Needed to make a run to MRKT and Jake, Carleigh and Jack had expressed interest in it. Jake had his girl friends car and offered to drive. I cannot even remember a trip to Fort Collins that I didn’t drive. Ever. Sick! We picked up Jack after work (thanks for the burrito!) and made good time up to Fort Collins. After stopping at MRKT we rolled right into campus and ended up at an old epic spot that I skated with Jason and Josh a long time ago. It’s two ledges going down a banked sidewalk that has been knobbed for a long time. Forever ago Josh, Jason and I did quite a few things on it. I know I got front 50. Josh probably did lipslide pop out (he’s goofy) and I’m sure Jason did boardslide popout. Next to it is a weird 2 flat 2 flat 1 flat 1. Jack ollied the 2 flat 2. Carleigh rode down all the stairs. I took a long time, but rolled down them all too. Jake started doing tricks into the bank and that ended up being the spot for quite a while. Jack did like 100 tricks into it like 3 flip, nollie heel, impossible, a bunch more. Oh yeah, I had to setup a new board after cracking it the day before. So I had a new board and decided to put my old Thunders on instead of the Ventures. I also had some new wheels. Bones STF 51s. I’ve wanted to try them for awhile to compare to Superthanes (they flat spotted right away so clearly not as good). So flip tricks to start the day were a little weird. I did get kickflip and front shove pretty quick. We were all having fun. The rain was holding off. I did a front 180 off a nearby 2 stair and got a first try halfcab flip into it. Jack backed me up with an impossible to accidental manual (so sick!). Then Jake got his back with a kickflip. Then to complete the 4-4 Carleigh came in hot with a nollie shove. Everyone was hyped. Rather then take off we stuck around. Carleigh got some kickflips. Jake and I failed at fakie flips. Jack added more tricks like switch front heel. I should have gotten the fakie flip. Oh well, ollieing up the 3 felt pretty good.

Sean, Mike, Taylor and Jason showed up and we went over to the Clark building area. Us older dudes skated the hip mostly for awhile. I managed kickflip in a couple and front shove first try. Carleigh and Jack ollied the stairs all easy. I failed getting Carleigh’s back. But after Jack ollied the rail then boardslid it I had to get his back and scratched a little 12 year old no pop ollie and landed. Felt great. Jack went off for awhile. Boardslide, feeble and bluntslide the 5 stair rail. I have video of it, but the youtube editor wont work now. Look later. I got a few more tricks on the hip. A really bad frontside flip and a halfcab flip where I popped after the hip. Ha. Jake got a solid kickflip and Mike did a few front shoves, a full cab and more. Sean was skating it like a bank to curb. Carleigh starting going for kickflip. Jake got a buttery fakie bigspin over the hip. I started messing around with a line starting with a front 180 off the top 3 and ended up doing one of my favorite lines ever. Front 180 down the 3, curve around then pop shove, ollie onto the little ledge near the 5 stair (on the left of the photo), scrape the tiniest no pop ollie off the drop (tall for me!) then did one of the best frontside flips of my life over the hip (that’s not saying much though). Seriously, one of my favorite lines I’ve ever done. The frontside flip wasn’t even in my plan, I guess I was just surprised to land the drop and kept going. Carleigh kept attacking the kickflip, but we ended up getting the boot. Off to Northside it was.

Northside was pretty packed with the Fort Collins heavy hitters and of course they were ripping. Xavier and Dana are insanely good. I didn’t really seen any of our crew skating as there were so many people. I had a couple lines around the place that felt good. Some little wallies and grind on the brick qp. Then Jack and I played a game of SKATE in the parking lot that lasted a really long time. I landed pretty much all of my tricks except for nollie tre and was up SK to SKAT, but couldn’t land anything else to win it. The treflip felt great. I liked having the Thunders. Maybe I’ll stick to them. But wow, what a fun day of skating. Thanks for diving Jake and Jack and Carleigh for being such awesome friends and being down to skate anything.

Had kind of a long annoying first part of the day with the family. Both the kids were super grouchy and Liz wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine either. Jake and I headed out and skated for awhile before Jack and Carleigh showed. Someone was there getting filmed by his girlfriend do front 50 kickflip out. So Jake and I gave him some space and played a game of SKATE that started really slow, but I ended up winning with some decent tricks for me. We were starting to hit the ledges. Skateboarding was not easy. It was frustrating and annoying like my family. Ha. It took us a bit to get front 50s. I had a few noseslides and crooks that felt really good. Jack and Carliegh showed. Around then I had a pretty good line for me. Ollie onto a ledge and ride off, noseslide to fakie a ledge, fakie bigflip then almost halfcab noseslide. I might have even landed it I’m not sure. Had another line shortly after that with front 50 a ledge, 360 flip on flat then almost a front board pop out. Maybe these aren’t good lines at all then. Jake got a few front 50s too. Jake went to work pretty quick and killed it with noseslide bigspin, noseslide nollie heel, noseslide shove back to noseslide, noseslide 270, etc. Some nice 3 flips off the 2 stair. Carleigh did a bunch of kickflips into the handicap ramp and followed at least one of them with a noseslide shove. I gave Jake a ride to the bus stop then came back. Everyone kind of struggled for awhile. Jack was slamming when he didn’t need to and was understandably annoyed by it. At one point I tried shooting my board out like him which did make me feel good for a bit, until I had to walk to go get it. Ha. Jack landed a 3 flip on the tail and broke the tail off. Doh. Cheap null boards. We kind of just chilled for awhile after that, did some powerslides and messed around with flat ground. My wheels were so tiny and even more so after 20 powerslides. I got across the whole four square thing once I think. I hucked some cab flips and Jack gave me some pointers. For awhile I seemed close, then it was gone. Carleigh has never gotten close to fakie bigspins before, but landed on like 10 of them. So rad. Then I was off for a date night with Liz that was super fun.