One of my favorite people to skate with, one of the steeziest skaters I know, Stubborn to the core. Heck, one of the best dudes ever. This is his part in The Stubborns. It’s the first part in the video because it sets the tone so well. Rob rips.
Busy day at work, but Dave was texting me saying I should go to Blue Skies before it started raining. Somehow I pulled it off and went to meet Dave. When I arrived he was in the hockey rink instead of at the park. I was initially kind of bummed as I wanted to skate the park. But everyone that reads this knows I love flatground so it didn’t take me long to start enjoying it. Dave had only been there a couple minutes so we were both going through the wonderful horribleness that is warming up as an older skater. My legs would get warmed up and feel good and I got a ton of flip tricks including a new one. Started with kickflip, shoves, varial flip, fakie flip, halfcab flips. b/s flip, 360 flip, got a first try f/s halfcab heel so tried rick flips for awhile and got close. Had a line with 360 flip then nollie 360 flip, couldn’t get the fakie tre next though. Also had a run with heelflip then nollie varial flip. Tried a ton of switch varial flips. Got close. Was trying another one and landed something. We thought it was a switch flip at first, but I was riding away regular so apparently I did my first ever switch sex change. Ha, pretty hyped to say the least. I couldn’t get a fakie tre to end my session. Dave did a lot of lines. Nollie front 180 then switch front shove. Switch back shoves. Fakie shove, fakie bigspin, f/s nollie bigspin. Nollie shoves, switch 180s. Lots of 360 tricks. Cab, f/s cab, helipop and learned a new one. Nollie front 360. Or nollie cab. Or switch cab. Just as long as you don’t say “full” I don’t care. He also put down a bunch of kickflips, no complys, switch no complys, 43 shiftys and probably a ton more tricks I’m forgetting. Aki showed up and joined us. He’s a software engineer that goes there at lunch and he’s super nice. He warmed up then started linking a bunch of flippers and 180s. Kickflip, heelflip, back heel, 360 flip, fakie flip. He would get a bunch in a row. Then I needed to get back to work. What a good time.
The day that keeps on giving! Fuzz, Dave and Rob pushed for Old Man night at Launch so we met up in Longmont and headed that way. As we were getting close it was still dry so a detour to the bank to curb was made. We ended up skating there a couple hours and past closing time for Launch. It ruled. It completely ruled. I’ll just start by saying Dave, Fuzz and Rob rule. Even without the skating it would have ruled. But add a good session and you get the shit we live for. We were all a little slow to get started, but the tricks really started stacking up. There is no way I’ll remember them all, but everyone seemed to get “their” trick and a bunch of other ones. I’ll try. Rob. back smiths, started a rad back pivot train where we all did them with a smile, backside nosepick to back d, front tails, locked into a Rob Helmstetter backside noseblunt, feeble to rock, back pivot to back tail, lofty bean plants to tail and pop shove nosebash. Fuzz. Front tail fakie, ollie up to front tail slide, fakie nosepick to fakie, noseblunt tail grab, front pivot fakie, front and back axle stall 270s out. Me. no comply front tail, couldn’t land front tail shove, kickflip “back smith” where my front foot was hovering above my board, kick back tail (felt so rad), slammed super hard switch pushing for a switch front nose stall, hurricane, hucked switch front heels for the heck of it on flat, got a treflip on flat, some other boneless tricks. Dave. Got more flatground kickflips, front hurricane, back pivot shove, back tail (shove too maybe?), thruster plant (I think?), front axle stall to back axle stall, something into axle stall to fakie. I’m blowing it. These are too hard to remember. It was an awesome session with an awesome crew. Stoked.
(setup 8.25 null venture wide lights bones med bushings 51mm stfs nb+ pj stratfords)
Buy your own copy of Off The Couch! Do it, it’s epic! And only $10. Full parts from the Trick Factory and the “best intro ever”! Give Matt Rief the credit for that quote.
And while your at it pick up a fantastic Off The Couch t-shirt. The shirt is a high quality Anvil Ringspun 980. Ballin’!
I finally installed a youtube video plugin so naturally the first thing that went up is the Off The Couch teaser. This is going to be one fine video featuring full parts by several over 30 year old men who still ride skateboards. It’s gonna be a hoot. Basically it started when Brian Ball farted on me and I jumped off a couch all quick. Neil asked if I was ok and I said it kind of hurt. Somehow the name ‘Off The Couch’ got coined after that.The video will feature full parts from Brian Ball, Neil Thurman, Jeremy Frankovis, Rob Helmstetter, Jason Heidecker, Lazer Rubenstein (under 30 alert) and somehow me. Although I’m recruiting the help of the Null team to make my part at least somewhat interesting to watch. The goal is to have this video out around Thanksgiving this year. But who knows, there are no rules with this video.