After almost two weeks of sickness or back spasms I’m trying to do the right thing. Instead of going skating on a back that almost felt better I went for a two hour walk. And what better thing to do then go looking for new skate spots? I came upon this gap which is ripe for the picking. An ollie would suffice as it’s more distance from the stair then this photo looks. Josh, Max, Monico I’m looking in your direction here. There is an awkward crack that needs to be avoided at the top, but from someone who will never try it it looks fine. Ha.

I’ve never noticed this little beginner gap before. Not much run up, but it looks fun. Carleigh when we skate campus we can hit this and then ..

.. go around the corner and get gnarly. This one is about 6 feet tall and is more of just a drop and the runway is scary. Could be fun or maybe we’ll never even try it. But it seems like good St Julien training for me.

This dude is near the top of my current favorites. Click the image for a bigger version.

Man this game sucked. I normally LOVE watching these games to start off a saturday or sunday, but this one was a bummer. I’m stoked Creager won, but man, pop those tricks. And Cory having to redo that back heel was crap too.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. It had stopped raining, but it was super windy. I didn’t feel sick, but my side pain acted up for the first time in months. Ugh. Dean and Derek had hit me up pretty early on wanting to make some things happen. I was in a horrible mood and in hindsight probably shouldn’t have gone skating. But I went. I met Derek at the Broomfield park as well as Brian, Neil and their skate camp kids. The park was insanely crowded. I tried to get a little warm up going on the quartapotty, but three runs in a board shot out and hit my ankle and then I ran into someone. So I left to the car. Luckily everyone else was over it too. We went to go film a line of Derek’s at a nearby spot, but there was cars in the landing. We went to another nearby spot and cars there too. We ended up at kind of a dorky spot. It’s a loading dock with banks on both sides and a two stair going into one of the banks. Going up the stair way the wind helped you. Going the other way sucked. Dean skated harder than I’ve seen him skate before. He was doing some cool old man no complies and boneless variations and ollied up the two stair (harder than it sounds). I was kind of kind of able to skate. The side pain was intense, but not as insane as it’s been before. But it still sucks. Like what’s the point in skating if you can’t really squat to ollie. Or not being able to take risks because if you fall you know your done. I hate it. I was so bummed out. Soooo bummed. I have been sick and now this. I managed a front 50 stall on the two stair back into the bank and a wallie up it. That was about it. Derek wasn’t exactly cheery either. The wind was getting him down. Understandable. He did do some cool manuals though and a sick front shove off the 2 into the bank. We ended it with back to back fakie bigflips into the bank. But as we were getting into our cars we spotted a crazy drainage ditch spot. Over a curb into a narrow drainage chute then up on to a grate. Derek wanted to try kickflip in, manual the grate. Sick. He got close, but ended up bumming super hard since it was taking awhile. It sucked to watch. Because clearly Derek is good enough to do it, but for whatever reason it wasn’t happening. He wont blame anything, but the traffic and wind did not help. Neil had shown up and did a sick no comply boneless into it. But Derek ended up getting over it. We left for Crisis/Burger King. It’s always good to see fuzz and there was like 10 kids posted up in there. Awesome. Next up we went to a nearby ledge spot. I didn’t even try to skate it because my side was sucking. Derek almost did a ridiculous line like 3rd try. So we tried to film it and then the filming curse that Derek currently has reared it’s ugly head again. It’s weird being in my position. I know Derek wanted to do it for himself, but it’s weird sitting there with a camera pointed at someone when they are that frustrated. It happens Derek. Don’t hate on yourself. I went home super bummed out on my side and my own skating. Ugh.

Been fighting a sinus infection all week. I didn’t even go into work one day. Although i got some antibiotics on Wednesday and I was starting to feel human by Friday. After “working” from home (that is a huge stretch of the term working), a crazy hail storm, a nap and then dinner Carleigh picked me up and we were off to skate. Oh wait, I had skated flat for a little bit first. It was bad. I was so stiff from laying around all week it was ridiculous. I posed around doing some little ollies and stuff for awhile then for whatever reason started posing nollie heelflips. I got to the point where some felt really good, but I never got ever close. Carleigh showed up and announced we had a special guest for the night. I couldn’t come up with who it was until we turned towards Lazers house. Street Lazer! Sick!

We went to campus which was wetter then we thought it would be. There was still hail melting and wet leaves everywhere on the concrete from the destruction. We started out at the angled ledge which had water only on the ledge part of it. So we did some rock tricks on the little tranny to ledge. Lazer and I did front rock, rock fakie and fakie rock. Carleigh was having troubles but getting into rocks so was just doing 3flip crooks instead. We moved on and ended up at the little ledge section. For some reason I don’t like that spot very much. Carleigh was busting some front 50 shoves out (minus the shoves) and ripping to no end. Lazer took a minute to get back 50, but had a good one. He also got a proper back tail. I didn’t get anything other than a 1/4″ crooked grind and posed some front blunts. Next we were at the downhill manny pad spot and none of us could manual it. Carleigh got close to nollie treflip nose manual nollie heel out, but slipped out on a wet leaf. Lame! Lazer got Razor tail by doing manuals with the tail on the ground. I came remotely close to nose manual. Then we played rock walk down the 5 stair. Carleigh used the beginners rail to hold on to. We sure were dorking around a lot. That was pretty much it until the end when we skated some flat for awhile. I was soooo rusty, but it felt good to get a few flippers. I got a lot of my tricks, but most were slow and bad. Oh well, it felt good to be skating again.

ps – I may have embellished Carleigh’s tricks a little. This was her request after seeing how many hits this blog gets. But yeah, she should be pro.

Wow that kickflip crooks.

After some pizza at the Backcountry Pizza place most of Trick Factory went to Astroland to see Black Dots.  None of us had been there before.  Turns out that place rules.  Just a warehouse, BYOB, DIY steez.  Love it. I was feeling kinda sick so I went with some Ginger Ale with a bit of whiskey in it. Yum.

The first act was Lizzie Huffman. She was great. Like really great. Super mellow acoustic music with some revealing lyrics about relationships or drinking or both. Good stuff. I apparently didn’t take a great cell phone shot of the next act. It was a solo guy called Disorder maybe? He had some good crowd support.

At first glance it looked like the Brandow’s were grabbing pills from a bag. Turned out to be ear plugs.

Next up was a punk band from Pittsburgh called “Run, Forever”. They were super good. During the first song us old guys (and Carleigh) nodded to each other saying we liked it. There was a mosh pit going and us old guys were not in it. After the first song Brian announced “Votes are in, old guys like it!” I added, “But we’ll be in the back”. Maybe somebody laughed. These guys killed it though. Straight forward old school rock ‘n roll. They had t-shirts (no XL), patches, records and an amazing black/yellow minibus. Best of luck to that band.

Last up was Black Dots. John kept thanking everyone for staying out so late like it was a week night or something. It made me laugh. It’s saturday night! Whew! I have been listening to their cd a lot lately so this is their first show where I new most of the words. That added to the enjoyment of an already great show. And the Guided By Voices cover is always great. But the Neil Young song to close it down was the best I’ve heard them play it. So insane. When is that “In a Jar” cover coming guys? Ha. Great show.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that Astroland is my favorite venue in Colorado now. Host more shows please!

Riley is one of my favorites.

There are lots of perks to running your own small skateboard company.  Some of them are simpler than others.  Like when you get a decorated envelope in the mail from some of your favorite people.  Gordon and Sandy, you guys rule!

PS – I just found out that Lee Bender drew the guy on the envelope. Sick!

Gordon showed us this spot in SF I think.  Either way though, WOW!