Keeping with my new tradition of skating flat for at least an hour on days I have off work I headed to dog park at 9am on a cool, but nice morning. Except the dog park had some stupid bike clinic or something. A bunch of adults (from what I could tell) weaving in and out of cones at very slow speeds. But definitely not as slow as my flatground skating would be as I crossed the street and posted up in the Valmont parking lot. There were cars near the manny pads so I couldn’t really hit them even. I didn’t skate well at all. I had a few heelflips, a rare b/s halfcab heelflip, the basic kickflip variations, but couldn’t treflip to save my life. Argh! Couldn’t f/s haflcab heel or kickflip either. So it was a struggle, but my legs seemed to enjoy flatground as a warm up.

An hour or so later Jack and Carleigh showed up at my house. Well, they showed up at my street and ate and skated until I came out. Ha. Jack had some great nollie heels amongst many other tricks I dream of. Cab flip, impossible back 180, switch heel, bigflip. I don’t remember them all, but he was killing it. I had only done a couple tricks when Fuzz showed up. Carleigh had put down a kickflip too.

Then we went to Fort Collins. First stop was Spring Canyon. Jack and Carleigh went to the dog park to look at a dog. Fuzz and I looked at a skatepark full of little kids playing. Literally just playing, no scooters even. I told Fuzz I’d scare them off before he got his shoes on. Well, I wasn’t that quick, but I did skate right at them until they got the hint to get out of there. Then we skated and had fun (other than me taking several ties to get a back 50 on the tiny ledge). We mostly skated the little ledge. Jack did a bunch of tricks like polejam late shove, boardslide up the tiny rail 270 shove to manual, then was trying a dream trick of fakie 5-0 shove out the hard way. He got really close! Fuzz had a sick back 50 front 180 out, front 50s, fakie front 50s. I got a back 50 finally, front 50 no comply shove out, front 50 kickflop out, some fakie front 50s where I wanted to exit with a switch front 180, but were just the normal f/s halfcab and a fakie nosegrind that actually felt really cool. Carleigh was ripping everything. Long lines with boardslides, feeble the silly steep qp, noseslide shove the ledge off the pad. I ended by doing a crooks on the bench. It was a fun session.

Then we went to this spot. Oh this spot. Its been years since I’ve been there. Before my journal started. Jack and I started with the grinds near the bikepath. Jack did 5-0 to fakie and got bored and moved on and about 5 minutes later I finally landed a 50. We somehow skated the banks. It took awhile for tricks to get landed. Well, maybe not for Jack, but everything about this place is more of a struggle than you would think. Carleigh was going for no comply over a skate stopper. We setup hosercam. I had tried bean planting over one, but gave up and sat down and filmed. Jack did a no comply flip, crazy shove nosepick shove and like 20 more tricks. Fuzz did a couple sick ones too. Halfcab board transfer to fakie, ollie over to tail to fakie. Carleigh was still going on the no comply and getting closer and closer to landing it how she wanted. I messed around with a turn on grind off the new concrete. It was dumb, scary and really fun when I landed it. Carleigh followed shortly with a solid no comply.

Then we went to the bank to curb where only Jack skated. He wanted to one foot tailgrab into it, but he only one footed it. So lame. Ha ha, fun day with good friends with lots of laughs and great weather. It doesn’t get much better then that.

(setup 8.125″ null maze deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, 52mm bones stf v5, bones medium bushings, new balance numeric 255 blue size 12, custom orthotic insoles)