After a late night of partying, waking up at home and trying to help Liz with cleaning, playing football with Ollie and then meeting everyone at the Boulder park I accidently wore the shoes I was breaking in. Oh well, guess it’s time to say goodbye to the Edgars and hello to the Keswick. Seriously though, eS is done. So LAME. Anyways, we met at the second worst park in Colorado – Boulder (Worst is Denver park). Brian was in full jock mode and wanted to rattle out tranny tricks. Max looked like he was hungover, but still managed to kill the park. Fuzz and Brian did some doubles. I fell trying to do a little front truck bash on the coping and wanted to crawl away and hide. I can’t believe how bad I suck at tranny. I’m sure it has nothing to do with partying til 4am, but still, I need to skate tranny more. I resorted to trying kick back tail shoves on the red curb out front. Carleigh cheered me on then called me out for skating too slow. Man I suck everywhere. We finally left and went to Brighton’s new park. Derek did a gnarly blunt to fakie. Brian grinded both death boxes in one run. Max ollied the park. I did a little line again that I love. Kickflip up a ledge then front board pop into a hubba. Hyped on that. Carleigh did a sick front 180 nosegrind on the bump to bar. I almost got a double flip up the euro. Man I hate scooter kids. Parks suck.

Then we went to the KOTC “BBQ” meeting place. The park looked like the worst park ever, but was actually fun. Jack saw the six inch flatbar and was hyped beyond belief. He did about a million trick including nollie heel noselbunt both ways, bigspin hurricane, kickflip hurricane, fakie bigpin bluntslide 270 out, kickflip pretzel 5-0, etc. The list goes on. Keep in mind he was going 2mph, but having a blast and killing it. I tried to kickflip off the launch ramp and landed weird. Initially it didn’t feel too bad, but it turned out to be a roll of some sort and it’s black and blue now and I’m out for a bit. Doh. Brian, Max, Fuzz killed the mini ramp. Then the Ft Collins dudes showed up and even more killing was done. I wish I could have skated more. My ankle is messed up though. I couldn’t walk on it comfortably on Monday. Oh well, KOTC ruled! Thank you Rich!

Most of us woke up at Crisis. Sleeping on a concrete floor is great after a long day of skating. It seemed to take forever to get organaized, but we ended up at the Louisville skatepark to start things off. Max, Brian and Neil were killing it. I forget how much Neil rips sometimes. He does the basics so good. Brian makes tricks in the deep end look so easy. After this KOTC I’ve made a promise with myself to skate more tranny. It’s kind of funny because after getting that bigger board i haven’t hardly skated tranny at all. Anyways, I really didn’t skate worth a crap here. The only remotely decent things for me were kickflip to fakie and a b/s flip on the flat bank. I did a bigflip too, but it was really bad. Max ollied Neil’s motorcycle and we finally left. We went way out to the 3 tier ditch where Brian got surfy. After that was the steep banks aka the Neil banks. 5 tricks to fakie. We were struggling to get the last 2 and Jack was wanting to film a boardslide on a dumpster. He finally lost his patience and came over to do two tricks quick like, but luckily I got my trick. back pivot revert. It’s called that because I’m not cool and I don’t do pivot fakies, instead I turn in then revert on the bank. They are lame. jack got my back with a kickflip to fakie. Then we filmed his boardslide, Chad showed up and we made him dropin. We went to Honey’s Hole then ended up at Broomfield Park. I SUCKED at Broomfied park. The only thing I remember doing that as worth a crap was a bad nollie treflip going 2 mph. I thought I did two tricks I was happy about, but that’s all I remember. Everyone else killed it though. Neil killed it. I don’t care how upset he got. If I could ollie up onto the ledge as fast as him I’d be hyped. Brian did a barefooted skier to fakie with two board on the brick quarter pipe. Yeah. Jack and Max killed the double set area. Jack’s polejam manual late shove down the six is amazing. Max can ollie the rail like it’s a joke. Carleigh almost did the best line with polejam then kickflip down the six. Fuzz manned up to the double set and put a few tricks down. I filmed. Day 2 done. We headed back to Lazers for some late night partying and farewell wishing.

We started the day off kind of early at Longmont park. Tricks on the flyout ledge counted. I have only done noseslide and boardslide on it before. Max, Derek and Bernie rattled off tons of tricks. Dean shot some photos. Jack pouted. Carleigh almost got front 50. I did the noseslide and started trying crooks. A few in I got crooks on it. A good one too. I was really hyped on that. Max even gave me a high five! Ha. After that we went to SOL, played foosball, skated the ramp a little, got Little Jack a kids board and then went to the Longmont ditch.

Longmont ditch was fun. The challenge there was 5 tricks, but we ended up just having fun skating it for awhile. Long enough for me to kind of do a back smith. There are tons more photos in the Null facebook page and Carleigh’s blog. Check them. We ended up at a school with a 7 stair and a long ledge. Jack handled the manual quick and “racked up some points” on the rail. Max did the funniest fall ever. Carleigh got gnarly and pop shoved the 7 perfect. I tried to ollie it, but never committed. I’ve never ollied a 7 before. I should have done it, but the cracks are my excuse. Not my completely lame attitude towards committing down “big” stuff. Brian did an awesome caveman grind. We went to a little manny pad where Bernie rattled off like 5 manny tricks in a row. kickflip nose man, halfcab flip man, fakie bigflip man, fakie man, who knows what else. I managed my 2nd or 3rd switch front 180 manual over the little gap. It took too long. That was the end of the skating as it started raining. Thanks for the photos dean.

The official start of KOTC 2011 was coming at midnight. I got to Carleigh’s around 9:00pm and Jack, Bernie, Derek, Brett and Max were soon to follow. We went to Canyon Center and started the warm up process. Everyone was cruising around doing whatever. It’s been a long time since the session so I wont remember much. I remember a wallride to fakie then a fakie flip from me and that’s about it. Next up was St Julien where Fuzz and John would meet us too. Max, Jack and Derek were killing it. It was dark and I kept wanting to go somewhere else, but we just kept staying there. I skated pretty poorly. I remember a line of front 180 the curb, halfcab flip on flat, ollie a milk crate and I was kind of excited about it. Bernie and I bombed into the St Julien parking garage. Jack ollied the rail for fun. At some point Fuzz and I manualled along the ledge. Jack did a ridiculous manual along the ledge through the narrow section with the bench and did kickflip out. At one point I unintentionally fell onto a milk crate that was propped on the ledge. How embarrassing. At midnignt KOTC challenges got started and I filmed Max and Jack ollie everyone down the 9 stair. Then we went to the Wells Fargo banks. Fuzz got a sick noseblunt transfer. I did a front pivot to fakie. Then we yelled PHISH SUCKS on pearl st, looked at the Widow Maker then bombed 9th. Ok, well Derek and Max bombed it. Carleigh and I were behind. I have never done that hill before and was doing some fun powerslides. Carleigh ran out at one point and I’m gonna say it threw me off so I started pointing before I was ready and then I jumped off. But the truth is I’m very conservative on hills. I was impressed with how much Carleigh bombed. Fuzz came by a few minutes later flying. Next up was Southern Hills. 20 tricks down the 2 stair 10 points each. I actually helped our team and got a few. No comply, boneless, boneless varial thing and maybe another trick. Carleigh snapped a board on pop shove (it’s definitely KOTC!). Max boardslid the rail. 5 tricks went down on the ledges too before I could even get a noseslide. Fun times. Day one over around 2 am. Sleepy time ..

Jack and Jake met up at my house shortly after 6 and we rolled to Crisis, hung out for a minute then off to the park. Jake and I started at the quartapotty and rattled off a few basics of ours. I manualled and nose manualled the blue pad way quicker than normal. It would be the start of a really weird night though. Basically I would either skate really good for me or absolutely horrible. No in between. Matt Carr showed up with a crew and they mostly skated the pool with Brian and Fuzz. They did some sick stuff even if I was shooting my board in on accident trying 2 mph kickflips on flat. Sorry Fuzz. I did a couple “pivots to fakie” on the quartapotty, but they weren’t proper at all. Derek and Jack were skating so good. They were hitting the rail. I saw Jack to a perfect front nosegrind down the double set rail, Derek follow it with front blunt and so much more. Jack got the wallie to firecracker he’s tried before. Derek did a fast kickflip to bankride that was gnarly. I tried to get a slow one, but was unable to and it started my decline. Dean and I ollied the six stair. I thought it would be enough to hyped me up to get the doubleset, but I bailed the first attempt and ended up hurting my back ankle pretty bad. I’m not sure what everyone else is doing, but I got bummed and tried nollie frontside bigflips for a long time by myself. It cheered me up even though I didn’t land one. I got really close though. Fuzz, Dean, Neil, Jack, and I skated the banked manny pads for awhile. Jack did something like ollie up kickflip to fakie nose manual down. Fuzz got a manual to rock to fakie manual down. Sick! I tried too, but can’t do fakie manuals. Last part of the night was the pier 7 ledge. Fuzz and I did lines of kickflip at the crack (basically into the mellow bank) the front 50 the ledge. He added manual and I added front 50 front 180 out. Jack did a perfect cab bigger spin then almost 5-0 front 360 shove out. Wowsers. I got lucky and did 360 flip followed by front 50 shove out with a sketchy landing. I moved over to try back 50 which took me awhile to work up the courage to try. And about the time I started committing to it and almost had it the lights shut off. I snapped and focused my board. I f’ing hate skateparks and their stupid regulated skate times. The softball field lights were still on of course. Ugh. To my credit the board was wearing down and was probably pretty cracked from some bad 360 flips earlier in the session.

Click here to view 2011 KOTC challenge book! Anyone is invited to do this contest, just email John Doe Zine at johndoezine@hotmail.com and let them know. Look at some of these challenges!

HAVE AN INNER TUBE RACE IN THE SOUTH PLATTE RIVER (50 POINTS)

MIKEY CHAFFEE CHALLENGE: WEAR A GHETTO GOWN FOR THE ENTIRE DAY (20 POINTS)

OLLIE THE LONGMONT LEAP OF FAITH (5000 POINTS)

The list goes on and on and on!

After we all met at Meta we rolled into campus. First stop was UMC and I was having a really tough time warming up. I blame it on the swimming sunday with the kids. Totally wore me out. Anyways, Max wasted no time in destroying it. Nose manual the three stair, ollie the five, little bonks on the ledges above the five, etc. Chad tried to follow suit, but seemed kind of out of it. Me and Carleigh tried lines to the ledges off the five stair. She managed to ride off it successfully before me, but then went on to say how lame it was. Geez, I was kind of stoked. Ha. I did a little rock ollie, ollied up on the ledge, rode off, front 180 off the 3 stair. That spot is super fun. It should be lit better. Chad managed a manual front 180 around the 3 stair. Next up we went and played on a long set of stairs that we just rode down. Max killed it. Dropin to high speed ride down the stairs. It was probably about 15 stairs each being about 3 feet long. It was so dumb, but fun. All of us were able to ride down them all. Max did b/s flip out of the last one, back 180 into switch ride down, all kinds of craziness. He was ripping.

We went to the spot above where Max kept killing it. Chad filmed Max above with my phone. I failed at 360 flips the whole time and was cursing the big board, but I think it was just because I was super tired. Overall a fun night though.

Had a few emotional days watching the race my dad was training for, burying ashes and some other not fun activities that prevented me from being able to skate for a few days. After all that I was wanting to skate really bad. I was bringing my brother to the airport early and at the last moment decided to bring my board to hit the Aurora park since it’s way out there. I asked Ollie if he wanted to join and he was in. Sick! We aren’t as cool as JP, but we did get to the park pretty early. There was only a few other people there throughout the two hours we skated.

I started off not doing much more than cruising as it felt really early (9:30 or so). Ollie did lots of flyout back 180s everywhere and some backside ollies on mellow banks. He loved that park. I started getting it going and did some stuff I haven’t done there before. I did a frontside ollie over the little handrail that hyped me up. It was just a frontside ollie on the bank, but it felt cool to go over the rail. Later on I tried about one million kickflips over it going backside. I never quite got it, but had several that were close. That would have been a gillinghammer for me. Ollie and I skated the bowl for a bit. He dropped in the shallow and carved the deep end good enough to make it back up the shallow. Sick! I almost had a good run with a front slash going from the shallow into the deep, but I bailed. Typical

I managed to crooks the straight ledge going off the bank and pop into the bank. I did it pretty bad though. The front 50 was somehow harder for me. Toward the end I tried b/s flips over the hip for awhile and got close to a million before finally landing one with Ollie getting my back with a back 180. Father/son combo! I’m sure it wont be long before the tricks are reversed. After that I did a kickflip back 50 stall on the bank to ledge first try and we left. Hyped.

Was feeling really tired after a kind of late night at Bright Eyes the night before. Actually made a couple of calls to see if anyone wanted to skate Lafayette park, but no one was down. I was gonna go solo, but as soon as I stepped outside of my house I realized it was too nice out to waste my time driving to a skatepark to wait in line. So I went to downtown Boulder and parked near St Julien. I cruised around for awhile just kinda mixing regular pushes with some switch pushes and doing some slow ollies up curbs. I ended up at flat bar / manny pad / parking block area and ended up having a blast. For some reason I’ve never thought to roll down the handicap ramp to have speed to do a manual uphill then hit the flatbar backside. I got a manual then noseslide real quick. I’ve crook’ed it once and thought it was hard at the time, but for some reason it seemed really easy now. I’ll give the bigger setup some credit, it feels easier to get on taller stuff. Anyways I got the crooks quick then tried it a few times in a line. Manual then crooks. Done. nose manual then an even better crooks. Awesome. I went across to the parking blocks for a bit. Tried to do ollie up curb then lipslide on a parking block all quick. I got it, but it was after I cracked my board pretty good. I do the really heavy footed lipslides because I am horrible at that trick. Next I ended up at my favorite downtown spot, the white ledge in the parking garage entrance. As I was in the process of relearning backside 50s (which I have to do everytime I go skating) Jack’s little brother Bob stopped by and said hi. Rad. I eventually was able to convince my body that it had done back 50s before and moved on to crooks and trying both in lines. I got the back 50 line with a horrible ollie off the curb cut first try I think. I got the crooks like first try too. Whoa! I tried to add treflip to the line, but ended up getting kicked out by a security guard that said “I could care less if your here, but I have to ask you to leave”. Lovely. That was pretty much the end of my skating. As I got near to my car I realized that the tour buses by St Julien were the same busss we saw last night at the Boulder Theater and yeap, saw a couple of the Bright Eyes dudes. As I skated by I was really surprised they didn’t recognize me as the guy in the 18th row at the show the night before. Stupid musicians.

Was feeling really tired from an exhausting, but super fun weekend. In the midst of cleaning and watering the lawn I went out front and skated flatground for awhile. I wasn’t in the mood to bail tricks I normally land so I just hucked for awhile. Nollie f/s flips one way, sw f/s flips the other. Only got close to the nollie f/s flips, but not that close. After awhile Ollie came out and wanted to skate so we went across the street to the school.

This is the new long two across the street at the school. It’s got that new rough finish on it so it’s not as good as it should be. But either way we normally just do drop down to manuals and stuff. Ollie was skating way faster than normal and tried to ollie the gap a few times. He doesn’t seem to have the bail syndrome that I have, but he didn’t make it. Instead of slamming he would just manual the last foot or so. So sick. He also did back 180 the first, halfcab off the second. I was tired and tried to do drop down to manual or kickflip off the second, but it didn’t work.

We also checked out the new freshly painted curb. Some spots are gonna be perfection and are even kind of tall. Stoked! Ollie did his first back 180 up a curb and we called it a night.