Most of us woke up at Crisis. Sleeping on a concrete floor is great after a long day of skating. It seemed to take forever to get organaized, but we ended up at the Louisville skatepark to start things off. Max, Brian and Neil were killing it. I forget how much Neil rips sometimes. He does the basics so good. Brian makes tricks in the deep end look so easy. After this KOTC I’ve made a promise with myself to skate more tranny. It’s kind of funny because after getting that bigger board i haven’t hardly skated tranny at all. Anyways, I really didn’t skate worth a crap here. The only remotely decent things for me were kickflip to fakie and a b/s flip on the flat bank. I did a bigflip too, but it was really bad. Max ollied Neil’s motorcycle and we finally left. We went way out to the 3 tier ditch where Brian got surfy. After that was the steep banks aka the Neil banks. 5 tricks to fakie. We were struggling to get the last 2 and Jack was wanting to film a boardslide on a dumpster. He finally lost his patience and came over to do two tricks quick like, but luckily I got my trick. back pivot revert. It’s called that because I’m not cool and I don’t do pivot fakies, instead I turn in then revert on the bank. They are lame. jack got my back with a kickflip to fakie. Then we filmed his boardslide, Chad showed up and we made him dropin. We went to Honey’s Hole then ended up at Broomfield Park. I SUCKED at Broomfied park. The only thing I remember doing that as worth a crap was a bad nollie treflip going 2 mph. I thought I did two tricks I was happy about, but that’s all I remember. Everyone else killed it though. Neil killed it. I don’t care how upset he got. If I could ollie up onto the ledge as fast as him I’d be hyped. Brian did a barefooted skier to fakie with two board on the brick quarter pipe. Yeah. Jack and Max killed the double set area. Jack’s polejam manual late shove down the six is amazing. Max can ollie the rail like it’s a joke. Carleigh almost did the best line with polejam then kickflip down the six. Fuzz manned up to the double set and put a few tricks down. I filmed. Day 2 done. We headed back to Lazers for some late night partying and farewell wishing.

We started the day off kind of early at Longmont park. Tricks on the flyout ledge counted. I have only done noseslide and boardslide on it before. Max, Derek and Bernie rattled off tons of tricks. Dean shot some photos. Jack pouted. Carleigh almost got front 50. I did the noseslide and started trying crooks. A few in I got crooks on it. A good one too. I was really hyped on that. Max even gave me a high five! Ha. After that we went to SOL, played foosball, skated the ramp a little, got Little Jack a kids board and then went to the Longmont ditch.

Longmont ditch was fun. The challenge there was 5 tricks, but we ended up just having fun skating it for awhile. Long enough for me to kind of do a back smith. There are tons more photos in the Null facebook page and Carleigh’s blog. Check them. We ended up at a school with a 7 stair and a long ledge. Jack handled the manual quick and “racked up some points” on the rail. Max did the funniest fall ever. Carleigh got gnarly and pop shoved the 7 perfect. I tried to ollie it, but never committed. I’ve never ollied a 7 before. I should have done it, but the cracks are my excuse. Not my completely lame attitude towards committing down “big” stuff. Brian did an awesome caveman grind. We went to a little manny pad where Bernie rattled off like 5 manny tricks in a row. kickflip nose man, halfcab flip man, fakie bigflip man, fakie man, who knows what else. I managed my 2nd or 3rd switch front 180 manual over the little gap. It took too long. That was the end of the skating as it started raining. Thanks for the photos dean.

The official start of KOTC 2011 was coming at midnight. I got to Carleigh’s around 9:00pm and Jack, Bernie, Derek, Brett and Max were soon to follow. We went to Canyon Center and started the warm up process. Everyone was cruising around doing whatever. It’s been a long time since the session so I wont remember much. I remember a wallride to fakie then a fakie flip from me and that’s about it. Next up was St Julien where Fuzz and John would meet us too. Max, Jack and Derek were killing it. It was dark and I kept wanting to go somewhere else, but we just kept staying there. I skated pretty poorly. I remember a line of front 180 the curb, halfcab flip on flat, ollie a milk crate and I was kind of excited about it. Bernie and I bombed into the St Julien parking garage. Jack ollied the rail for fun. At some point Fuzz and I manualled along the ledge. Jack did a ridiculous manual along the ledge through the narrow section with the bench and did kickflip out. At one point I unintentionally fell onto a milk crate that was propped on the ledge. How embarrassing. At midnignt KOTC challenges got started and I filmed Max and Jack ollie everyone down the 9 stair. Then we went to the Wells Fargo banks. Fuzz got a sick noseblunt transfer. I did a front pivot to fakie. Then we yelled PHISH SUCKS on pearl st, looked at the Widow Maker then bombed 9th. Ok, well Derek and Max bombed it. Carleigh and I were behind. I have never done that hill before and was doing some fun powerslides. Carleigh ran out at one point and I’m gonna say it threw me off so I started pointing before I was ready and then I jumped off. But the truth is I’m very conservative on hills. I was impressed with how much Carleigh bombed. Fuzz came by a few minutes later flying. Next up was Southern Hills. 20 tricks down the 2 stair 10 points each. I actually helped our team and got a few. No comply, boneless, boneless varial thing and maybe another trick. Carleigh snapped a board on pop shove (it’s definitely KOTC!). Max boardslid the rail. 5 tricks went down on the ledges too before I could even get a noseslide. Fun times. Day one over around 2 am. Sleepy time ..

Is amazing. Love the music too! (Jeff The Brotherhood)

Jack and Jake met up at my house shortly after 6 and we rolled to Crisis, hung out for a minute then off to the park. Jake and I started at the quartapotty and rattled off a few basics of ours. I manualled and nose manualled the blue pad way quicker than normal. It would be the start of a really weird night though. Basically I would either skate really good for me or absolutely horrible. No in between. Matt Carr showed up with a crew and they mostly skated the pool with Brian and Fuzz. They did some sick stuff even if I was shooting my board in on accident trying 2 mph kickflips on flat. Sorry Fuzz. I did a couple “pivots to fakie” on the quartapotty, but they weren’t proper at all. Derek and Jack were skating so good. They were hitting the rail. I saw Jack to a perfect front nosegrind down the double set rail, Derek follow it with front blunt and so much more. Jack got the wallie to firecracker he’s tried before. Derek did a fast kickflip to bankride that was gnarly. I tried to get a slow one, but was unable to and it started my decline. Dean and I ollied the six stair. I thought it would be enough to hyped me up to get the doubleset, but I bailed the first attempt and ended up hurting my back ankle pretty bad. I’m not sure what everyone else is doing, but I got bummed and tried nollie frontside bigflips for a long time by myself. It cheered me up even though I didn’t land one. I got really close though. Fuzz, Dean, Neil, Jack, and I skated the banked manny pads for awhile. Jack did something like ollie up kickflip to fakie nose manual down. Fuzz got a manual to rock to fakie manual down. Sick! I tried too, but can’t do fakie manuals. Last part of the night was the pier 7 ledge. Fuzz and I did lines of kickflip at the crack (basically into the mellow bank) the front 50 the ledge. He added manual and I added front 50 front 180 out. Jack did a perfect cab bigger spin then almost 5-0 front 360 shove out. Wowsers. I got lucky and did 360 flip followed by front 50 shove out with a sketchy landing. I moved over to try back 50 which took me awhile to work up the courage to try. And about the time I started committing to it and almost had it the lights shut off. I snapped and focused my board. I f’ing hate skateparks and their stupid regulated skate times. The softball field lights were still on of course. Ugh. To my credit the board was wearing down and was probably pretty cracked from some bad 360 flips earlier in the session.

Click here to view 2011 KOTC challenge book! Anyone is invited to do this contest, just email John Doe Zine at johndoezine@hotmail.com and let them know. Look at some of these challenges!

HAVE AN INNER TUBE RACE IN THE SOUTH PLATTE RIVER (50 POINTS)

MIKEY CHAFFEE CHALLENGE: WEAR A GHETTO GOWN FOR THE ENTIRE DAY (20 POINTS)

OLLIE THE LONGMONT LEAP OF FAITH (5000 POINTS)

The list goes on and on and on!

After a short, but tiring session on campus Carleigh and I went to Community Cycles to see Black Dots open for a couple Chicago bands. It was pretty awesome that it was so low key at a bike shop and the Chicago bands had promise so we stuck around. Black Dots were great as usual, well, maybe even better. They seemed more rockin’ and lively on stage. We even got to hear a new song that killed it.

The second band was BUST! They had the fastest drummer I have ever seen. They played fast and energetic music and looked like they were having a blast. I couldn’t get enough of watching the drummer though, he seriously killed the drums.

And the drummer is clearly a huge fan of Max. Awesome!

The last band was called The Please & Thank Yous. They were also better than expected. Not as fast as Bust, but still rocking and awesome. They had their new album on cassette only. None of us have tape players. Ha. Thank you Black Dots for playing with all these awesome bands and exposing me to new stuff.

Speechless.

This part is incredibly awesome. Flip tricks, dork tricks, no complies, big tricks, small tricks, manual tricks and it all looks incredibly fun, the music is funny and it’s edited well. Winner.

After we all met at Meta we rolled into campus. First stop was UMC and I was having a really tough time warming up. I blame it on the swimming sunday with the kids. Totally wore me out. Anyways, Max wasted no time in destroying it. Nose manual the three stair, ollie the five, little bonks on the ledges above the five, etc. Chad tried to follow suit, but seemed kind of out of it. Me and Carleigh tried lines to the ledges off the five stair. She managed to ride off it successfully before me, but then went on to say how lame it was. Geez, I was kind of stoked. Ha. I did a little rock ollie, ollied up on the ledge, rode off, front 180 off the 3 stair. That spot is super fun. It should be lit better. Chad managed a manual front 180 around the 3 stair. Next up we went and played on a long set of stairs that we just rode down. Max killed it. Dropin to high speed ride down the stairs. It was probably about 15 stairs each being about 3 feet long. It was so dumb, but fun. All of us were able to ride down them all. Max did b/s flip out of the last one, back 180 into switch ride down, all kinds of craziness. He was ripping.

We went to the spot above where Max kept killing it. Chad filmed Max above with my phone. I failed at 360 flips the whole time and was cursing the big board, but I think it was just because I was super tired. Overall a fun night though.