On a cloudy, cold and windy day I headed to Crisis to sell some goods then go see Creative Adult. I left early in hopes of skating the Safeway ledges for awhile. My legs have been having some weird pain lately. I think it’s due to insoles/orthotics. Anyways I struggled on the big board, but I mostly blame the weather and my body. I came close to a line of halfcab flip, front tail, 360 flip, but basically ended up struggling on halfcab flip too much. Argh. Had a line of crook jib, front 50, noseslide. Struggled with back 50 for some dumb reason. Maybe it’s the Ace trucks? I don’t like them. Managed a slow kick back 50 though. That trick was a test to see if I would even consider the bigger setup again. Gotta admit I really like how it looks/feels when cruising. We’ll see if I can get some flippers down. I posed a lot of flippers and most felt similar. There was a surprise first try f/s flip in there though and a really bad 360 flip.

Max skates so much it’s ridiculous. And it shows. Buy the DVD if you haven’t already!

Everyone here knows I’m constantly obsessing about something in my setup that I can blame for not landing tricks. Lately the obsession hasn’t been an excuse, but more of an observation. Watching my 360 flip to fakie in Fullers video I couldn’t help but notice that my foot looks like it wants more board to dig into. Then it was seeing this wallie that Neil grammed and my trucks look so small compared to my feet. But rather then run to the store and waste money as I have in the past I grabbed an old setup (with Ace trucks instead of Thunders) and went in front of the house to see if I could flip it. The point is to skate this board for a week and if I like it still I can get Venture wides and maybe setup a new board that hasn’t been sitting around for over a year. Oh, and per my last post I had no desire to even put those Lakais on again. Instead I went with a pair of the Stratfords I had initially wanted to keep as chill/tennis/comfy shoes. Those shoes are so good. Grip better, feel the board better, are actually comfy, etc. Argh. Anyways, I had woke up with a really stiff and painful neck and didn’t have much intention of actually skating. But I am too stubborn not to. Kickflips felt great. I did a few more flippers and even landed on a 3 flip before deciding I was content with the setup and set off for Denver to hit 303 and maybe skate a little with Chad. After 303 I met Chad at his house and we skated over to the trio of sick spots within throwing distance from his place. We started with the 3 up 3 down. But I didn’t have that much energy. We dorked around on the parking blocks behind the building for awhile. I got a slappy crooks and Chad did slappy front slash. Next we went to the 2 up 4 down area and just kinda messed around. Chad manualed around it. I almost no complied up the 2. Then I tried to front board this little ledge, hung up and slammed hard, somehow not hurting my neck. I felt pretty sick after that so we called it a day. Chad rules.

Woke up motivated to skate after seeing Jack’s video the night before. Motivated to film too. Neil was in. Blake and Ollie joined. But first I skated flatground in front of my house. Started off slow, but got to the point where I was trying treflips. Then we went to campus and started at the stone manny pad spot before I quickly went around the corner to this and had Ollie film me practice some break dance manuevers. Ok I did a few early grab cali grinds off it. Believe it that was a trick on my list. Blake ollied off the dock into the little bank.

Then we went to head into campus and ended up stopping at this spot. Neil did a kickflip into it, Ollie manualled the sidewalk, Blake ollied the rock into the path and I tried for a long time to do front tail 270 shove out on the rock and land into the path. I got really close and giving up on it was really frustrating. Next I battled a stupid b/s ollie onto a stair and then ollied a somewhat long 4 stair which felt good to land. Then we went to go to the car to get water and put away my camera bag, but by the time we got there it was snowing super hard. Ugh.

We dropped off Ollie then went to this spot. It was a short drive. When we got out of the car I was so sore I could not believe it. So insanely sore. Before moving the bike rack we all skated it where we ollied up the two stair then ollie the gap off it. I had a run with kickflip a manhole to start. Then we put the bike rack up. I tried the same line as Neil, but a bailed attempt over hurt way too much and I lost motivation. I did get a similar line with a kickfilp off the side by the 2 stair instead.

We moved the bike rack to try and boardslide the end of it. I couldn’t commit, but Neil did.

I forced the legs to keep working and took way too many tries to do this wallie. Then we went to the little DIY spot on Moorhead. Neil and I were so sore. I forced my legs to try and work. Did a couple crappy lines, hit a lot of rocks. Blake back 5-0d the box that was setup kind of over a gap of gravel mess. He almost crooked it too. I struggled so hard at front 50s, but made myself keep skating. Ended up getting front 50, front 50 180 out, front 50 shove and a front 5-0 that didn’t quite go the distance. Have I mentioned how much I hate my shoes? Probably not even going to put them on again.

Got out of work on a pretty nice friday afternoon and met up with others at Rock Creek. Neil and I arrived at the same time. We took a few runs on the ramp to get the legs going which was fun. Then Blake showed and after a little more ramp skating we played a game of SKATE. I wasn’t landing much and Neil ended up winning. He got me with fakie f/s bigspin, 43 shifty, a couple others and halfcab one foot was the last trick. I was close. Then Jack and Carleigh arrived and we skated the ramp some more which was fun. Neil and Blake mostly chilled. Carleigh was landing lots of front d’s and got a line with a back d in it too. Hell yeah Carleigh! I had quite a few tricks for me. I did some tiny fs ollies and maybe my first real fs smith grind. Jack said it was a real one so it counts! Then we skated flat again. Everyone working on their own tricks. Blake has heelflips good and got one. Maybe a back heel too. Neil kind of got bs flip and maybe a heelflip. Carleigh battled heelflip for awhile, but stomped a mean one. Also came close to clean b/s flips. I got a lot of my tricks. B/s flip, fakie bigflip, a not so good treflip and ended with a nollie tre that resembled my Off The Couch nollie tre with some toe drag and phone calls from Busenitz. Then it was off to Crisis for the premiere of Dork Vid #1 and Parque 2. So much fun. Jack, it’s an honor to be in your video. You are the best.

Plans didn’t work out earlier in the day so after some basketball with Ollie and then dinner I set out for Louisville park. I had changed out insoles from the Remind ones to my old carbon fiber orthotics hoping that it would help with leg pain. The board feel is no where near as good, but I wanted to see if they helped with the pain. It was apparently from the first push that my old insoles were better for my legs. Wow. The lack of board feel was hard to adjust to initially, but I felt like I was rehabing my legs so I was hyped. Since no one else was there I cruised around for awhile doing nothing but carves and cali grinds. It was fun. Then I settled into a line that took me at least an hour to get. It kind of varied initially with cali front 50 or reguular front 50 or front 5-0 on the ledge in the background, kickflip on flat, roll into the qp by the flat bar, kickflip to fakie over the slight hip in the banks (where the coping ends on the right). The roll in stoked me out, but the kickflip took forever. On the way back I would do crooks or try back 50s, some other stuff. Landed a back 5-0 that was supposed to be a 50. I’ll take it! I eventually got the line. Front 50 front 180 out, halfcab flip on flat, roll in, kickflip to fakie over the slight hip. It felt super good. I was most hyped because I did a ton of front 50s on the ledge. Lately that much jumping would have wrecked me. I dorked around a little after that then took too many tries to noseslide the hubba and called it a night.

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They are only worth $25 and weight 250 pounds. Who would do this? So epic.

On a colder night after playing indoor basketball with Ollie and then watching the Simpsons with India I went out to Rampy for a short one. I mixed it up pretty good with ramp and flat. One rare trick on the ramp was a fakie front pivot. Ended the session with a run of back 50, back slash to fakie, tail stall, fs ollie. On flat I did ok. There was a point where I wanted to throw the Lakais out, but I stuck with it and by the end of the session I was liking them. I got a few treflips. Some other tricks.

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The line with the front tail then the ollie over the hydrant to nose manual is on of my favorite lines in Nothing. Connor rips.

After a 303 mission Matt and I skated a couple blocks away from the ‘only spot in denver’. We hit the curved ledge mostly. Matt front tailed it real quick. By the end he added back tails, 50s both ways and front 5-0 too. Chadman met up with us pretty much right away. He was more cruising all over the place. I had new shoes and a new board.

Lakai Guy XLKs and the board I setup was 8.1 instead of 8.0. It shouldn’t make a difference, but coupled with the new shoes it became apparent on my first noseslide attempt where I ran into the bench that I would be skating like total shit all night. Ugh. I got a crappy front nose to fakie, tiny crooks jib and failed and front 50s. We moved on by bombing a hill that Nate and I used to do all the time. With my new wheels I did a foot drag once to slow down a little. Doh. It was still fun though. We got booted from the world trade tower right away. Booted from First Bank pretty quick. I was skating so bad I didn’t even ollie the little marble gap.

Next we ended up at this weird blue ledge / bank spot. Chad did some cool f/s pivots and stuff on it. Matt noseslid and crooked it. I was unable to jib it like Chad due to lack of any coordination on my board. Matt got a sick front board to fakie into the bank. Chad taught us fakie bonelesses although I don’t think I actually rode away from one. I finally landed a couple tricks with kickflip fakie, b/s and f/s flips on the little bank. We cruised around and after Matt ollied a long five stair while being beamed by security we ended up at Civic. I was pretty exhausted and unmotivated by then. I think we all were. Chad tried to manual the whole thing (photo above) but didn’t make it. That was pretty much it. Good weather, good crew, but man I couldn’t ride my skateboard and it was depressing. Especially because my knees didn’t even hurt much for the first time in awhile.