Headed up to Launch in the afternoon with Dave and Jake and met up with birthday boy Neil. We skated Launch for awhile. Well, Neil didn’t really, he was conserving his energy. He is 40 now after all. As usual Dave killed the ramp. There was a couple tricks in there I hadn’t really seen before. No “aerials” though. Ha ha. Jake too. Those guys are too good. I look so lame skating with them. Chadman showed up eventually. He skates that thing pretty well even though he makes fun of himself the whole time. My best was a run that had a back scratch grind revert, front d and fakie back smith to fakie in it. Mike was there killing it in his own unique way. The layback hurricane was sick. Wannabe old guy Justin was there ripping and putting in more energy on every trick then I would in multiple runs. I think he had 3 walls in a row involving 540s. So sick. Mullen photo was there too. Super nice dude. Super good at skateboarding. Go figure, it’s Fort Collins for you.

Then we went to Northside where Jason and Lindy met us. Sooo stoked! Chad and I chatted with Jason for awhile then headed into the park. Chadman seemed to stay at the ledge the whole time. He was trying to learn fakie backside nosegrinds, but couldn’t get it. He did post up the sick front crooks in the photo though. The rest of us were kinda all over the place. I saw birthday boy lipslide the ledge and get a boardslide on the jersey barrier. Jake had some nice manuals across the ledge. I was able to get on the ledge for awhile before I got tired and it became too high. Got a front 50 and 5-0 , front nose to fakie, front nose back 270 out (it’s really just a dumb pivot – just imagine me looking really old and slow and you’ll get the picture). Then I kinda just skated the main area for awhile and didn’t really see what others were doing. Oh, Jake did a front blunt on the weird big bank. That was crazy. I had a line of wallie the corner of the jersey barrier, front tail stall on the china bank, axle stall on the bank to ledge, back 5-0 on the china bank, slappy 50 the hump. Fun. Got a kickflip on the weird big bank which felt really good. Wallied over the low part of the barrier, front 50 on the bank to ledge. I did a lot of crooks on the ledge too. They were really fun. That ledge leaves a mark every time. Chad and I played a game of SKATE. He made me look bad with nollie flip, sw flip and sw heel quick. But my dumb tricks like fakie varial flip started adding up and I got him to SKAT. I tried treflip for awhile and just couldn’t get it. I had enough tries, but he eventually took me out with switch front heel and nollie f/s flip. Dave and Jake played on the big qp wall for awhile. I guess they did pivot to fakie followed by fakie flips. sick. Jake and I played another game of SKATE. Again I got him to SKAT, but couldn’t land a treflip for a long time even when Jason towed me in. Luckily Jake was missing tricks so I eventually got it and won the game. Then we had a good dinner at La Luz and some laughs. Good times.

I met up with Blaine, Bernie, Scotty, Dean, Trent and a dude named Josh at the Sugar Mill spot. Trent, Scotty and Josh were trying stuff on the bank and Blaine and I were just kinda looking at stuff when the cops came. Luckily we didn’t get any trespassing tickets, but it took awhile to go through all our IDs. Next we went to the spot above. In the foreground of the photo above is Blaine filming. Blaine rules. Bernie got a good trick. Trent got a couple good tricks. I was kind of able to ollie and happy about that. I manualed the small pads, took forever to nose manny it, slammed trying to ollie up a curb and managed a horrible over 40 ollie over the gap. It’s harder then it looks only because there isn’t much setup and not much landing. I didn’t skate well, but I was happy that ollies were somewhat doable.

After some lunch/dinner we went to one of my favorite spots in all of Colorado. Rocky Mountain Elementary. Bernie waxed the ledge all crazy and it was on immediately. I got a lot of my ledge tricks quickly. Boardslide popouts both ways, front nose to fakie, back noseslide, front 50, front 5-0, front 50 front 180, front nose back 270 out, back crooks, kickflip back 50 (couldn’t do reg back 50). It was awesome! I seriously love that place. Some of the tricks were in lines. Backside I did a few lines with dropin on the kinked brick bank, kickflip up the curb, crooks, then not land a 360 flip. Frontside I had a couple slow lines with manual a curb, ollie onto the ledge, ollie the 2″ gap, drop off, heelflip on flat, front 50 to front board. Bernie was destroying it and almost got an ender line. Blaine filmed it soooo good too. If only Bernie would have got the last trick. He was close, he’ll get it. Blaine had a blast rolling into the dirt section. Metal Matt, Shaun and another dude showed up. It was great to see them. Shaun was of course ripping. Bluntslide pop to fakie on the ledge, kickflip out of the bank over the curb. Matt was chillin’ for the most part. Then darkness hit. I had tried a few kickflip noseslides and didn’t get very close. And never got a treflip, but it was still a fun session. Love that spot, need to skate it more.