Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we give our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems.)
When I was in middle school in Dayton, Ohio, I’d spend Saturday afternoons hanging off the bumper of my parents’ Chevy Nova in our driveway, balancing on my skateboard and pretending to be pulled along at dangerous speeds like Marty McFly in “Back to the Future.”
Like Marty (and actor Michel J. Fox, my idol at the time), I rode a Valterra deck that I revered, at least as much as one can while scraping it against concrete and daring it to knock out their newly permanent teeth. I subscribed to the skater-bible Thrasher magazine and met other adolescent dirtbags in the parking lot at our neighborhood pool. I attracted friends and roommates in college through skating. And I still miss that Jinn Demon deck.
Imagine my dad-joy when my son, 13, decided he wanted to add a skateboard to his human-powered wheel collection/required-helmet stable, which previously consisted only of a bike and a scooter. Friends (his and mine) recommended 303 Boards on East Colfax Avenue, another business that has lately been choked by the orange traffic barrels and chain-link fences of the Colfax BRT project. That project has, since last year, progressively torn up the east-west corridor of central Denver and been blamed for more than one business closure.
This gritty stretch of Capitol Hill is as vulnerable as any, but you shouldn’t just visit a business because they need hugs. The staff at 303 Boards justifies it with a beginner-friendly approach and gear, although when my son and I stopped in they were chatting with a customer who’d been skating for decades and bought his most recent board there.
We were able to pick up an all-new, custom-tuned starter board for Tom, consisting of a 303 Boards-branded house deck, wheels and bearings, and shiny, silvery trucks, for less than $200. With locations in Boulder and on Broadway in Denver, 303 Boards also sells shoes and coats and hats and T-shirts that we weren’t in the market for (and snowboards that I can only hope to afford). But we got just what we were looking for: expertise, sensitivity and recommendations that catered to my son’s skill level.
Skateboarding, as adherents know, is a pick-up-and-go pastime and sport that requires nothing but flat, hard ground — or empty pools and halfpipes, if you’re into skate parks and indoor thrills. Feeling like I’m part of some grand tradition of cool dads is wishful, self-serving thinking as a parent. But that day I allowed myself a little, especially as I spied Tom running his hands over its rough grip tape and smooth plastic wheels on the way home.
He also loves “Back to the Future” and has a great imagination. I’ll have to remind him there’s a Subaru Forrester in our garage with a very nice bumper on it.