I had the day off work and after a huge breakfast with Liz and some errands Bernie joined up and we hit Boulder with no real plans. First stop was the ledge near the research center. We didn’t get too tech or stay very long. Crooks still felt good on it. Bernie had some nice tailslides. We rolled around and checked out some ledges near the soccer field that look really good if they were rub bricked (hint hint someone with a rub brick) and went around the rest of the research center building. Bernie and I ollied the four stair. Him doing it way before me obviously. We checked out the front area where Sean and Max have done super gnarly tricks then headed to Boulder ditch.

They put a fence up again at Boulder ditch making it hard to hit the angle iron ledge, but other then that it’s pretty much the same. I had a dream of doing front d then backside flip, but I couldn’t do the front d. I gave up and did the ol’ front rock then b/s flip line I’ve done a few times and it makes me smile everytime. Bernie did a few front pivots on the taller qp too, but that was about it.

Next we went over near Silvermine subs. Bernie did some front 50s on the wavy ledge and wanted manual it, but couldn’t get the angle/speed. I tried to get up the courage to boardslide this weird 3 stair flagstone ledge, but wussed out and almost got a major hipper bailing. Then we went up to the bank spot and Bernie did a trick involving two of the most basic tricks there are, manual and boardslide. But it’s Bernie so you know it’s awesome. Super fun day. Bernie rules.

Got to Broomfield park a little after 7pm. Bernie and John were there, but John had just broken his board (that’s what happens when you don’t skate Nulls (ha)) so John left to get a new board quick at Crisis. He came back with a Null and therefore had super powers. Carleigh, Connor, Dave, Fuzz joined shortly. I felt decent initially and was kind of just cruising around. Got a front 50 back 180 out pretty quick and a manual on the blue box right away which surprised me. I attributed it to having better board feel without my stiff orthodic insoles and was kinda stoked. John and I did lines of back 50 the black box then boardslide the flatbar. John can do bigspin front noses, but somehow has never had boardslides? So funny. Fuzz was skating the ledge pretty good. Back 5-0 followed by blunt to fakie on the brick quarter pipe. Bernie did a run with front tail front 270 out followed by kick back tail to fakie. So good. Connor was doing all kinds of crap first try all easy looking that was amazing. He got a halfcab back 50 front 180 out that took at least 3 tries though. Dave was skating the steep bank a lot and almost got tailslides both ways and doing boardslides to fakie on the black bench. Carleigh didn’t stay too long, but tried a few noseslides with her patented 270 shove out the other way. Fuzz, John and I tried front nosegrinds for awhile. John having claimed he hasn’t tried that trick in years, but came the closest of us. I kept bonking on the way out. I tried a few more halfcab flip noseslides and got kind of close. Fuzz and I tried back 50 back 180 out the black box. He got it, but wasn’t happy with how he did it. Darn perfectionists. It took me awhile to commit to a simple boardslide down the tiny rail. Unfortunately my feet/knees starting hurting and I wish I would have brought my orthodics to switch back to. Bernie almost did bs flip to fakie manual. Crazy crazy. The lights shut off. Fuzz was trying switch blunt though and was angry and wanting to get it which he did. In the dark. Crazy. Dave was still skating too and did a bunch of tricks on the dark. After this we went over to Safeway for a few slappys. My feet/legs were killing me. Bernie did a bunch of long manuals too. It got really cold and we called it a night.

Been fighting a nasty cold for a couple days, but decided a short Rampy session was in order. Everyone else was busy, but with how nervous I am about the sandy pool coping I had painted recently this was ok. First few grinds felt pretty good, but the paint was still chipping off and the concrete as well. Seems like the concrete paint helps a little, but not all that much. Doh. I still like it though. Concrete feels more real then steel any day.

I guess Rampy will be more of a stall ramp. Maybe I’ll figure out better paint to use or maybe I should actually wax it a little. The coping definitely isn’t normal hard pool coping. I figure I’ll ride it out this winter and maybe sometime over the summer get some good pool coping for it. Above are the before and after session shots. I had some new shoes. Shoes that didn’t hurt and give me blisters on every ollie attempt.

Lakai Manchesters. A shoe that’s proven it likes my feet over multiple pairs. As far as skating it was hard, but fun. Rampy is way harder now. I got a large percentage of tricks in my little bag. I tried a few more of those frontside boneless/sweeper things to tail (gotta work on my old guy tricks), an ollie to rock fakie in hopes of maybe someday doing kickflip rock fakie which I didn’t get close to. The other thing I struggled with was front d on the narrow side of the deck which I finally did. I had switched between my normal orthotic insoles and the beefy ones that came with the shoes. I’ve been kinda wondering if my stiff orthodics take away board feel and it really seems like they do.

Here’s my trucks after grinding a lot of paint and a little concrete.

Had a early morning ‘old man session’ at the Thornton park. Nate, Carleigh, Jake and I got there around 9:15 where Sam and Neil were sitting in their cars waiting. When we arrived there was a person with a remote control car and about 7 scooter kids. Great. This sort of crowd bums out Fuzz a ton. Luckily the remote control car was put away before Fuzz got there. Neil and Jake were killing it out of the gate. It was crazy. I felt like a zombie. I hate skating early in the day. I took several tries to do a simple wallie then could not commit to the 3 stair so I gave up, pouted for a second then went and skated the tiny manny pad for awhile. Sam joined me. We did some manuals, nose manuals, wallrides, etc. That thing is super fun. I also got a back 5-0 and came close to back nosegrind. Sam had to go open his shop so I went and joined the crowd again. Everyone was ripping. Some of the tricks I saw were Carleigh boardslide the little trail then noseslide back shove out the bump to ledge. Jake had a marathon run that started with a boardslide, polejam/wallie, front smith the deep end and then a frontside flip on the bank. So good. Fuzz mannied the top of the ledge above the 3 stair, gapped over the step up to blunt slide on the flat bar, sick front ds everywhere, low to high rock fakie, front noseblunt on the qp to kinked bank. Nate wasn’t supposed to be skating, but was rolling around on my cruiser board and did some manuals, kickturns and wallrides. Even popped an ollie once before we yelled at him. I finally ollied down the tiny 3 stair that everyone else ollied first try and then was turning around and trying to fakie bigflip over the hip. Unfortunately my feet would kill me on every bail as the blisters were getting really intense. Neil and Fuzz had to go. The rest of us skated the little manny pad/wallride thing. It was fun. We all did some different wallrides, manuals and you could grind it too. I technically landed a back nosegrind, but it was like a nosegrind turned to willy and since it’s curb high and I just rode off. Still, it was the first back nosegrind I’ve landed in a long long time. Then it was off to lunch and hang with Jason for awhile as my toes burned in these god awful Slash’s. Look for them in my trash can tonight.

Ollie and I went to Southern Hills on a cloudy, but pretty warm Saturday afternoon. We were just cruising around mostly and he was following me. I tried a kickflip at one point and he tried one too. He got surprisingly close. So I gave him a few pointers and he seemed to be able to follow my suggestions. Crazy, I can never get my body to do what people suggest so he must have lots of Liz in him. Neil, Blake and Alec showed up. Neil had been stressing over how long I was taking to go skating, but then didn’t skate at all and just complained about the 60 degree weather. He seemed to rub off on Blake and Alec. Bernie showed up and Carleigh soon after. I did a line I was pretty proud of. Noseslide to fakie on the picnic table, fakie flip, halfcab noseslide on a bench. Oh and earlier on I had done the backside basics line of boardslide, noseslide then crooks. I also got noseslide 270 out first try. Hyped on that. Bernie manny and nose mannyd the picnic table (above). I tried to ollie up onto it, but my ollies are total crap as of late. I got a front 50 shove out at one point and tried to follow it up with a halfcab flip, but my feet were really starting to hurt. Every bail hurts so bad. Trying to flip the board hurts. These Slash shoes give me blisters and make skateboarding way more painful then it already is. Ollie was doing lots of hippy jumps/run over the table. Bernie did a marathon run of kickflip into the bank, 3 flip on the super good flatground, front board a bench, front 50 the bottom of a picnic table, front lip a bench. So sick. Carleigh was doing fire crackers down the two stair then trying noseslide 270 shove out. We got in the Off The Couch mode for a bit and Carleigh got firecracker then noseslide shove. Bernie did almost all of his line, but couldn’t get the lipslide again and wasn’t really hyped on his line anyway. Then Bernie filmed Ollie and I try to get a doubles line (above). Ollie would do his run over hippy jump on the picnic table then I would try a heelflip then a noseslide 270 out on the ledge. I am not good at skateboarding. I got remotely close once, but Ollie decided he didn’t want to keep trying it and then we called it a day. I haven’t been skating too well lately. I partly blame the shoes as they hurt my feet a lot.

From last weekend. From left to right. Me, Bernie, Brian, Lazer, Jason, Neil, Carleigh and Dave Fuller with the coffin.

This is the dumb part of me. It was 70 degrees out and I got out of work early so I felt obligated to go skating. I chose a session on campus. Oh yeah, I had worn a hole through the ollie area and the sole on my Lakai’s the night before so I had new shoes.

Fallen Slashs. These shoes felt ok in the shop and I had a pair in the past I was happy with, but I’ve been wearing them for about a month and they are super uncomfortable. I was hoping breaking them in skating would help, but they didn’t seem to. I felt like I was wearing moon boots. I fell a lot, didn’t have any motivation, etc. I went to the flatground area and things changed for a bit as I got 6 flippers in a row. Kickflip, heelflip, fakie flip, halfcab flip, varial flip, fakie bigflip. Whoa! I went to try and get 10 flip tricks and added a couple more before getting stuck on treflip or f/s halfcab flip and I could not land anything. The sole on these sucks so bad, I would just slide right off the board. If I could have focused the shoes I would have. I tried several halfcab double flips and got pretty close, just couldn’t get the flick. I looked at some other new spots, but ended up just walking back to the car and then hitting Meta where Sam stoked me out so much by being such a nice guy.

It was a late start for us, everyone but Skelly (who’s coming from foco) left Crisis a little before 9pm. We parked by the pedestrian bridge near the Denver ice rink (skatepark) and walked over it to get things started. Fuzz was winded from the stairs. Ha. We played around that area for awhile. There was some stairs, kind of manny pads, little banked ledge, etc. I don’t remember much from that part of it other than Carleigh did a feeble on the banked ledge. We got the boot and went a half block to the next spot with the angled granite ledges (up/down). We were there for a bit and security told us we could skate for a bit longer. I haven’t really street skated with Fuller much, but he killed it. Boardslides to fakie going up the ledge, switch ollie over a sandbag. Carleigh and I did some boardslides. She almost got noseslides too. The ledges are kinda weird because the edges are good, but they have some jaggedness to them. Fuzz was able to 50 through them all tough though. I could not. I could also not crook them. I was feeling a little odd on my board though. Like my legs were too tired or something. Oh well, we moved on to some jersey barriers to meet up with Skelly. We did a bunch of wallrides on them. We tried to do them as smooth as PJ does in his Cruisin’ NYC clip. We couldn’t, but we got a few wallrides regardless. Dave and I added some frontside ones to it too. His sick, mine not so sick. Skelly joined us and we moved on. Ended up at a ledge going into a downhill entrance to a parking lot where we each lasted about one attempt. Luckily I went for a little front board pop out and managed to land it, do a fun powerslide and ollie over a little speed bump going way faster then I normally do an ollie. Perhaps my favorite moment of the night. Some investigating at the RTD station and pissing in the alley later we found a tall loading dock to ollie onto and off. Fuzz got up it first try. I got it a few tries later and managed one with a decent (for me) ollie off the taller side. Fuzz did an ollie up to board stall shove out to the top. Sean went the back 180 route. Next we went around the corner into a parking garage and found some amazing painted curbs. Maybe the best curb I’ve ever grinded. There must be 20 layers of paint on it. You could slappy up the curb cut parts or ollie in. We all did a 50 that we ollied into then the curb cut went down and we rode back into grinds when the curb cut when back up. So fun. Skelly was all over the place doing little manuals, tailslides, etc. Dave almost did a switch slappy. He’s the oldest one of all of us and skates switch the most. Awesome. Fuzz almost did a front 180 off a curb cut to nose slide. Hard to describe, but he couldn’t quite get it. I had a bunch of slappys and was skating this one you could go over the top and go straight across. Got a back 5-0 across it! Then started going for back nosegrind and got surprisingly close, but we got the boot. Doh, I haven’t tried back nosegrinds in a long time! Pretty sure we ended up at Tabor center after that where we posted up for a really long time. Skelly, Fuzz and Dave skated the little bank you have to ollie into. I was trying ollie down the 3 to ollie up the 3 which I would eventually get with my signature of the night – hand down. Dave did a super sick frontside wallride/hold onto the rail around the six stair. It was so steezy. Carleigh went buck and ollied the gap which amazed me because it was really dark. I tried downhill flatground for awhile and struggled big time. Managed halfcab flip then treflip signature of the night. Then a mostly old school session ensued on the bottom of the stairs. Stall tricks for days. Impossible to remember all of them. It was really fun though. I felt like I was in junior high again. Fullerton showed us some super sick boneless wall bonk variations. I kind of learned a switch 360 version that he did with so much style that the rest of us were left with our jaws on the ground. Then we headed back to the car, but got interrupted trying cali grinds down the bike groove part of the stairs. It was so fun. The first few were really scary, but we all grinded down it. The marks left on the trucks are so awesome. Dave did a super gnarly dropin on a higher set up stairs to grind down the main set. Fullerton for MVP! Super fun night as they almost always are in Denver. Oh yeah, so we skated way past midnight. I was beat!

Sam did such a ridiculously good job on this. Can’t wait to see the finished product on DVD this time!

Totally gonna send in the rough version of my Off The Couch part I had to In A Jar for this.