oh man I struggled with some tricks. Halfcab flips were gone again. Heelflips were impossible. Treflips happened and I put my foot on one right in the middle of the board and made my totally cracked board totally more cracked (totally). I hucked cabs for awhile. I really want to learn that trick so that I can eventually do cab flips. But I think I get closer when I try with the flip anyway. Got so close to many nollie tres. Kinda close to a fakie varial heel. Frustrating night. My board was so cracked at the end that I knew I would have to set up a new one so I took some frustration out and focused it. Felt good.

On a rainy night Matt came over and we skated Rampy for almost an hour before I watched a movie with the kids. It was Matt’s first time skating Rampy and his first few runs were pretty funny. But he got it together and landed some front tails, front d and back d. I had kind of a weird night and felt like I was way inside on every trick. I got the tiniest hurricane and front feebs possible. Got quite a few fakie pivoty tricks. Pretty fun brief session.

Ollie’s allergies were driving him nuts so getting him out skating wasn’t looking good. He kept resisting. So I went out and skated flatground in front of the house. After a few minutes of warming up Jake joined. I was skating decent by then, actually really good for me. That might be because my new warm up routing of foam roller, yoga and jump rope is working. Jake got a treflip second or third try and we were both just doing our thing. I was landing halfcab flips consistently which felt great since I’ve struggled with that one lately. Kinda got a tre or two, fakie varial flip, heelflip, fakie bigflip, landed on nollie tre, hucked a few more. Jake got halfcab flip quick too.

I went in to get water for us and Ollie announced to me that he wanted to go skating too. So off to campus we went. First thing we hit was a drop in front of the student center. It’s about six inches above handrail height. Jake got it pretty quickly. I took a few, but was happy to land it too.

We moved on to the old 4 stair gap. Jake ollie’d it quick. I took a few tries and managed to not even touch the tail when I got it. Jake and I both got front 180’s down it too. Jake tried halfcabs for a bit (photo) and I tried front shoves. they weren’t close. Especially after I hit an old screw sticking up from the bus stop and slammed super hard.

Then we ended up here. There is a little skate stopper in there that you have to pop over making it way tougher then it looks. I’ve wanted to ollie the grass gap since seeing Cameron’s footage of his 3 shove over it. Ollie and I lined out the gap by starting at the ledge up the hill a bit, dropping into the lower ledge, then ollieing off. So fun. Took a bunch of tries, but I got the line with the ollie over the little grass gap. I’m sure the ollie was really low, but I was really hyped on doing a line with so many drops. Ollie just dropped into the grass instead of ollie’ing the grass gap. It was funny because after I bailed once Ollie said to me “you don’t have to clear it, you can just ride though it.” Awesome. Jake didn’t do the first ledge part, but tried the grass gap. He landed on it, but never quite got it. And he owes me a cider!

Then we headed towards the pink ledges area. Jake bolted to it. Ollie and I skated stuff on the way there. I tried to ollie onto some tallish ledges on the way. Did some 180’s and ollies along the path over cracks. Ollie ollied off the tall engineering ledge. At the pink ledge/pad area I had a blast. Got a line pretty quickly of ollie onto a ledge, kickflip off, slappy back 50 the ledge, bail a b/s fip. I met Jake and Ollie doing tricks off the main pink pad. Jake did a bunch of kickflips. Ollie did front 180’s and b/s halfcabs off it. I got a first try front shove then tried a bunch of b/s flips. Got close, but never rode away. Super fun night.