Ollie and I went to Arvada on a warm afternoon. The park was mobbed with scooter kids. Seriously like 30 of them. It made for some really annoying times, but for the most part we were fine. After a couple warm cruises around we decided to skate the little kicker above. I called out that I needed to do 10 tricks, Ollie said he would do 5. I thought he was a little ambitious, but he ended up beating me! He did back 180 (early photo above), front 180, halfcab (first try), f/s halfcab and then fakie shove! The fakie shove took a long time, but either way he was hyped. Mine were ollie (yes I was so tired and weird feeling I decided to count ollie), front 180, back 180, nollie, switch front 180, kickflip, back shove, front shove, f/s halfcab (took me the longest) and backside flip. I was so tired after that. We hit some other stuff like the back of the snake run where Ollie had a nice line in the pump bumps to front slash on the noping qp then lofty front 180 off the kicker.

After heading to 303 then back home for a quick bite Rob picked me up then we grabbed Neil and headed to the Safeway ledge. Brett was there and Fuzz joined shortly. I felt so sore initially, but ended up feeling good. Everyone seemed to skate good. Brett had some patented noseslides either to forward, fakie or shove out. Also some good flippers and no patented Brett slams that I saw. Neil is back! And he was ripping! Front lip, front tail, front tail shove, back crooks shove the tall ledge, back lip, ollied the 5 stair, so much more. Rob rules this spot. Bigspin front nose, cab front nose, front tail, back 180 fakie 50, and a ton more that I’m forgetting. Fuzz did some crazy ones like halfcab front 5-0, fakie back tail, back tail, back 180 fakie 50 halfcab out, fakie 50 f/s halfcab out. He avoids flatground now altogether. Wuss! Ha. I forced myself to do at least one regular back 50 before trying kick back 50s and was rewarded with a first try kick back 5-0 (was trying 50, but I’ll take it!). So stoked! It felt so good. One of my recent skate highlights for sure. Although I tried to do it again and try a shove out, but barely got a kick back 50. I was finally feeling good on my skateboard though, doing lots of flip tricks, trying lines and smiling. Eventually everyone except me stopped and I was just skating trying lines having a blast. Kind of did fakie flip, switch noseslide 270, treflip (cracked my board). Came close to back 50, heelflip, nollie tre. I’m not sure why, but I was landing almost every heelflip. Then I stretched and joined the crew at Crisis feeling stoked.

The big day! Only made about 500 calls in the morning and everyone seemed to be running a little late, but Jack, Carleigh, Cameron, Blaine, Chad, Dan and I met up at Arapahoe Ridge. I was feeling the effects of being sick all week. Although standing on a balance board really does seem to make manuals easier. Rad. I didn’t do much of anything. Jack tried to get a rad trick. Chad was feeling out a line, but then we got the boot and ended up at Valmont (photo above). Pretty much everyone else met us here. Jack killed a manny trick then killed his ankle. Noooooo! Rob, Dan, Careleigh and I skated the ledge. Rob had a sick boardslide shove. Carleigh had numerous noseslides and maybe numerous with shoves out too. Everyone else was skating around and getting warmed up and having fun and smiling and all that goodness. We went to a couple more spots, but the rain put a damper on it so we had the team meeting. Twas very fun. I feel so lucky to be friends with all of these wonderful people.

Met Carleigh and Rob in Niwot then headed into Longmont to grab Dave and skate Longmont HS again. We made a nearby stop so I could grab some food and Dave ended up getting gnarly no complying a parking block to sidewalk gap. Rob also took his new found front slappies to a parking block with ease. Longmont HS started good for me. I was feeling pretty loose and poppy so I went for the ollie onto one of the blocks and smacked my knee super hard. Doh. Dave manualled one though. Carleigh was rusty and having some back pain, but got a bunch of kickflips and noseslides before doing the bad front 50 slide out slam. Ouch. Rob was ripping everything. Front tailslide right away, switch boardslide pop out, noseslide 270s, no comply 360s, boardslide fakie on the block, etc. This might be one of the first times I’ve seen Dave struggle a little. I guess he is human after all. He still had some nice front 5-0s, boardslide 270s (photo), slappy noseslides, almost 180 nosegrind on a block. Between hitting my knee on the block and the end of the session I may have landed 2 or 3 tricks. My first 3 flip on the new setup, some slow front 50s and some kickflips over the little colored flat gaps. I did get a little boost of stoke at the end when I did a quick slappy front tail right into a front nose to fakie on the ledge. Then I got called to work and felt sick again. Getting old rules.