The level of skateboarding that goes down at Northside in Fort Collins on any given day is insane. Stoked to see Taylor documenting it!

Had the day off work and after sleeping in late after old man night at Launch Jake showed up at my house ready to go skate. We went to little arvada on a super nice and sunny day, not very hot. I thought I would be more sore then I was, but I came out ok. Jake was hitting the ledge, but I kind of avoided it for awhile as I was still pretty stiff. He was on front 50s quick and added back 50, crooks, front 50 to front board and noseslide shove which I’ve never seen him do before. We were all over the place though. Jake had some good lines with back blunt on the qp, front tail on the steep bank, front blunts on the top qp, ollies over the twinkie hip. I had a few crooks and front 50s on the ledge, but mostly just had fun skating the tranny stuff. Did some stuff I haven’t done there before like front slash the really tight opposite corner, back 50 on the tall qp that went down the escalator and around the corner. Actually yeah, that was one of the funnest tricks I’ve ever done. I tried it again and slammed so hard with my hip landing on the coping. Ouch. Had a fun line of front tail on the top qp, tiny ollie on the twinkie hip, crooks the ledge. I also got a backside kickflip on the quarter pipe near the spine. That hyped me up too. That was pretty much it. Fun time. I finally had a session that was fun the whole time through.

Woke up tired, feeling old and grouchy. Went to work and it just made it worse. Was super busy and annoyed all day. Ugh. Since I was halfway to Longmont I met Dave at his house. I beat him there and sat in my car listening to the comedy channel and Dave Chappelle came on was so funny I started laughing hysterically. That got me in a better mood. We went to Sol where we were to meet the rest of the crew. Dave skated and I played Allan in foosball. Those guys took awhile to show so I eventually got on the ramp and tried to play fakie ollies with Dave. He kills that trick. I was feeling very arthritic and not confident. Ugh. Then we left for Fort Collins. Along the way we got some yummy mexican tacos, had some car problems and still got there around 8pm.

The ramp wasn’t too crowded. After saying hello’s to lots of people we got on the ramp. Oh actually Fuzz and I skated the new little ramp in the back room for a bit. Lots of flat with tighter tranny then Rampy. Still fun though. At this point I felt ok on a skateboard. Then we went out to the big ramp. I had 4 runs with bailed axle stall on the first wall. I almost lost my shit. I left for a minute and just sat by myself looking at my skateboard wondering why I even bother. I eventually went back in and did a few crappy kickflips to try and get some board feel going. This seemed to help. I got back up on the ramp and had better runs. Nothing great, but being surrounded by a bunch of friends is awesome. People were killing it. Remembering who all did what is impossible, but I’ll try a few highlights. John had runs of all kind of ollies. Backside, frontside, fakie, etc. So rad. Fullertron of course killed it and was the last man standing come the end of the night. And the oldest. What gives? He did a switch backside ollie! Repeat, switch backside ollie! That seems like pretty much the hardest trick ever. He had all kinds of tricks. Old and new. Fuzz skated ramp as good as I’ve ever seen him. And that says a lot. Ric kills it and was more trick oriented then I’ve seen in the past. The frontside grab to disaster was so rad. I guess he also did a manual on the deck for the first time. Old guys doing new tricks! I finally met Kevin Marks and he had some good lines too. Back d revert, pivot fakie, back tail. Rob battled a feeble grind on the abrasive pool coping and won. Mike was there killing it in ways that only he can. Loud carve grinds around the corners backside, frontside and even switch! Geez! Andy, John and I played a game of SKATE that I would eventually win on a pop shove rewind. Ha, we were getting so desperate at the end to land tricks. A full on street session didn’t really happen, but the three of us skated flat and the little ledge for awhile. John learned front big to backside noseslide. So sick. I got back on the ramp after this. When it was all said and done I had landed quite a few of my tricks. Front d, front smith (kind of), fakie back smith fakie, back scratch grind to fakie, and a few grinds around the corner. It made me feel better. But man my legs feel so arthritic. Argh. All in all though a really fun night as these always are.

Had a bad day at work. Wanted to be alone. Or so I thought. Went to the old Mike’s Camera manny pad, but it seems like the rains from the floods pretty much destroyed that parking lot. Went to a campus, but couldn’t deal with all the students so I left. Ended up at the research center ledge. I waxed it up then tried to skate. That spot is lit really well. It would be fun to do a couple tricks down the hill then pop up the curb, do a ledge trick then go around to the manny pad. I was sucking though. No motivation. No coordination. My arthritis has been sucking lately. It takes a lot of confidence out of me. It’s funny because I had a couple lines that might sound ok on paper (or in html), but I was skating so slow and disengaged. Got fakie bigflip, pop shove, kickflip up the curb, crooks. Also the slowest treflip ever followed by the worst back 50. I left. Argh.