Felt like getting out early and not having to deal with a bunch of phone calls. So instead just hit up Carleigh and we left for Denver with no spots in mind. On the way Skelly called and said him and Mike wanted to just cruise downtown spots too. Bolts! We were about an hour ahead of them and I randomly remembered a school I’ve had fun at before off of Speer. It’s got a bunch of ledges, cracks and bigger cracks. Neither of us skated very well. Carleigh started with front tails, but they ended up being mean so she struggled with it for awhile. She did have some good front 50s on the lower ledge and almost got a shove out. I struggled to relearn back 50s as apparently I need to train with that trick every day or something if I’m not to lose it. I eventually got some though. I even lined one out with a fakie nosegrind on the lower ledge which I was stoked on. Other then some fun chinese nollies to tailslide I struggled on everything and neither of us seemed to into it.

Then we met up with Sean and Mike at “The only spot in Denver”. Just Carleigh and I were there for awhile waiting though. We had joked about how we shouldn’t go there because Carleigh would get stuck trying tailslides. Doh! We mostly did lines down the hill though. My arthritis was bugging me a little. Making my knees sore and my balance feel off. I tried my dream line of a manual from the curb to the first two stair, powerslide then boardslide pop out. Never got the manual, but did get boardslide a couple times. Carleigh tried a cool line of some ollies on the two stair, cali grind, then front nose. Mike is recovering from a rolled ankle and was taking it easy, mostly just rolling down the hill. Skelly killed it olliing the two stairs and even filmed a line with two hippy jumps, two ollies and some powerslides. Sick!

We stopped by this spot for about two wallrides each before we got the boot then ended up at the bank with all the marble a block away. We were riding into the banks next to the double set and stuff and surprised we weren’t getting kicked out. We kept skating. I got an ollie to fakie on the top one. Carleigh ollied the 4 then the next 4. Skelly and I ollied a little gap into a bank and tried 180s off a taller drop. We eventually got the boot. Some lurking, refreshing and walking later we ended up above the RTD station with the good ledge and the circle benches. It was fun. Carleigh was trying noseslide front shoves out and almost accidentally did noseslide to front 180 nosegrind to shove out. That would have been sick! Skelly and I did some basic noseslides. I got a rare noseslide to frontside 270 out. I could not ollie onto one of those circle benches to save my life though. Skelly closed with a sick front 180 up the ledge to halfcab off and then the same with a fakie ollie off. Ripping! Fun day.

Looking like another warm Saturday. A million phone calls were made and three cars of TFers migrated to Longmont to meet at Fullers ramp. The crew was Carleigh, Neil, Lazer, Jake, Jason, Bernie, Brian, Dave, Alec, Brandon and Jason. Jake got the session going with a marathon run with tons of good tricks. Remembering what everyone did two days ago is going to be impossible but I’ll try to remember at least a few from each. Neil, took a really long time to do a boardslide on the parking block side, has super good front disasters, did his best not to snake people too much. Brian, his white shirt was brown by the first run, love the fakie feeble 270 trick that I don’t really understand, did a beanplant to fakie I think (?) and a million more tricks. Jake was trying noseblunts on the parking block side, that pretty much says it all right there. He’s getting really good and landed almost every trick I’ve seen him do. Carleigh had some of the best back 50s I’ve seen her do. All fast. I don’t think she likes that ramp very much though. Alec and Brandon are the skate camp kids that Neil pays to be his friend (ha). They seemed sketched at first, but eventually were lining out the basics. Everyone knows Dave has the best style ever. Add a big bag of tricks and you have solid gold. Super good backside boneless and a ton more. Lazer was hyped and ripping. No stand out tricks I can remember, but that’s probably because he did too many. I skated it pretty good for me after a slow warm up period. Got some boardslides on the block side, front ds, can’t do smith grinds. Bernie took like 2 runs total. One where he slammed immediately and one where he was flailing around then did a perfect front tailslide on the parking block side.

Then we went to this bank and manny pad spot. We got the boot pretty quick. Not before Brian did a f/s wallride though! Neil and maybe Lazer got regular wallrides? I posed kickflip wallrides. Bernie did a cool manual.

Then we hit this bank spot. Everyone was playing on it initially. Brian almost got his back 540 on comply. That trick rules. Lazer did a proper kickflip with a backside rotation. Bernie did hardflip to fakie, f/s 360 kickflip and a few more flippers. Dave killed it! Cab bigspin! Boneless to tail, switch nose stall, steez. Carleigh was kind enough to film for awhile. During that time period I happened to get a bigflip and a noseslide on the low bar. Thanks Carleigh! I also got a fakie flip, but my switch mongo pushing was bad enough for Jason to laugh. Maybe I wont be giving up on that switch pushing after all Jack. Neil got pissed, got pissed, then landed a halfcab heel which as Brian pointed out is a trick we’ve never seen him do so why get upset? It was sick regardless though. Branden went buck trying to front 50 the low bar and landed a couple after holding on to the top bar and coming to a halt. Carleigh had a few ollies and was getting remotely close to 180 nosegrinds on the low bar. Then we took a group photo and called it a day. Super fun.

Had a little time after work before dinner time so hit campus for a quick solo session. I kind of walked around initially feeling pretty tired. I ended up near the banked flagstone thing and tried a manual then ollie a curb to dirt ride. I was feeling really awkward though and figured if I actually tried to ollie the curb into the dirt that I would just stop and slam. So I moved on to this kind of weird ledge off a 4 stair that you cali grind off of, but it was too dark and I didn’t commit to it. Went over to the new curved ledge area. Did b/s noseslide, b/s boardslide, b/s crooks, f/s noseslide fakie, f/s noseslide forward, front board (barely) and ollied onto the ledge. Lined out a couple things with kickflips or back 180s over a manhole. Might have even got a halfcab noseslide which is really tall for me. I went over to the good flatground area by the art building, but there was a couple of dudes working on flatground ollies and they seemed really bummed on me so I went around the corner. Tried a few kickflip noseslides, a few front tails, a few flatground tricks, blah, blah got tired started going to the car. But then I noticed the three stair in the bottom left of the picture above, a manhole, then a little flat gap which were saying “Hey Glen do a bunch of slow little ollies and maybe a kickflip!” So I did. I started on the far left, ollied onto the top of the 3 stair, rolled off, kickflipped a manhole kind of (it was super dark) then ollied a little flat gap over a curb too. That was of course the hardest part for me. Ollieing with any speed is my enemy it seems. Oh well, landing it hyped me up and I went home feeling I earned a nice seasonal ale.

Rampy upgrade is done! Well, kind of. I finished cleaning up the garage and applied another layer of Salba sauce then helped Ollie with his math homework so he could come skate Rampy. I was super nervous that the coping would stick out too far or break (after seeing the chunks out at the Launch ramp I was extra scared). Sometimes I’m an ok dad and I let him have the first drop in. He seemed pretty hyped. And he had some good runs doing his basics which are rock fakies, tail stall, fakie ollies, body varials and coffins (yes he gets back up somehow). He also got one little scratch grind. My first run was pretty fun. I mostly just did a few backside grinds. It’s sticker then the steel coping obviously and it’s a big change. The coping didn’t stick out too far although I wish it would have been in a little more. Oh well. I did have a couple grinds through two tiles that felt awesome. Everything felt more fun actually. Front Ds were way harder though. Unfortunately after awhile the coping started chipping in ways that I didn’t want to keep skating. I think I’ll get some of that industrial curb paint and cover the coping in it to help protect it a little. I’m hyped though, Rampy might be even a little harder to skate now, but grinding concrete is way funner then steel. Just gotta get that coping a little protected.

Finished the decks last night and Salba Sauced the coping. This photo is from the laundry room so you can see that I added onto the deck a little. Gonna be weird having room to stand on that side now too. Just gotta clean up and maybe add some grout under the coping where it meets the masonite. But it’s skateable. Might hit it tonight ..

Picked up Fuzz then met Skelly, Fuller and Chadman at the Northglenn park. It was in the mid 30s, but it felt even colder. Must have been some humidity in the air. There was 3 other people at the park, some other Team Pain park builders and an Arvada ATF machine. Warming up was straight up embarrassing with those dudes there. It was cool having to park to just 8 people, but everyone else was ripping so hard it was hard to find the will to warm up. But it happened. Fuzz did his first ollie in months over the cheese wedge gap right away. Skelly says he was just cruising, but I saw him ripping all over the place. Chadman did a huge back 180 over the hip as well as a bolts biggie heel. I’ll skip ahead to the goods. Everyone but Dave, Chad and I started skating the pool. They were all ripping when I would look over and Skelly had DRI/Slayer cranking out of his boom box. Dave and I tried the cheese wedge gap for awhile, but couldn’t commit. Chadman tried to hype us with a hardflip, but he couldn’t get it. We all skated the bowl after awhile. The Team Painers left. Dave, Skelly and Jack were still killing the bowl so we joined them. Chadman slid out and slammed into the vert wall. Ouch. Fuzz did a fakie tail stall to sal flip back to tail. So sick! Chadman left. Dave and I were the only ones cruising the street area and I was finally feeling warmed up and having a blast. I got a line with a bigflip on the flat bank and then came back around and noseslid the big hubba. I’ve never tried that one before so I was really hyped. Also got a kickflip to fakie and a fakie flip on the flat bank. Fuller was doing some rad lines where he would manual the pyramid up top, ollie up the step up, do some grind on the little qps and then tried back lip to fakie on the weird qp. I also forced myself to do some ollies both ways over the hip. They were bad, but at least I finally tried some. Then the lights shut off. First time at a park in awhile, should probably do that more often. Fun crew too.

I got some free pool coping awhile ago and couldn’t resist the urge to make little Rampy even harder to skate. Skelly, Carleigh, Ollie and Jake helped us get close to finishing the upgrade on Sunday.

It was fun learning this process and doing the grouting between tiles. I just have to finish the decks and get some Salba Sauce on the coping.

After a fun afternoon of working on Rampy (photos soon) we hit Southern Hills as it started getting dark and a nasty wind kicked in. The crew was Jake, Carleigh and I. The temperature was below freezing, and way colder when the gusts would hit. There were patches of ice on some of the benches. Brrrr. But we skated and everyone seemed to be excited about it. Carleigh mostly worked on back 180s on flat or into the little bank. She also did some noseslides and got into 180 nose grinds. I was kind of all over the place. When we built Rampy the first time we also took a break at Southern Hills. Although Jason was along for that one. Argh. I really like that spot. I mostly just cruised around for awhile and did some basics and enjoyed the pop a new board brings. I got a couple lines I was pretty happy with. First one was ollie over the corner of a bench, noseslide to fakie, fakie varial flip, heelflip, bail a crook. Other one was front 50 front shove out, halfcab flip, front noseslide (landed so bad!). God a good feeling crooks too. Came close to front 5-0 shove out on the bench too, but it got too dark and windy for us to stand it. Jake keeps getting better. His kickflips were looking good and he had some nice noseslides and halfcab noseslides. He kept almost slamming on front 50s so started doing front tails instead. That’s sicker anyway and he had a nice one or two to fakie as well. Fun session even though it was so cold.

Was pretty uninspired, but feeling fat and figured I should hit the ramp for a bit. It wasn’t fun. I think I was looking too forward to the pool coping that would be put on it over the weekend. At one point I told myself I needed to do 10 frontside tricks. I got to 8 and was trying frontside feebles, got close on the first one then kept getting further and further away so decided to stop skating.

Was gonna run some errands, grab some beer and then sit around and watch basketball. But when I went to leave I felt fatter then normal from a pot luck at work and decided I should skate a little. After hitting Target I hit the Valmont ledge. I wasn’t all that inspired, but I kept at it. I’m not sure if it’s my age, my arthritis, or both, but that ledge seems taller now. I can’t believe I have front 50’d the 3rd tier of it before. I could barely front 50 the 2nd tier, but eventually did and got shove and front 180s out. Did a bunch of noseslides. A couple tiny front tailslides, sorry attempts at kick back noseslide, a bunch of slow treflips where I put my hand down in the landing, and some other stuff not worthy of writing about.