Got home to a grouchy family. It was pretty cold out so flatground was out. I opted for a short Rampy session that ended up being pretty fun. I had some longer runs for me. Tried some fake backside axle stalls to rock, but didn’t get too close.

It’s snowing out, that means Rampy! Not many people interested in skating, but Lazer came over and we started things off mellow. I had new trucks as I could never get the darn bolt back on those worn down Thunders. I had some Indy Koston “Hollows”. Light Indys? I was kinda tired of wheel bite so bad with Thunders so decided to try a little higher truck. As you can see above it didn’t go so good. I was able to skate them fine for awhile. Lazer and I were pretty chill, talking a lot. Neither of us did anything too crazy for us. Carleigh eventually showed up and the mellowness continued. After awhile I bailed weird and it turns out my bushing came out like you can see in the photo and that was weird. It ended up cracking all the way through so I had to scrounge for some old bushings and found some Ace ones. Hopefully they work fine. Skating resumed. Kind of. It was really mellow, but we had fun. I slammed a few times because of the new wheels and how slippery they are when they are new. I put new wheels on because I figure if you’re gonna have new trucks, might as well make it weirder with new wheels too (plus my old wheel had lots of powerslides under them and were under 50mm). Not sure when I’ll get to putting the pool coping on Rampy, but it’ll happen pretty soon.

First and foremost, read a well written and great review here on the Westword site (where the above photo is from). I was more nervous for this show then I have been for any show in a long time. It was like the perfect storm of anxiety and I was a mess leading up to this show. So as soon as Liz and I hit the Goosetown Tavern for dinner the beer started flowing. We met up with some homies (Tom, Fuzz, John, Chad, CJ, Darin) and pre-partied until about the time the opening band went on stage. Turns out Shearwater pretty good. It’s always nice having a decent opening act.

Then came Dinosaur Jr. Gulp. They opened with See It On Your Side which is the last song on Sky. It was rad, but the sound was weird. They didn’t really get the sound fixed all night. They didn’t sound as awesome as normal, but they were actually playing pretty awesome. The Bluebird sound guy sucked it up. With all that said it was still an awesome show. They played six songs off the new album and a slew of Dinosaur classics including Sludgefeast which is my favorite live song ever. I probably drank too much. It seemed whenever I was almost finished with a beer someone (normally Fuzz) would hand me a beer and say “It’s your night man enjoy!” So awesome. Thanks to everyone for making it such a fun night and if you didn’t already know Dinosaur Jr is the greatest band of all time.

Not so bad, dude looks like he’s having fun at least.

Got an invite from Colby the night before to hit Arvada park. Alright, I haven’t hit a park in a long time. Sure. I got there and it was crowded, but not crazy crowded. The little kid area (funnest part) was pretty vacant so we skated there. Warming up was kinda fun actually. Did some boardslide popouts on the round blue ledge, carves on the jersey barriers, some dorky stuff on the edge of one of the blue kickers. Colby and his homies were ripping and having fun, but seemed to have to leave right after I got there. Doh. So I had a couple hours to kill with no money to go bowling with my friends or skate the park. I skated the park. At times I even had fun and seemed motivated. Had a fun line starting above the little bowl carving around at the start of the snake run to axle stall on the weird qp on top of the platform, brief f/s 5-0 on the little cement qp entering the kid section, b/s ollie on the hip, boardslide the marble rounded flatbar. That was fun. It was around then that I noticed the pivot cup had completely blown out and was missing from my back truck. This made for some really awkward turning and started to weird me out. I tried a run for awhile of ollie over the marble flat bar, ride over the little blue kicker to rock then front 50 the stupid super low hubba that is long. I got into it, but ollieing onto something that low is weird. I ollied into it a couple times at least. I went through a long phase of trying feeble stall kickflips out on the tiny qp under the snakerun. Actually got kind of close a couple times. Then I went up to the little qp above the snakerun that is pretty fun. Did a few basics, but really started to feel blah. Went into the snakerun a few times, didn’t carve up the monster qp very high. Only felt weightless once. Pretty much left after that. Went home and tried to replace the pivot cup, but the darn kingpin bolt/nut is so worn down that I couldn’t get it back on. I guess it’s new trucks time, been almost a year so not too bad.

Got a text in the morning from Jason asking if I was going out skating for the day. I hadn’t thought of it much as I was still in the midst of a loud birthday party for India, but as soon as I got that the answer was clear. Hit up some old guys and Dave reminded us of a slappy contest. Jake and I picked up Jason and headed to Louisville skatepark to meet Brian and Neil. Turned out it would just be Neil and he would be late so Jake and I skated for awhile. I was following Jake at one point and he rolled into a bank so I followed him. I wasn’t really paying attention to the bottom of the bank as I was looking ahead to see what Jake was hitting when SLAM! I hit a kink at the bottom and went down hard. Not only did I get my left elbow, hip, knee, wrist really hard, but my back foot came off the board so the board flipped into my nuts really hard. Ouch. I laughed it off though. A few minutes later I was trying a kickflip on a flat bank and landed primo and slammed hard again. Jake laughed pretty hard. Ha. We had fun for the few minutes we were there.

Then we headed out for the first annual slappy slalom contest. It was pretty crowded when we got there. Most of us just chilled initially. There was a rad crew of older people and some older peoples kid’s mixed in. Here’s the video.

It was really fun. We had been pretty late for the actual contest though. After awhile a launch ramp jam went down so Jake, Dave and I played slappy. I got some frontside and backside ones along with the funnest trick ever – slappy crooks. I only made it all the way down a couple times. The hill was faster then it looked. Dave got 4th place so that should tell you how much he was ripping. Neil ollied over a curb to nose manual almost the entire hill. It was ridiculous.

Then Jake, Jason and I went to a nearby little bank spot. The one that Fuzz ollies over the whole thing in a Meta video. We had a blast here. It’s basically an elevated driveway loading dock. It starts out as nothing then gets to be about a foot and a half feet tall. The sides of it are steep, the other part mellow where trucks would drive onto it. Jake has some f/s flips on the mellow part. Managed a couple ollies over the f/s hip and some bluntslides. I skated really well for myself. Almost got 180 fakie nose manual 180 out across the top. Managed some f/s ollies from steep to mellow, a back 180, b/s ollie from mellow into steep, b/s flip from steep to mellow and eventually a regular kickflip from steep to mellow. So fun. I think I felt extra motivated because Jason was watching from the car and saying funny things. Dude rules.

On the way out we drove by this and I remember it being a fun ledge I skated once before (one of my favorite days ever). This time it ruled too. Crooks went down quick for both of us. Jake did his first to fakie and Jason has always hated on those. It was hilarious to hear Jason heckle him for not going out to forward. Jake did get it to forward next try. I couldn’t get one to fakie or a shove out like Jake did, but I felt I was grinding them pretty far for me. We also both got back 50s, front 50s all the way to the ground. I also got one poorly landed f/s noseslide (for Jason), a low front 5-0 and a front 50 to back 180 when it hit the ground that was a blast. We ended with a game of SKATE into the bank. I think the techest trick was a halfcab flip. I lost. It was fun though. I bailed a lot of tricks I should have landed. Great day. Then we met up with Fuzz and Leslie and had dinner. Yum.

Met up with Carleigh after a fun and productive morning of breaking up a tree so it can go out in the compost pile. Met up with Carleigh after some food and watching Marc Suciu’s Cross Continental part a few times (so good!). We went to campus. First order of business was documenting some new skateboard racks in front of the building for Carleigh’s boss or something I didn’t quite understand. We rolled around for a bit before settling in on the weird long two stair spot. A few ollies up/down later we were looking to move on and I had the dumb idea of trying to kickflip a little 6″ flat gap on top of a somewhat narrow ledge that has a huge drop on one side. Just standing in the setup area gave me butterflies.

These kickflips literally took us forever. The flat gap isn’t that high up, but just standing in the setup seriously messed with me. I got mine before she did, but it took both of us forever.

We kind of dorked around at some other spots for awhile. Nothing special. Jack joined us shortly before Neil and his kids (ha) Alec and Blake did. We did some tricks into the mellow bank thing below the CU 14 for a bit. Then I noticed some new curbs and started trying to wallie 1 then ollie the next. Took me forever. Everyone else did it within a few tries. For how much I skate it’s amazing how bad I am at ollies. Carleigh had the best ever accidental wallie on the second one that would have been the death of me, but she pulled it off. Neil was all over the place killing ollies, nose mannies, swearing, looking at college girls. I think he got halfcab the first one, back 180 the second. Jack wasn’t supposed to really be skating due to stitches in his hand, but he still killed it. He almost still fakie bigspinned the second curb. This isn’t just a parking block, it’s a curb with a little drop after it. Not big at all, but not two regular curbs in a row. You could also hit it going sideways. Ollie taller curb then a trick out of a mini kicker over a curb. I got front 180 over one and tried b/s flip a different one. I only came close once really. Jack did a blunt transfer all easy. Around now some CU Safety Staff (or something) threatened to kick us out. One of the tools was wearing DCs and saying we should be doing first try tricks like nollie tres. It just bummed me out. Nothing like a kook to remind me that I have always sucked at skateboarding. He eventually said we had to leave if he landed a nollie tre first try. He didn’t. Oh well, I was still over it as were others.

Then after some fun hill cruising we ended up here. This thing is pretty much perfect, but weirder then it looks with the downhill approach. Jack didn’t have any problems of course. Pretty much every stock trick first try. Blake, Jack and I dorked around on it uphill too. Blake did the most epic accidental front 50 to pressure hardflip out. Mind blowing! Jack did a bunch of cool tricks like back tail stall shove out. I got a crooks jib and a few other tricks that I landed with my butt sticking way out. At the end Carleigh got a couple really good boardslides, Blake did a halfcab noseslide and I slid some switch slappy noseslides about 3 inches. Hyped I tried something on it though. All in all a blast of a day and another reminder that street skating is the best.

Super nice day. Meant to bring my skate stuff with me to work so I could skate right after, but I forgot. So I went home and the family was running errands so I decided to skate a little before they got home. I kinda wanted more then just flippers, but was so limited on time. I did manage to do some manuals on the sidewalk and ollie a little sidewalk crack gap out of a curb cut I’ve never noticed before. Didn’t get too tech on the flippers and a 3 flip took forever.

New board day!

Went up to Meta to sell some wheels then rolled into campus. I have been really tired lately. I don’t know why, but I think I need to stop taking a naps because every morning I wake up too early. Anyways, it was pretty nice out. I just cruised down the main path for awhile. The new brick section is pretty fun. I ended up in front of Macky auditorium just kind of dorking around ollieing up/off/onto curbs and trying to get warmed up. I haven’t stretched as much lately since apparently it’s not good before skating so my body felt weird. I managed a first try manual across from Macky Dr then found a jersey barrier to wallride and another shorter one to do a little noseslide to fakie on. Some more pushing and I ended up at the new area that Nathan Fantasia did the awesome gap to nosegrind on. Someone waxed up the edges of the ledge nearby and I skated that for awhile. I would do a kickflip over a little flat gap before backside tricks. I got boardslide, noseslide, noseslide fakie and crooks (kind of) before trying noseslide shoves. The frontside side is a little taller. I got front board and front nose to fakie before trying front 50s which would have been pretty tall for me. I got into it, but never grinded right or landed it. A couple other skaters showed up. They were really weird. One of them had half a ski pole with a GoPro mounted on it filming his friend who as far as I can tell didn’t actually land anything other then back 180s. They asked if I had wax so they could wax up a picnic table that was on top of a curb but the dude couldn’t get even close to skating it anyway. It was weird. They were nice enough, but when he tried a front 50, got way closer to me, then beamed me and said ‘oh that’s not so hard’ I decided to leave. Like I said I’ve been really tired lately which makes me more cranky then normal and I was on a solo mission anyway. I ended up near on the north side of the basketball stadium. I haven’t skated them before, but I had remembered there were a few sets of stairs down a little hill and that seemed kind of like fun even though my knees were hurting pretty bad. Turns out it was 4 flat 4 flat 3. All seperated by a lot going down a not-so-steep hill. I thought it would be pretty easy to ollie all of them. Then I remembered I can’t ollie or skate fast. Doh. The top 4 has a big crack right in front. So instead I would hit an awesome yellow curb, ollie up the sidewalk for the second 4 then the 3. Well, that was the goal anyway, basically all I did was do slappy front tails, front 50s and a front 5-0 on the yellow curb followed by bails down the 4. Until I did a good 5-0 then I finally committed to the 4 and scooted off the 3 terrified. Oh well it was fun. I walked back towards the car thinking I might call it a night. But then I ended up at the art building that has the great concrete, did a kickflip and decided I should skate flat for awhile which ended up being really fun. It’s slightly downhill and I did back 180 then halfcab flip. Better/faster back 180 followed by fakie bigflip. Pop shove followed by treflip. Heelflips. That’s about it. I contemplated skated after that but instead I went home.

Got a random text from Ft Collins Jake wondering about skating for the day and invited him along with the old guy sunday crew. It was rad. Neil, Jake, Ft Collins Jake and me initially. This was the first spot near Neil’s house. Not sure why we’ve never been there. It’s basically as skatepark. Metal curbs and a flat bar as well as the blocks. Warming up was tough for me, tougher than normal. I had some back 50s on the curb, boring slides on the weird flat bar and managed to ollie up the tall ledge. Neil was all over the place landing a lot as usual trying to line things out. Front shove then boardslide the tall part of the flat bar then a manual or something. Tall Jake (Ft Collins Jake) tried some hard stuff. Little Jake (ha) had a few clean ollies up the tall ledge, manuals and kickflips. We didn’t stay too long.

Then we arrived at this ditch. It needed some cleaning and luckily someone had left a broom/dustpan to get it done.

We stayed here awhile. Tall Jake busted some big f/s ollies! Neil had some nice backside ones over the bush too. Jake did front tail and front pivot on a sketchy rock. Neil also had some sick lines with ollies, no comply bonelesses (?), no comply to tail, etc. He was ripping. I had a b/s flip on the bank super easy like second try then couldn’t do it again. Weird. I mostly tried to do tricks on the weird double bank at the far end and failed. Bernie showed up and did some neat stuff like front rock on the steep part, some good ollies and stuff. After this we went to a weird wallride spot where nothing really went down other then Bernie doing some cool manual combos on the medians and me doing some powerslides.

We saw this spot on the way to the wallride spot and decided to go back to it. It ended up being a super sick spot. Neil and tall Jake sat it out as they were too sore though. My legs were super sore too. In particular my knees. It was more then just soreness though, clearly some arthritis flare up was happening. I didn’t care, the spot was too cool. That doesn’t mean I skated good, I had to work hard for everything and seemed to skate even slower then normal. Tricks I got on the ledges consist of some real tech ones like front 50, back board, back nose, back nose fakie, back crooks. At the end of the day I also got front noseslide as I felt it necessary to try and bring a little Jason into the session. I did kickflip up the curb several times to setup for backside stuff. My highlight was a run of fakie bigspin up the curb, crooks the ledge and kind of a kickflip off the other curb. The fakie bigspin hyped me up though. Almost got a line of front 50 then treflip off the curb. I was going so slow though. Ha. Jake was slaying it. Front tail, front 5-0, back noseslide, back noseslide shove and a line of front tail then kickflip off the curb. Bernie had a ridiculous line. Kickflip up the curb, front tail the ledge, front nosegrind the other ledge then back 180 into the parking lot. I think it was actually crazier then that, but I can’t remember. Bernie rules it. I seem to have forgotten that it was 70 out and sunny. So nice out! Fun day, these “old guy” days are fun even if Neil and I were the only somewhat old ones.