This clip is amazing and fun all in one.

Had the early shift at work so I got out at 3:30. It looks nice and warm in this photo, but it was only in the upper 30s. Which isn’t too bad in the sun, but still, they were forecasting 50s which would have felt way better. This was the spot that Jason and I would meet up and skate all the time several years ago. We even met Nate there. Jason had the longest, raddest front noseslides there. He also had the this rad line with a front board and a chinese nollie. I miss skating here with him. Anyways I was pretty tired and my warming up was really bad. I just did chinese nollies and nose stalls. Eventually I was able to muster up the courage to try kickflips and other tricks. I’ve always had troubles skating right after work, but today was even worse then normal. I kept at it though. I should have brought wax, but the side in the shade is still somewhat slick. That’s the only side I skated. I started with noseslides backside and frontside I ollied on and front 180’d off. It’s narrower up top then it looks because of the openings for the trees. I started landing a few flat ground tricks. I struggled with front 50s for awhile, but got a couple fun ones that felt raw since the concrete is so chunky and not waxed. If I would have waxed it I probably would have had better luck. Came close to back 50. Posed a bunch of kickflip back noseslides. Was almost out of time and and tried a treflip that put me on my butt in a puddle. I couldn’t leave on that note so did another ollie up front 180 off followed by a fakie flip and walked back to my car with some of my pride still intact.

Another snowy night. They are getting really old. Luckily I have a ramp in my garage and some friends that enjoy skateboarding. We got things going around 7:30 without John yet. Carleigh did most of her tricks with the exception of front d within the first couple runs. Fuzz was all over the place doing lots of tricks and killing it as usual. For whatever reason I wasn’t too inspired. I didn’t land much all night and never tried any new tricks. Before John showed we talked about how he would just show up and his first run would be amazing. I guess we jinxed him because he slammed pretty hard on the first wall with a rock ‘n roll attempt. Oops. ha. He did kill it though with his flat bottom reverts and Fuzz and I tried some variations too. I can’t remember what all was done, but it sure looked and felt silly. Near the end of the session Carleigh got the elusive front disaster. Fuzz got fakie back pivots to fakie. I got a front tail stall.

After a pretty late night of partying for the Meta grand re-opening party I grabbed Ollie and we went to Southern Hills for a short session. I experimented with the panorama app on my camera and as you can see I must shake the camera a lot. Oh well. I had some new shoes, some Vox Class X. They seem good. As you can see there was a lot of snow and puddles around. Ollie didn’t really skate much. He just kind of pushed and didn’t really do any tricks. He was having fun though. I had more swagger in my step then I thought I would and was skating kinda fast. I had a line with an ollie off the ledge by the handicap ramp, turned around and kickflipped into the handicap ramp then ollied a pile of snow. I had another line with a noseslide the tall ledge on the far left, kickflip into the handicap ramp then ollie a bigger pile of snow (in the background behind the square of benches). I added a bad flatground treflip, front 50 and crooks on the main bench and we called it a day.

Got up early on a gorgeous saturday already in the mid 50s. Liz’s parents were here, but eating lunch with some friends so I had some free time and surprisingly my quads weren’t hurting so bad. Perhaps it’s the warmer weather helping out. I skated flat til Jake and Bernie came over. I felt really rusty. Jake showed first and we both just kinda messed around doing our own thing. Jake put together some decent lines. Bernie showed and we went to a middle school in east Boulder to skate the ledges out front, but instead ended up at the 3 stair in the back. Bernie’s friend Teagan joined us. Jake and I were having a blast. Jake had the first 180 down it and the first ollie up it. When Teagan joined though he almost kickflipped up it, had switch tre down it 2nd try and was having fun too. The photo is him doing a front 360 shove with Jake looking on. Bernie of course found some manual options with it. I managed a few tricks down it. Early grab, boneless, no comply boneless, front shove (first real try) and a kickflip. When we left my legs felt really good. Perhaps I should skate small stair sets more. This was the set I backside flipped before my arthritis hit the fan in 2011.

Jake had to leave. We went to the Google building because Teagan was trying to film a line with a switch tre down the six. While Bernie filmed him I just dorked around. I ended up above trying to ollie this little flower pot. Normally it would be somewhat easy for me, but the angle is so hard so after several fails I just went with a front 180 instead.

I came upon this across from the six stair in the next parking lot. It looked ripe for dorking out on and wow it ended up making my day even better. The slight slant of the sidewalk and the crack were appealing. First tricks were front 180 into it, sw ollie off the curb then a f/s halfcab flip on flat. I should mention that flip tricks were really hard at this point in the day because my shoes were toast. The real fun began when I started treated it like a bank to curb. My first “line” was ollie up, f/s pivot on the crack, kickflip off. I tried to ollie a tall cone after that too, but you all know I can’t do that. I don’t care, I was giggling anyway as that line was super fun. I also did ollie up. no comply to tail, back 180 off the curb. Almost got a kickflip b/s pivot too, but my nose would hit the rail. Eventually it was time to go and meet up with the in-laws. This was one of my favorite days skating in awhile. Dork spots are 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

These shoes lasted 6 skate days

I’ve had a few pairs of these. The first pair seemed like the best shoe ever made. The second didn’t last so long. This pair pretty much set the low bar on sole durability. They only lasted six days! Most of which were short sessions on Rampy. This is really bad. The shoe is a comfy and stylish shoe, but a sole that wears out this quick is not acceptable. I hope Lakai puts the thicker tread on this shoe. It’s experiences like this that make me consider large corporate company shoes. Shame on you Lakai.

** NOTE ** I had another pair of these after being told Lakai had a new manufacture and they were much better.

My in-laws are visiting so after an evening packed with board games I went out to Rampy for a bit. I started out pretty good. Had some decent runs and got a couple treflips on flat before the sucking began. I struggled with front 50s (wtf?) and front tails. My quads started killing me again every time I would walk out of a trick. I managed to do a new dork trick at least. Back feeble stall to back smith to fakie. Maybe dork isn’t the right word for it, but instead just straight up dumb. I feel old.

Even before work I had it in my head that I would skate flatground after work since I knew there would be a new PJ game of SKATE. Well, the game ended up being nothing special even though it looked like PJ went as easy as he could on the nervous new guy. Doh. The weather though was better then I thought it would be and instead of having to hide in a parking garage I found this section of asphalt on the way out to FedEx. My legs were once again insanely sore. Have I mentioned I’m finally trying to wean off of ibuprofen after taking at least 6 a day since my arthritis flare up over a year ago? Yeah, about time I lay off it. But man, I’m sure paying for it. Lots of aches and pains that my body has to get used to. I knew it was bad when it took more then a couple tries to land a kickflip. I started really slow, but I did manage to get a few things. Mostly I just did “Zero lines” aka two trick lines. Just without any hint of gnar at all. I can’t seem to remember most of the lines I did. Fakie flip then f/s halfcab flip was one. No comply 180 then b/s halfcab flip was another. I tried heelflip then treflip for awhile, but the treflip eluded me. I landed one by itself early on, but failed over and over getting about as close as I could. Came close to nollie tre. No where near a hardflip. I learning it almost standing still on the flat of Rampy probably isn’t the best thing. Oh well, I skated, I got outside, I had fun. Then I drank a few beers and watched the Nuggets destroy the Lakers. That was pretty fun too.

After a long day of filming I definitely needed to get my skate on. Unfortunately it was snowing like crazy outside. I went for Rampy and around 11 I went out for a little session before Ollie got home from his friends. I just kind of cruised for awhile doing different tricks and got pretty far into my bag. Oh yeah, I added another layer of wood to the wide deck so the coping wasn’t as huge and it was really nice for disasters. I fell intro a rut of trying blunt to axle stall. I never got it. When I would fall to the inside of the ramp I would do a flip trick. I got a few treflips, but never the blunt to axle stall. I gave up and did blunt to rock ‘n roll. I’m too much of a pansy to go to fakie. Went in for lunch, then ended up going to hang at Meta with Fuzz for our last time in Meta before moving.

Later on I hit Rampy while in a horrible mood after dinner. I brought some speakers out and hooked up my phone to crank up some Pissed Jeans. Things got better real quick. It’s fun skating Rampy solo because I’ll do a flip trick between every run or just try kickfip 50s over and over. I basically rotated hardflip attempts on flat, kickflip axle stall and regular runs over and over. Never got the kickflip stall, but came really close. It’s so hard to flip on tranny that tight. Had some good runs. Did a front feeble pretty quick. Hardflip attempts kept getting closer and closer and then I landed one. It was sketchy with both feet next to each other and the board only spun like 90 degrees and I had to put my hands down to keep from falling, but I’m 39 and I’ve never done a hardflip before. I was super hyped. Gonna keep working on that one. I skated some more, did some tricks, came close to more hardflips and went inside in a much better mood.