Feeling grouchy I went to meet friends at dog park right as a stiff breeze kicked in. It would be quite frustrating and seemed to effect everyone. I almost left after taking almost 10 tries to get a kickflip. I blame the wind, but really it was another setup change that is to blame (8.25 with 8″ venture highs). I don’t remember much about this session other than a game of SKATE with Jake in the corner that was somewhat protected by the wind. The reason it was memorable was because I got a few sketchy treflips before the judges finally just had sympathy and counted one.

After that Sean, Paul and I went to the ledge near Steelyards. As Sean warmed up I did some noseslides. had a noseslide to fakie followed by a halfcab flip that would be the highlight of my day. Then we went and filmed at a nearby construction site which was completely draining and appeared to hurt my calf again.

(setup 3/10 null 8.25 spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, venture v-cast 5.2 high with royal bushings no big washer, 51mm bones stf v1 pj, new balance numeric 306 blue size 12 nike sb insoles)
(pain 4/10)

Went to Broomfield after work on what seemed like a nice day until skate time when a strong wind kicked in. Argh. Shortly after arriving I went to carve through the new bowl section and slipped out slamming really hard. The session did not get better. Rob was smart and bounced pretty quickly. Sean did Sean things. I bailed my first few ollie attempts onto the blue ledge which was very close to a board focus. Played a game of SKATE with Sean and do not remember a single thing about it other than I didn’t land much other than a first try fakie bigflip.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, royal ultralight 149s, 51mm bones stf v1 pj, new balance numeric 306 blue nike sb dunk insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

Had forgot all about the silver session until Jesse texted me about it so I went. I again didn’t have much energy and it showed quickly. I couldn’t ollie, flip my board, put in any effort. I wanted to at least try some backside sugarcanes but it turns out that back disasters would be hard enough on the tiny qp. Jess would land his first back d’s. Raul did it first try. I came really close to b/s flip the hip, but never got both feet on. Had some good bump to noseslides and crook. Jake and Nick shredded how they do. Nick’s rock ‘n roll powerslides are awesome. Jesse and I ended with a game of SKATE that he won, but it was finally close as I had him to SKAT. But he got a letter on pop shove! Ha ha. I was made to take several tries to get a halfcab flip and lose it on a fakie bigflip that I would get a few tries alter.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, royal ultralight 149s, 51mm bones stf v1 pj, new balance numeric 272 b/w size 11.5 half insoles)
(pain level 5/10 vulcs)

Such a nice afternoon, so little motivation but ended up at dog park with Sean and Paul. I thought I’d feed off the good weather and I actually had some motivation once things got going, but I literally landed nothing and completely hated my setup. It was a lose lose situation and the only positive I can take away from the session is that slappy crooks are really fun. Sean was kind of in a blah mood too. Paul shredding as usual.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, royal ultralight 149s, 51mm bones stf v1 pj, new balance numeric 272 b/w size 11.5 half insoles)
(pain level 5/10 vulcs)

Nice warm morning, lots of older people at dog park. Crew was Jake, Cass, Rob, Sean then eventually Garrett and Joe. I had changed to 8.25 deck. I really liked it. The key word being “liked”. I don’t remember much about this session prior to a game of SKATE with Cass, Sean, Jake. I got a letter on Sean with a treflip which made me happy. But that was the only letter I got on Sean and he would win. I outlasted the older 30 somethings though. I would also get several front 50s on the black ledge and an ultra rare manual the blue pad. Saw Rob do shove lipslide, nollie lipslide, front 50, nose manual, back 50 back 180 blue ledge. Cass front noseslides, front tails, chilling. Jake had front tails and mostly skated the bowl. Sean did Sean things. The long 5-0 down the new bank to ledge so casual blew me away. Garrett and Cass looked good on their boards too. AFter that we drove all over Lakewood and didn’t skate anything.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, royal ultralight 149s, 51mm bones stf v1 pj, new balance numeric 272 b/w size 11.5 half insoles)
(pain level 3/10 vulcs)

After some lounging around I went to dog park to meet the crew and help with a cleanup. Cass had some bondo and we mostly did that for the first couple hours. And I’m stoked! At no point did I really skate hard and I hated my setup and shoes almost the entire time. Jesse and I played a game of SKATE that Dave would join in the middle. At one point I did fakie bigflip, halfcab flip then b/s flip in a row. But other than that I sucked it up. Jesse won once again. This time on f/s flip.

(setup 3/10 8.3 PMG, jessup ultragrip, thunder team hollow 149s, spitfire 51mm bones stf v1 pj, new balance numeric 272 b/w size 11.5 half insoles)
(pain level 4/10 vulcs)

Had no motivation to skate, but needed to deliver a board in Broomfield. So I went to Broomfield park and was there for about 15 minutes before Cass arrived. I didn’t do much in that time other than a few stalls on the bank to curb. I would get a back pivot and I think front tail which I hadn’t done before. There was a dude who basically lined out a front 5-0 in the deepend of the bowl with a b/s flip down the doubleset. So yeah, I felt very out of place. But the crowd switched over quick and Cass showed so I didn’t feel so bad. I had started trying a warm up line of ollie onto the black ledge, kickflip out of the bank, front tail the bank to curb when a van full of kids showed up. And they sucked! Cass had front noseslide then front shove out of the bank before we started to have everything interrupted by a bunch of kids that didn’t care about anything other than themselves. Crooks were working for me. I was getting up into 50s but not landing them on the black ledge. Cass had some nice front 50s on the new ledge into the bank. I’m not remembering a whole lot more. We ended with a game of SKATE that was a good one for Cass and I. We landed a lot of tricks. Heelflip, halfcab flips, b/s flip, hardflip, fakie bigflip, varial flip, Cass won with fakie varial flip. During the game one of the kids almost ran into me then told me to get out of the way. I about lost it. Told him to STFU. He didn’t care at all. Those kids really sucked. It was a fun session though.

(setup 3/10 8.3 PMG, jessup ultragrip, thunder team hollow 149s, spitfire 51mm bones stf v1 pj, new balance numeric 272 b/w size 11.5 half insoles)
(pain level 3/10 vulcs)

Not too motivated to skate I went to dog park to meet Mike, but he was at Valmont. After some terrible warming up for me we mostly just skated the pond area. And it was really fun. There weren’t too many kids doing the evergreeen pump track, but we were definitely still bumming people out by not just pumping through. For whatever reason I started thinking about ride on blunts and that’s how it got started for me. I actually kind of did some fs ones first. The first line took me a long time, but was really fun. Actually, the noseslide – kickflip line took me a long time too. Mike was skating the steep little qp like it was easy. The Hewitt grinds were sick, the rock fakie carve to fakie rock too. Other than those I really didn’t do much. We cruised around after and I didn’t do much.

(setup 3/10 8.3 PMG, jessup ultragrip, thunder team hollow 149s, spitfire 51mm bones stf v1 pj, new balance numeric 306 blue size 12 dunk insoles)
(pain level 6/10 vulcs)

After letting it warm up a collection of us met at Broomfield park to check out the new additions to the park. I arrived first and got called for work immediately upon exiting my car. Argh! But I jut needed to make some calls so it wasn’t too bad. I had rolled around a little and was getting used to my setup when others showed up. Rob, Dave then a bit later Bratcher, Jesse, Tim. Also the Daryl and Justin which are always good to see. David, Max H was there. Darin showed up. So yeah, as you can see a lot of people were there and the park was quite crowded and chaotic at times. I had yet another setup change, 8.3 with Thunder 149s. It was good except for the big wheels I put on it. There were too many people for me to notice everything that was done, but I’ll start with Rob. He had some really good front tails on the new bank to curb, shove lipslide on the blue ledge, crooks, front boards and laid his board to rest when he couldn’t get a kickflip. Dave was on a mission as always. He had a really good run of boardslide to fakie the brick qp, switch crooks to forward the new smaller bank to curb, ollie up back 180 from the banks on the pier 7 replica but couldn’t get the pressure flip garnish ha ha. Him and Darin skated the quartapotty for a while which is way hard to skate now with the massive coping. I had a lot of fun crooks and had a couple noseslides to fakie on the bank to ledge, some fun front slashes on the bank to curb. Mostly I bailed tricks though and took way too long to boardslide the bump to bar. At the end Darin and I did some flippers. Well, Darin did a bunch in a try or two making me jealous of his little 8″ board. I may or may not have gotten a treflip as I’m not sure if my back foot was really on it initially or not. Jesse was shredding, Bratcher too. Great seeing Daryl and Justin rattling off tricks and the rest of the Emage crew was ripping. Pretty fun session.

(setup 5/10 8.3 PMG, jessup ultragrip, thunder team hollow 149s, spitfire 53mm orange swirl classic shape F4, new balance numeric 306 blue size 12 dunk insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

After watching it snow most of the day the sun kind of came out and the ground was dry so I went to Platte to skate flat. I had tried 8.25/5.6 and hated every second of it. I did have a couple of kickflips that flipped faster than normal, but everything else was miserable. After flailing around for ~20 minutes I went to the ledge that had snow falling on it off the tree and did a few tricks. Noseslides, crooks and made myself do 3 little back 50 jibs in a row.

(setup 2/10 8.25 null spanbauer dead spots, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 with royal bushings, 51mm bones stf pj, new balance numeric 306 blue size 12 nike sb dunk insoles)
(pain level 4/10)