skate journal: best I’ve skated in forever Fort Collins rules (Jan 27, 2011)
Had Thursday off work. The original plan was to go to the Denver Art Musuem with Liz after the kids went to school, but India stayed home sick and that was delayed for Friday. So instead Jake, Derek, John and I headed to Fort Collins for some nice weather skating. We stopped at Spring Creek first. After some warming up we all started trying 4 trick lines. Whatever we wanted. I think Jake got his first. I totally forget what it was, but I know it involved a manual and possibly a feeble to fakie on the tight wavy qpipe. John was next with a tailslide on the ledge, feeble grind on the pool coping near the coffin and maybe a treflip. Derek was kinda doing his own thing and ripping. Back 3s out of the potato chip were so sick. I took a long time to get my first line. Front board to nose manual, ollie below noping, nose manual and then a failed nollie treflip. The nose manny took too long. Jake had already done another line that had something to a front feeble on the tight qp in the wave. I think John got another one too. Something with a rock ‘n roll in the tight qp. My second line came quicker. Front 50 down the ledge, backside tough guy on the pool coping, front rock on the tight qp then I was gonna stop, but everyone started yelling “4th trick!!” so I went for a flatground heelflip and got it. Cool. Chris had met up with us and was doing super sick wallie manuals up the potato chip. I tried just wallieing up it and after a few slams got a couple. My last line was a long and tiring one. Backside wallride the back of the tight qp, f/s below noping ollie (which still felt pretty good), b/s scratch grind on the pool coping, ollie onto the wave (this is a trick at this point because I was already tired), axle stall the tight qp, then kickflip out of the wave. The kickflip was soooooo hard because I was so tired at that point. I eventually got one and went straight to sitting down. Whew.We hit MRKT for awhile which is always fun before moving on to North Side which surprisingly wasn’t super crowded. At this point it was probably 60 degrees out. So amazing. Lots of the Fort Collins heads were there and we skated with Andy and Mike too. John, Mike and I started out carving around the little pool section in the back. So good for warming up the legs. John ripped it with some feeble grinds. Mike’s got all kinds of layback tricks. I did my tiny little slasher and a rock ‘n roll on the rock coping. So fun. We skated the “mini ramp” section for a tiny bit. Chris and Derek were skating the ledge near the front. I started posing kickflip wallrides on the bank to steeper bank near the back. I’ve wanted to do that trick there since that park was built. For some reason I’ve never really tried it. John was nearby and I hyped it up as a dream trick that I didn’t want to spend much time on, just land it. 5 tries later I landed one where I kinda just skidded off the bank. Super hyped, but wanting a cleaner one I kept at it and a few tries later I got one that put me on top of the world. It felt perfect. Kickflip up, landed bolts and without lifting the front wheels up slide the front around and rolled down the bank with no tic tacs. I have been so depressed about my skating lately, but that felt like one of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done and had me so hyped. John and I went over to skate the ledge with the kids. Chris was trying 500mpg front smith shoves out. Derek was trying front 5-0 kickflips out. John and I did front 50 180 out first try, I got front 50 shove out, and Jake joined with us in a front 5-0 race. I think Jake and I got them around the same time. It was cool because it looked like Derek was just trying front 5-0 with us. Ha. I wanted front 5-0 shove out too, but it took too long and I gave up. Jake got a front tail first T. Chris slammed a lot. After a bit of cruising around John, Andy and I played a game of SKATE in the parking lot. John pulled the nollie flip and Andy got a textbook b/s flip to give me SK, but other then that I somehow landed all the other tricks John layed down including 360 flip, fakie front shove, halfcab flip, etc. I was happy got get fakie bigflip and heelflip too. After that I just watched Derek go for front lip to front board up/down the mj ledge and tried nollie treflips until I eventually got one. I tried to skate a bit more after that, but my legs were done. John added a blunt to pivot fakie on the bank to his stellar day.Such a fun day. We went to La Luz and ate after. Fort Collins rules. Best skatescene in CO. Unfortunately the next day I would wake up with intense upper back/neck pains that prevented me from being able to do anything. Ugh. I guess that’s the reward for good skate days when you get old.