On a nice morning I went to dog park right as a stiff breeze kicked in. Eric and Peewee were there. Kevin would come a little later. I warmed up in the park for a bit, just did the rainbow grind and a few hip ollies. Eric did the pole jam. Then hit the dog park. Some puddles made it less fun. Kevin showed. It wasn’t the best session for me. I was stiff and sore and lacking motivation until a couple hours in when I finally started going. Kevin had a fakie front tail which I hadn’t seen, lots of back 180 fakie 50s, his normal tricks. Eric said he was at “60%” ha ha. Still ripping though some good back 50s almost a fakie heel. I came close to nose manually around the C ledge, tried front tails on the curb, tried front nosegrind shove on the curb (got remotely close), came very close to switch flip, couldn’t treflip and couldn’t heelflip. Mostly a bummer session.

(setup 8.25 null vhs, jessup pj ultragrip, venture 5.2 lows royal bushings flat top washer, 52mm spitfire f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 440H b/w grey size 12)
(pain level 5/10 sore)

Cold morning so we let it warm up for awhile and met at Broomfield park at 11:30. We pretty much had the park to ourselves. There would be a couple other people, but never really felt like it. Kevin was quick to pop onto stuff. After a while we played a game of SKATE. Kevin won of course, but I did get a few of my tricks. Black ledge was the main attraction for a bit. Kevin rattled off nollie nosegrinds, nollie front crooks and a bunch more. Cass had posting up on tailslides and was thinking flip out, solid crooks. I struggled with front 50s, but was getting up onto it more frequently than normal. Had a couple accidental 5-0s. Tried noseslide 270 shove and was not close, had a few crooks. Tried a lot of flippers, but didn’t land much. We played a game of no repeat SKATE which Kevin easily won. Then we finished on the blue box. I tried halfcab crooks and may have gotten some little jibs, but definitely not a legit one. Cass did back 180 nosegrind, fakie back tails. Fun session even if I didn’t really land much. Afterwards Kevin and I went and hung out with Fuzz which was great.

(setup 8.25 null vhs, jessup pj ultragrip, venture 5.2 lows royal bushings flat top washer, 52mm spitfire f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5)
(pain level 4/10)

Wanted to kind of do a side by side comparison between 5.6 hollows and 5.2 lows so I went to Boulder park again before work. I had a fun morning. After a bit of warming up I kind of felt like filming a little to make the blog more enjoyable so I set it up for the bank to ledge. Noseslides are always fun. Was hyped to actually 50 more than a few inches. The 5-0 was an accident. Hyped on the crooks. Then I just skated whatever and did a lot of hucking. I skated the ledges better and would get a fakie nosegrind on the bench as well as first try front 50. Couldn’t get b/s flip over the hip, but did get remotely close to cab flip over the little hump hip. Tried a bunch of varial heels to fakie and didn’t get my feet on any. Ended with a front 50 front 180 out on the bump to ledge. It took awhile. Fun morning, I liked the lows better.

(setup 8.25 null vhs, jessup pj ultragrip, venture 5.2 lows royal bushings flat top washer, 52mm spitfire f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5)
(pain level 3/10)

Somewhat warm morning in the upper 30s and my first day without an early meeting. Perfect opportunity to go to Boulder park for the first time in months. Took me awhile to get going and I only had an hour to skate. I did nothing worth mentioning, basically just tried to ollie up things, close to some manuals, had some fun noseslides across the mini bump to ledge, took too long to do a front 50 on the bump to ledge, only did halfcab flip and backside flip on flat, ended with a really slow front 50 shove on the low ledge. There was probably more, I didn’t skate terrible and it felt good skating a park again.

(8.25 null vhs, jessup pj ultragrip, venture 5.6 v-hollow thunder bushings, 52mm spitfire f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5)
(pain level 3/10)

Had some time before dinner to skate. Went to the garage feeling kind of run down and started slow. Grabbed the 8.25 and it felt better and stuck with it. Didn’t really try any treflips, but hucked a few switch tres that were not close at all. Got halfcab heel and close to front heel. Hucked a bunch of flippers 1 try near the end which is always kind of fun.

(8.25 null vhs, jessup pj ultragrip, venture 5.6 v-hollow thunder bushings, 52mm spitfire f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5)
(pain level 3/10)

Out to the garage after a fun night of dealing with dishwasher problems. Was feeling pretty motivated and started getting through flippers quickly. Even got a couple fakie heels. Then I went for treflip. I really wanted to get one in 10 tries and all of those tries were very close. Instead I went 0-50 and had to focus so hard to not focus my board. Then I went inside and watched the Nuggets blow a 25 point lead. Not the best night.

(setup null burnout stumpy 8″, pj jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 high cast plate hollow hanger venom 91a bushings both washers, 51mm spitfire f4 101a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5)
(pain level 2/10)

Great start to 2022!

On a cool day I went out skating around noon still avoiding people in case covid was still contagious. I started at a random curb are on Valmont. I looked for a low curb to try Dave’s latest challenge – switch pivot shove. So I found an area that was dry with good asphalt for flatground too. I didn’t have the same juice as the day before. I started in my 440 Highs which I didn’t like. I did some other stalls and stuff to get warmed up. Couldn’t quite get kickflip axle. Went in on the switch pivot and could not get up onto the curb in pivot to save my life. Had a fun front disaster, but I left after a while with no real plan.

Ended up in a parking lot I had somehow never seen before off Central. I started on a low curb trying the switch pivot again and was once again not close at all. I went over to a 3 stair area and would eventually get a line that sounds alright on paper. Kickflip up a curb, noseslide a tallish bench, ollie the 3 stair (would be so much better if I went faster and ollied past the crack) then a b/s flip on flat. I couldn’t get treflip or halfcab heel on flat. Was going to line out something starting with fakie ollie up the curb, but instead I fizzled out and went looking for something new.

Ended up at the weird little crusty hip. Took too many tries to get a b/s flip. I probably would have tried some more tricks, but there is a homeless camp and I felt bad making noise.

Last I ended up at a manny pad off Pearl and 55th I hadn’t actually skated before. I was pretty dead at this point and probably looked super pathetic to the many cars driving by. I would only get a manual, some kickflips and remotely close to nollie flip. Long day. I probably made covid worse by skating so much.

(setup null burnout stumpy 8″, pj jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 high cast plate hollow hanger venom 91a bushings both washers, 51mm spitfire f4 101a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5)
(pain level 3/10 pretty sore)

On a warmish morning I left the house for the first time in a week and felt up to try some mellow flatground. I started with a little warm up line of kickflip, weird nollie disaster revert a parking block then switch 180 a puddle. It was fun. I had reassembled my 8″ setup, but with high trucks this time. It felt great. At one point I was 4/5 on halfcab flips. Made me wonder why the heck I make my fav part of skateboarding so hard with larger boards sometimes. I’m sure I’ll soon be obsessing over a larger setup, but man I enjoyed 8″ today. I would go on to get several flippers. Fakie flip, f/s halfcab flip, heelflip, b/s flip, varial flip, fakie bigflip and f/s heel. The front heel made me so happy. It was like 3rd try. After a while I tried a line of halfcab flip, heelflip, treflip and did it. I was so hyped. The treflip was a typical Glen 270 flip, but the first two tricks felt good. The heelflips especially. Felt like the first one I actually popped in a long time. I skated more after that, but couldn’t get the other tricks i wanted like halfcab heels, switch flip or nollie tre.

(setup null burnout stumpy 8″, pj jessup ultragrip, venture 5.2 high cast plate hollow hanger venom 91a bushings both washers, 51mm spitfire f4 101a classic shape, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5)
(pain level 1/10 I guess not skating a bunch does reduce soreness. who would have thought)

Feeling a little better, but trying to keep it easy I went into the garage. I had no plans other than not skating hard and making myself sick again. I succeeded with a lackluster performance after getting kickflip kind a quick, fakie flip. Then I hucked and once again realized how hard 8.3 is to flip. I switched to my 8.25 setup maybe, but never really landed anything else. I don’t even remember what I hucked.

(setups 8.3 & 8.25 didn’t overly like either)
(pain level 0/10)