)

The line with the front tail then the ollie over the hydrant to nose manual is on of my favorite lines in Nothing. Connor rips.

An absolutely gorgeous day in the 60s. Neil and Blake were on their way to Boulder and I started warming up with some flatground in front of the house. After 8 days in a row already and a lot of drops at Fossil the day before I finally felt a bit stiff/sore. I seemed to warm up ok though. Flatground tricks felt alright. I got a few of the basics before they showed. We went to the bank to ledge/curb spot by Neil’s old apartment first. Ollie joined us. That spot is hard. I managed slappy nose slides most ways on the curb, boardslide the curb, noseslide the ledge, almost die trying a hurricane on the curb. Ollie wasn’t liking that spot much and spent most of his time throwing rocks around. Blake had a nice 50 transfer from the top, almost boardslide from high to low, front lip. Neil front lipped the stair and got front tail on the curb.

Then we went to Casey as we had seen the ledges were skateable again in the Channel8 video. When we rolled up Neil and I both noted how tall they were. Ha. It looked grim at first, but we all did our thing. Ollie did some ollies and 180’s off the ledges landing some in grass rides, shot rubber bands at me, played tetherball and continued his streak of being awesome. Blake tried to ollie from one ledge down to the next one, but never committed. He had a steezy kickflip into a grass ride and some 180 nosegrinds (like above, except not just a pose for the camera). Neil was trying for a long line starting with a nosebonk over a rock, flatground kickflip, front board one ledge then front 50 the next. The kickflip got the best of him. The easiest part! Ha. I had some good runs for me. Crooks the ledge in the photo (tiny jib crooks), noseslide the second ledge, heelflip on flat, ollie the corner of a rock. Going the other way I got 360 flip, front board the end of the ledge, front 50 the ledge in the photo. I was really hyped on that one. Another run I got a crooks jib, noseslide to fakie, halfcab flip on flat, worst ollie ever over the corner of a rock. I tried front 50 shoves for awhile, but slammed and put my fingers in the grate on the top and ripped open my pinky. Doh. It wasn’t bad, but I did need to get it cleaned out.

After some more spot searching we ended up here and it was really windy. I felt like leaving, but Ollie started flying around the park and Blake and I got hyped (Neil sat in the car). Some tricks were done, but we ended with a flyout session that was a freakin’ blast. The first early grab I committed to resulted in the funnest feeling I’ve had in awhile. I stuck in the grass immediately and did a half flip slide thing down the hill that had me laughing so hard. It was such a pure fun feeling. I get a few early grabs/ollies without slams that were also fun. Ollie was killing the cannonball grabs, also straight ollied it and almost front 180’d into the grass too. He also did a few kickflips while holding on to those bike racks. Real ones soon? Blake tried kickflip into the grass forever and had a ton of hilarious falls. Epic end of a great day.

Surprisingly the day after seeing Pissed Jeans I was not wrecked. Bernie and I took the Metro to downtown DC with no idea what to skate other then Freedom Plaza. We didn’t want to start there though. First thing we found was this little flat bar that you didn’t have to pop out of. I was feeling really weird, maybe it was old age. I’m gonna say that at least. Bernie did a bunch of front boards and some to manny off the curb. We saw these dollar bill people walking and he asked them to pose for the money shot. Ha ha. I had a fun run of back board pop out on a different one, then crooks this one then a b/s flip to stop. Every trick landed like I was about 55 years old.

We found this a few blocks later. It was another frustrating session for me. I actually slammed pretty hard and rolled down a couple of them. Ugh. Bernie was killing it though. Manaul the low one ollie up to the 2nd still manualing and ollie the 2. Mannies, nose mannies, 180s out, kickflip out (with a sore ankle even). Bern was ripping. I got one lousy manual and a bunch of frustration. Some dude in an I Love Haters DGK shirt came up and did a heelflip on my board in some thick basketball shoes. Pretty tight.

Pretty sure we ended up here next. Bernie did this ride over the grate a few times. So sick. I struggled to ollie that high, but ended up getting a couple wallrides and a front 180 fakie one like Bernie did a bunch.

We pushed downhill through crowds of people and ended up at Freedom Plaza which was totally mobbed with people. We didn’t even try to skate. Those ledges are not short. It was cool to see such an iconic skate spot. The Suciu back tail gap out is pretty nuts.

Saw the gold rail nearby and whipped out this NBD first try.

Then we hit this fun somewhat downhill area for a bit. There was a circle of stairs. 3 or 4 down, 2 up. And some good asphalt in the street and sidewalks above it. I started with ollie up the curb, ollie down the 3, 180 up the 2. Bernie manualed the sidewalk then ollied the 4. I ended up doing my favorite line of the trip with kickflip up the curb, manual a sidewalk section, ollied up the curb then ollied the 4. Put a smile on my face. It was a narrow 4 too and my knee almost hit the ledge. It felt cool to ollie it. We moved on.

We found this little kicker in a back alley that had lots of weird traffic. I guess it was kind of an art studio area or something, but it was weird. We both had some some ollies off it. Mine didn’t pop of course. I back 180’d it with some nice tic tacs that Bernie called steezy since his phone took the photo way too late.

Real close was a sick ledge as a manny pad or off a 3 stair. We went around the corner just to see what it had to offer and it was this cool downhill long ledge with flat gaps in it. Bernie ollied one then ollied the next to manual. So sick. I couldn’t ollie one of the flat gaps to save my life. We got a friendly kick out and kept going. There was the same downhill ledge going the other way which was more of a frontside ollie and I was finally able to ollie a flat gap.

This was right nearby and easily the hardest I’ve laughed in awhile. Bernie would ollie onto it and when he would ride off he would fall into dirt every time. It was so funny. I had to do the lame ollie up to rock and yank it up onto the ledge to ride it. Then we spotted a weird ledge. See where Bernie is in the photo above? Click on it, blow it up, analyze it. The runway is a narrow step. If you go off into the metal grate you hang up. So no angle at all in the approach. The ledge was a bit taller to get on then it looks, but still not tall. The landing has a handrail if you get too out of control.

Bernie back 50’d it a bunch then back 5-0’d it first try.

I took a million tries to get a front 50 both hands down that would only count if you were 50 or older. Oh well. I normally take a lot of angle into front 50s so it was really weird for me. Hyped to have mostly landed it though. This was pretty much the end of downtown. We found a little granite ledge that I did a few crooked grinds on. It was not waxed and sharp and felt pretty raw to grind. It put some crazy grooves in my trucks too. I thought we were done for the day, we took the Metro back to Alexandria, but got off at a different stop to meet Josh.

We got to the stop before Josh and this was directly across from the Metro stop. WTF!!! There were 4 of these in a row and they were not even touched. We got to skate for about 30 minutes, all of which was a blast for me. I thought this spot was beyond amazing. Wallie’ing the corners ruled. Bernie did a front wallie to manual. These did not grind unfortunately. Some wax would have made them go, but we didn’t have any. I just had a blast lining out wallies and different stalls. Got front feeble, back smith, back crooks, a lot. Finally didn’t feel old. Got a wallie front 180. Then we was out.

Went up to my Mom’s house in Buena Vista because my brother was in town. We got up super early, ate breakfast, then went out, got some caffeine and dropped my mom off at a quilting class. Steve knew I would want to skate the park with him a little so he didn’t even try to skip it. We had fun. I had brought an extra board for him to skate and he made due. He carved around the park quite pretty good for only skating a couple times a year and trying to act older than me. Other then a carving around his only trick was a little 50 on a weird corner thing (yes that really is the best description of it). Click here for the quicktime of it!

I forgot to mention how cold it was. 18 degrees. With the sun it didn’t feel that cold, but when the wind would pick up, brrr. I was still really sore from the long red curbs session with Dave, but I knew I wouldn’t have much time to skate so I tried to get it all in. I bet the kids in Buena Vista were hyped on this rainbow rail until they realized the would have to drop in on a kinked vert wall to get to it. It was really fun to grind over though. And considering I gave up grinds on flat bars a long time ago it made it even more fun. Maybe I should try again. I found some little lines in the park cruising around. Here’s a movie I didn’t know my brother was taking (otherwise I would have done a frontside invert). For all the stuff that’s packed into that park the small tranny section really is hard to keep speed. My favorite line was a little front scratcher on the noping wall behind Steve above, roll into the roll in, pump over the roll in hip, slappy the rainbow rail, then front rock the little qp above it.

This one took me a bit. Front 50 that I would turn to front tail then drop in. It’s the only ledge in park (there is a backside one too). It has square coping and it’s really weird to go into tranny off square coping. The funniest thing is this wasn’t the only tranny with square coping. Whack. Some of it is even placed level so you grind on a corner of it (like a diamond). Anyways, this was pretty frustrating, but the only real trick I did.

Last thing I really tried was a little scratch grind on this wall. I think it goes to vert. I carved tile a bunch, and got the wheels halfway onto the pool coping, but couldn’t quite get a grind. Doh. My brother took the photo with my delay ridden phone and that’s the closest he got me to the top. I may have gone past my welcome as Steve was wanting to go pretty bad so I finally left.

I’ve finally skated the Buena Vista Skatepark. Yippee. My review of it is a 3/10. The reality is it sucks pretty bad considering todays skatepark standards in Colorado. Square coping on tranny? Whack. Kinks all over the place. I can’t even imagine what the crash up derby factor is as we were the only ones there. No flow. The funny thing was two high school kids were skating the old park. In most ways the old one is better for beginner skaters so I could see them avoiding the new park. That and there is basically no street stuff at this park. And the few “street” oriented obstacle have tranny in it anyway. For a town that has no street stuff to skate I imagine the kids are pretty bummed. Well, the kids that want to skate anyway, I bet kids with BMX bikes are hyped.

Our warmest day in a long time at 55! My shoulder seemed good enough to skate so I met Bernie at the new Street League park so we could start working out our contest tricks. It was way colder then either of us had anticipated. What happened to that 50 degree weather? I guess at 8pm it’s gone in January. It felt really cold. The park was way more crowded then I imagined it would be. Doh. The No Love dudes were there though which is always awesome. Andrew was ripping! Him and I easily had the most beat up boards at the park. So funny. Anyways, the warm up period sucked for me. All the pressure of the scoring system is rough. I felt like I couldn’t bail a trick so I would just not try tricks and instead just push around or get in some ones way. Bernie added to his point total in the line format pretty quick. Front smith 180 out on the bank to bench (above), front 50 off the ledge going down the 3, boardslide the flat bar, grind the bank to bank, etc. Andrew had some mean feebles and lipslides out across the whole flat bar, but those didn’t score as well as the feeble treflip out that TPuds had. The only tricks I got before being kicked out of the quarterfinals with the lowest point total in Street League history was a back 50 on the bank to bank, noseslide the bump to bench and ollie the rockish gap off the tiny kicker (with both feet coming way off the board). I tried a front 50 on one of the many ledges on the edge of the park, came up short and put all my weight on my right arm and threw out my shoulder again. Ugh. Rather then being smart and stop skating I just continued to fully embarrass myself. Doing dork tricks on the big kickers in the center of the park was fun. There are a million things I’d like to do at that park, but I’m gonna take some time off of skating to let my shoulder heal up. I’m pretty sure I tore the rotator cuff. Ugh. I kept thinking I should leave, but the park became less and less crowded until the point where it was just Bernie and I. Amazing. We did some Cali grinds off this one weird stair. Then I did it in a really fun line. Kickflip from one bank to another, cali grind, front rock the qp. Then Bernie and I both did back 50s in the middle qp/bank thing where you grind off the qp into the bank. NBDs for us. The judges went nuts. I did a couple cali grinds up and across some of the kicker things (photo above). I don’t think I even really landed it, but oh well, it’s a dork trick anyway. All in all I think I would have a blast skating that park a lot. Hopefully my shoulder heals up soon.

Keep Nike in the gym folks.

One night after seeing a show filled with under 20 year old hipsters I found myself going to see Sebadoh – a 90s indie rock icon.  The crew was Ric, Brian, Maria, John, Zach and I and the place was filled with other aging indie rock nerds.  Quasi opened and they were awesome.  I enjoyed them more when the singer would play guitar, but they were good when he was on piano too.  Well, what’s left of the piano after he kicked it a bunch on the last song.Sebadoh was spectacular.  Click the photo above to go to Reverb magazine for more cool photos and big words describing how radical the show was.  On top of playing great musically they also proved that they are still socially awkward when interacting with the crowd.  Especially Jason.  That guy is crazy.  I love it!  Anyways it looks like they’re basically playing the same setlist every night and I found this one from Seattle’s show:

• 1 Intro
• 2 On Fire
• 3 Dreams
• 4 Too Pure
• 5 Soul and Fire
• 6 Sister
• 7 Shit Soup
• 8 Mind Reader
• 9 Got It
• 10 I Love To Fight
• 11 Drag Down
• 12 Magnets Coil
• 13 Ocean
• 14 Skull
• 15 Rebound
• 16 License to Confuse
• 17 Drama Mine
• 18 Nothing Like You
• 19 Crystal Gypsy
• 20 Careful
• 21 Beauty of the Ride
• 22 Not a Friend
• 23 Together or Alone
• 24 Forced Love
• 25 Sixteen
• 26 Give Up
• 27 Junk Bonds
• 28 New Worship
• 29 Brand New Love
• 30 Worst Thing
• 31 Not Too Amused
• 32 Willing to Wait

John gets the nerd award having successfully guessed the first song and was able to name the most tunes after hearing only the first note of the song.  Brian and Maria left early.  Ric almost puked in my car.  Zach used to make fun of me for liking indie rock instead of just punk rock.  They were charging $20 for a one color t-shirt and Lou was proud of it.  Some dork got called out for the first Dinosaur Jr request of the tour (and no it wasn’t me come on I know they wouldn’t be able to play it good anyways ha). All in all a fun night and they must have played good because I’ve been listening to Sebadoh ever since.Looks like there is lots of youtube clips of the show.

This park has it all.  Riley and I headed there on his last day of skating in Colorado before moving to Sioux Falls.  It was November 17 and it was almost 70 degrees.  Sick!  These photos were all taken right after we got there before it got crowded.CLICK ANY PHOTO TO SEE A LARGER VERSION OF THE PHOTO!!!This little mini bowl is sick.  It’s perfect for beginners and even fun for people like Riley.  The tranny is really mellow.This little manual pad is the bomb!  And yes it’s as low as it looks in the photo.Pier 7 replica.  Although it’s taller and narrower then the original it’s still sick.Riley modeling the bank to ledge with a back tail.  It’s a bit weirder to hit then I would have thought, but still really good.Riley fell in love with that rail.  It’s a long 5 stair.  Riley says the rail is perfect.  I’ll take his word for it.At the top of the park is a fun little volcano thing.  I found it hard to get speed for, but it’s a good way to make something skateable in the middle of the park that takes up little space.No one skated this all day.  The rail looks pretty low.There is a little 3 foot quarterpipe that just plain rules.No one really skated this hip all day either.  It’s pretty steep and the crash up factor with people skating the three foot quarterpipe is pretty high.  Riley ollied the bench into it though.Practice your Zero lines here kiddies.This park has so many options to skate it’s ridiculous.  On the very left there is a flat bar too.Panorama attempt number 1 of the bowl.Attempt number 2.  No idea why the colors are different on every picture when I just stood there and took all three within seconds.  Oh well.  The bowl is fun, a bit gnarly, but fun.  The steep bank wall is gnarls.More bowl.A horrible photo of a sick idea.  A Colorado flag quarterpipe.  Every team that comes though CO is going to try and get a photo on that.Trick number 1 out of 20 for Riley on his new favorite rail.Driving directions:I-25 to Lincoln Ave (Exit 193)Go East on LincolnRight on Twenty Mile RoadThe skatepark is up on the right after Plaza DrGoogle Map it.Report any problems at the skatepark by calling Parker Parks & Recreation at 303-841-0353.

I love east coast videos and the last Traffic video Via is still one of my all time favorites. According to stuff I read on various skate nerd sites this is more of just a promo video to introduce it’s new team riders Bobby Puleo and Jack Sabback than a real video. Knowing that I was still a bit surprised by the shortness of this video. Bobby and Jack each have full parts and there is one montage. Luckily the video packs a lot of sick skating in and just like their last video, makes me want to stop whatever I’m doing and go skate immediately. If only I could leave work whenever I wanted to. Doh.The filming and editing is improved and the video flows well. Puleo opens the video with his patented quick feet, long lines and unique spots. I was expecting a bit more, but it’s still a good part. My favorite trick is the ollie up onto the ledge while 50’ing a wide flatbar. Sabback’s part is pretty ridiculous. Tons of tech tricks while flowing through the city and dodging pedestrians. Dude is sick.Rating:

Rating: STYLERating: COMFORTRating: BOARD FEELRating: DURABILITYRating: OVERALLHere is the first of many shoe reviews I’m going to do on this site. I blow through shoes like crazy. Maybe it’s because you tear up shoes more when you never actually land tricks? Wow I never thought of that before. Anyways, the first shoe up for review is the Supra – Sport. Stylee shoe indeed although my photo of them makes them look like crap. Fake vulcanized sole, but some weird type of cupsole that feels close enough to a vulcanized to consider skating. The first day out on these shoes spelled the end of them. I blew through the ollie area in one game of SKATE causing my toes to stick out. It sucked!Supra Footwear