There’s three feet of snow on top of the couple inches from last week and I just found a gnarly new, hairpin filled road 20 minutes from my house. I will not be able to skate for a long while now but on the bright side of things for the second week in March I will be in LA hanging out and skating with the boys of www.skatehousemedia.com! I’ll be missing the first race of the year on the east coast for this trip but it will be totally worth it. Check back to read about that adventure, which is sure to be action packed and see the video that comes of my journey.
In the meantime check out my youtube channel: www.youtube.com/anthonyflis
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Buffalo Bill Downhill part 3
The morning was filled with immediate disappointment as I looked out the window. It was drizzling and the roads were soaked. The top of Lookout Mt. was surrounded in an impenetrable fog and it seemed like it would be a rain race. Once again I was greeted by the Staub’s and offered coffee and food as they prepared lunch. Even though it was raining I at least had my duffle bag with my board and leathers, which got delivered while I was at the campsite. It was incredibly disheartening to look out the back window in the direction the mountain should be, only to see fog, when the day before was perfect, not too hot, little wind, clear skies and bright sun. We packed up the car, and I made sure to leave nothing behind since my final destinations were unclear.
The conditions on the hillside were horrible. Visibility was down to twenty or thirty feet and the road was absolutely soaked as the mist continued to come down. Few people were at the top of the race course yet since it was still early but we were eager to find out the conditions and the plan of attack for the race. The word was that we would wait a few hours and hope for it to dry up or at least improve. Justin’s wife rolled up with breakfast burritos and hot coffee, which was awesome and warming. As more people showed up, every tool thinkable was used to make rain wheels. Everyone took turns pushing each other along the flat to cut grooves into their wheels. I decided I didn’t care enough or have any wheels I was willing to cut into and would just go for it with what I had.
It started getting late and things weren’t getting much better as everyone started getting antsy to skate. Finally Justin decided to give everyone one practice run and then go into heats. I took it really easy on my way down, doing a lot of foot breaking, mostly concerned for the sweepers where normally you don’t expect to drift but have a lot of force sideways on your wheels where in the wet could be really dangerous. I managed to make it down without falling but also went at a pace that felt stupid. At the bottom, while waiting to get in the Uhaul to go back up, I watched Louis pick up one of the biggest, fastest, slimiest worms I’ve ever seen and try and get people to eat it. I also saw Hugh Kibbling puking next to the Uhaul and when he was done, turning around and telling Louis to throw it and he’d catch it in his mouth, and he did. He swallowed the thing down hardly a minute after puking his brains out from the night before. It might be one of the most off the wall things I’d seen on this trip. It’s one of those stories that doesn’t seem real when you see it happen even.
I really wanted to do good at this race, hoping to go back to the east coast with a good story of how my heats went and do it up for the east coast. My first heat had Dubes in it and he kicked way out in front on the soaked asphalt, screaming like crazy, catching me off guard. I kicked behind him but not as hard and navigated all the sweepers on top fine still not pushing it balls out. I got to the right hairpin and slowed down a lot but just slid right into the hay. The other two people in my heat caught up at this point but also crashed. I got on my board and kicked as hard as I could to stay in front and perfectly hit the left and the next right hairpin and had a good lead. Dubes had probably already finished by now since I hadn’t seen him since he disappeared into the fog at the start. I came into the last left with a little too much confidence and tried to rail it like I had done in the dry, surfing it with both hands in the air but my wheels caught and I did a somersault and as I slowly got up I saw the other two riders pass me and realized I was done for the day. I think I only found a picture or two of me from race day and both of them show me eating shit.
I took the shuttle back to the top after the first round heats and go out of my leathers and took a skate down the course to the first left hairpin since you could see the last few corners from there. James had also gotten out and brought a backpack of beer down with him so we drank some beers and watched the racing. I saw Krimes throw some nasty standers in the last left in the wet and you could hear the grooves he cut in his wheels just sucking on the pavement. It was almost as unbelievable as when I saw Louis throw a big standing 180 before the same last left and take it switch the day before. Seeing the kind of riding that these guys were throwing down in person and talking with them about their approach to downhilling opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t nearly as experienced riding turny, big mountain roads and really changed the way I skated afterwards, reshaping my outlook on how to spend my summer.
In the end the race came down to Zak Maytum, Louis, Will Brunson and King Brian. The road had gotten pretty dry and the hairpins were mostly dry for the final heat. It was a pretty close heat with Zak in front taking it home for the locals followed by King Brian ripping with his floaty, stand up style through the hairpins wearing shorts and a wind breaker type jacket. Will Brunson and Louis were a little behind them and in the last hairpin Louis took a suicide line on the inside and made the pass on the white line with his hand over the grass. It was chaos when we got to the top of the hill with beer being splashed everywhere, schwag getting thrown into the crowd a podium in front of the Loco. All the local kids were battling it out for free stuff, wrestling over boards and shirts. It was an awesome scene of celebration at the end of a successful event.
After all the podium shots were taken and everyone packed up to leave there was still the problem of course tear down. I was riding in the big passenger van so I could both get to the after part at Coop’s house and get a ride to the airport the following morning so I stayed and helped huck hay. The hay was soaked from the snow and rain, but I did my part, throwing bale after bale, and I’m a scronny person, into the Uhauls we had. It was cool seeing how the riders all take care of each other to put on these events since I wasn’t the only skater doing this. Will Brunson, Rizzo, Jason and K-Rimes were throwing hay as well as Justin Dubois who’s event it was. Will’s wife was throwing hay too, giving us all shit that we had a hard time with the 50lb bales since she deals with 80lbs daily on her farm. It’s cool to look at the way these events run because none of them are for profit, there are no big corporations and crews of people to run them. It’s all just done for each other. It’s the kind of thing you don’t see very often in the world.
Once we had the Uhauls literally packed to capacity with what hay was salvageable we needed to take them to the farm supply store to sell them back. The only problem was there were too many cars to people, so I drove a Uhaul full of hay down Lookout Mountain and a couple miles down the interstate after drank a few beers and never driving anything that big before. We had the walky-talkies from the course workers so we could communicate between the two uhauls, passenger van and Justin’s truck. It was a lot of fun driving that huge thing trying to keep up going down the mountain, cutting lanes as if it were a sports car or a skateboard. We finally got the hay unloaded and sold back with Justin coming out close to even on hay. Then we had to take the Uhauls to the rental place all the way back near town, hop in the van, then drive the hour to Coop’s for the party. We stopped in Boulder for dinner at some little Mexican burrito place before moving into the mountains to get to wherever the hell we were going.
It was getting dark and rainy as we left Boulder towards the after party. We had been driving for a while with no other cars around, completely unaware of probably breathe taking scenery that was indiscernible through the thick, dark, cloudy night. As we got settled into the drone of driving through the night we see slowly rolling along in front of us none other than the Loco Express in full rave mode. The strobe lights were on, everyone was dancing with drinks in their hand and it looked like a mad house. Justin called from his truck and said we need to try and mess with them and pull them over so we started flashing our lights and honking trying to signal them over but they were having too good a time to even notice. The bus couldn’t make it up the passes very well so we ended up passing them and took turns throwing things as we passed back and forth for a few miles. Somehow we started individually turning our lights off between the van, Justin’s truck and the Loco, sometimes resulting in no ones headlights being on as we drove through the pitch black mountainous terrain. Whenever a car was spotted we’d turn the lights back on but one time the Loco didn’t turn their lights on and there is no way the car passing saw them until they were right next to it, with the full blow of wild dance party taking place. It’s one of those scenes that sounds made up or out of some movie about hippies in the 60s or something but it was a crazy ass drive. Eventually we just went on our way leaving them to putter their way up the mountains.
When we finally got to the party there was already a ton of people, a huge bonfire and the keg was flowing. Coop’s compound is an incredible place. There are huge rocks off in the backyard framing a stage, a big six foot tall super wide mini ramp, and the most intimidating zip line I’ve ever seen. To get on the zip line you have to climb a ladder to get on top of a shed then climb another six feet or more up into this pine tree that sways with each ride down, leaving everyone clutching to stay on the platform. At the other end of the line you get stopped by a knot with a towel in it that you hit swinging you in every direction just far enough from the other anchor tree so you don’t hit it. After you stop you’re still six feet off the ground and need to hang upside down, unhook yourself off the pulley and then unhook the pulley so the next person can use it then you hang and drop to your feet. Justin Dubois’ band played a set with the rocks as a back drop and in no time there was a pit going. Dubes was in charge of the fire and it just kept getting bigger and bigger through out the night. At one point Coop threw a fallen tree on and we all took turns running over the fire on it. I also remember someone searching the dark forest floor with a head lamp and asking if anyone had seen a large quantity of weed laying around and then later finding out that it was just under his hat.
I have no idea how long the party went on for. Some people probably went all night. I spent a good amount of time talking with Rob Mckendry by the keg hearing some of his crazy stories from his travels. That guy has more experiences than I could ever hope for. I also sat by the fire with Dubes reminiscing about when we first met in 2007 at a freeride in North Carolina. I think he was still living in Florida then and was pretty sketchy and now he’s one of the fastest guys in the world. I had also been bugging Zak for bushings the whole weekend because there was no way I would ever buy bushings online or anything so this was the only time I’d be able to reasonably get Venoms. I was pretty drunk when he finally brought some bushings for me and he didn’t have exactly what I was looking for. I somehow ended up with three barrels and two eliminators for a good price and just pocketed them without thinking about what I got but eliminators didn’t even fit my downhill trucks. It was a funny drunk moment in my life, to me anyway.
As things started to die down and only the hardest partiers still going, I found myself nodding off in a chair by the fire. I decided sleeping in the van was the best option that way I couldn’t be left behind in the morning. We were going to wake up and go to Justin’s house with Graham Buska and Krimes so that we could skate and I could get a ride to the airport with Jason. I managed to stumble to the van, find my sleeping bag and pass out almost immediately regardless of the cold.
I woke up hours later to the early morning sun shining through the trees and Graham digging through gear in the back of the van. I managed to climb out into the brisk morning and survey things in the day light. The ramp looked much bigger and I could really take in the beauty of Coop’s land. Over the trees you could see the the snow caps of the Rockies looming up. Most people were in the house with Coop cooking eggs for those still around. Everyone was laying around recovering from the night before, watching a little t.v. and sharing experiences like we’d been doing all weekend. It was another great family scene of downhillers all doing what they do. I know I keep mentioning this aspect but it’s something that is actually hard to describe if you aren’t a part of something like this.
We soon said our goodbyes and Kevin, Graham and myself piled back into the van and headed to Justin’s house where he, Jason and Rizzo where. Justin lives in a really nice little town nestled in a valley near some resorts or something. It’s a picturesque small Colorado, ski town. When we got there we just missed the viewing of the Sector 9 movie that Rizzo had been working on, that has still yet to be released and I’m not sure if it ever will. The trailer for it has been online for the past year and looks so sick though. After some coffee and hanging out we decided it was time to go skate and Justin said he had the perfect little neighborhood to session.
We all piled in the van and headed down the street a mile or so to a nice little private neighborhood with a good number of hairpins and nice pitch. Jason was hurting from a bad hipper he took so he decided to just drive and film. It was such an honor to skate such a road with Rizzo and Kevin. I’ve never seen people rip so hard in my life. Rizzo was on a 36” deck with 70mm race formula wheels and throwing down so hard. Kevin was throwing standers longer than I had ever seen in my life on his avenger. Watching Kevin throw huge thirty foot stand up slides into hairpins and doing huge 180s and switch checks was an eye opening experience. Also seeing Rizzo riding a similar style on the small pool deck, sessioning the ledge at the top of the hill as well was sweet and totally changed the way I wanted to ride a skateboard. I had so much fun trying to keep up and shred this gnarly, steep, sand coated run. We only had enough time for a few runs but what we got in was so much fun and I witnessed some of the best downhill skating ever.
After that quick session we went back to Justin’s to pack up and head to the airport. On the drive back there were a couple of Caribou hanging out next to the road. I’d never seen game that big or with huge antlers like that before. It really tripped me out and completed my experience in Colorado. As I was putting my board and extraneous gear in my duffle bag I was talking to Rizzo as he was packing his stuff up and out of no where he offered me a set of Sector 9 race formula wheels. It was awesome getting to know him because he’s been in the sport for so long and such an interesting guy. As we were finishing packing, Dubes rolled up looking to go skate fast. Him, Graham and Kevin borrowed Justin’s truck to go skate Rist while Justin, Rizzo, Jason and myself headed to the airport. It’s crazy that I just missed skating the fastest road in the world and that I watched a group of guys on their way out to do it. While I was boarding my plane they were going in the upper 70s on skateboards.
The drive back to the airport was pretty fun and interesting. We drove around the opposite way from when I was picked up which takes you far off from Denver. It was interesting to realize that half of Colorado is plains and that Denver is just on the edge of the Rockies. In one direction you look out and see flat fields to the horizon and in the other you see a wall of mountains growing into the clouds and covered with snow caps. I was sad to be leaving so soon. The landscape was so beautiful and I’d only just begun to see any of it and only skated two hills in a sea of mountains. The last memorable thing before I boarded my plane was stopping on the highway just outside the airport for Rizzo to get out and pee in a field. We got to the airport and Jason had barely enough time to make his flight and I had an hour or so to wait around. When I got on the plane I passed right out and woke up in Charloette but with enough time to make it to my next gate and hang out unlike on the way there. I’m pretty sure I passed right back out once on my connecting flight too and woke up home in Virginia. It all seemed like a dream that I just woke up from and needed to continue trying to be in. This trip completely set the pace and direction for the rest of my summer which I filled with the most traveling and skating I’d ever done. It was one of the best trips of my life and I hope so badly I can do it again and stay longer this year.
The conditions on the hillside were horrible. Visibility was down to twenty or thirty feet and the road was absolutely soaked as the mist continued to come down. Few people were at the top of the race course yet since it was still early but we were eager to find out the conditions and the plan of attack for the race. The word was that we would wait a few hours and hope for it to dry up or at least improve. Justin’s wife rolled up with breakfast burritos and hot coffee, which was awesome and warming. As more people showed up, every tool thinkable was used to make rain wheels. Everyone took turns pushing each other along the flat to cut grooves into their wheels. I decided I didn’t care enough or have any wheels I was willing to cut into and would just go for it with what I had.
It started getting late and things weren’t getting much better as everyone started getting antsy to skate. Finally Justin decided to give everyone one practice run and then go into heats. I took it really easy on my way down, doing a lot of foot breaking, mostly concerned for the sweepers where normally you don’t expect to drift but have a lot of force sideways on your wheels where in the wet could be really dangerous. I managed to make it down without falling but also went at a pace that felt stupid. At the bottom, while waiting to get in the Uhaul to go back up, I watched Louis pick up one of the biggest, fastest, slimiest worms I’ve ever seen and try and get people to eat it. I also saw Hugh Kibbling puking next to the Uhaul and when he was done, turning around and telling Louis to throw it and he’d catch it in his mouth, and he did. He swallowed the thing down hardly a minute after puking his brains out from the night before. It might be one of the most off the wall things I’d seen on this trip. It’s one of those stories that doesn’t seem real when you see it happen even.
I really wanted to do good at this race, hoping to go back to the east coast with a good story of how my heats went and do it up for the east coast. My first heat had Dubes in it and he kicked way out in front on the soaked asphalt, screaming like crazy, catching me off guard. I kicked behind him but not as hard and navigated all the sweepers on top fine still not pushing it balls out. I got to the right hairpin and slowed down a lot but just slid right into the hay. The other two people in my heat caught up at this point but also crashed. I got on my board and kicked as hard as I could to stay in front and perfectly hit the left and the next right hairpin and had a good lead. Dubes had probably already finished by now since I hadn’t seen him since he disappeared into the fog at the start. I came into the last left with a little too much confidence and tried to rail it like I had done in the dry, surfing it with both hands in the air but my wheels caught and I did a somersault and as I slowly got up I saw the other two riders pass me and realized I was done for the day. I think I only found a picture or two of me from race day and both of them show me eating shit.
I took the shuttle back to the top after the first round heats and go out of my leathers and took a skate down the course to the first left hairpin since you could see the last few corners from there. James had also gotten out and brought a backpack of beer down with him so we drank some beers and watched the racing. I saw Krimes throw some nasty standers in the last left in the wet and you could hear the grooves he cut in his wheels just sucking on the pavement. It was almost as unbelievable as when I saw Louis throw a big standing 180 before the same last left and take it switch the day before. Seeing the kind of riding that these guys were throwing down in person and talking with them about their approach to downhilling opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t nearly as experienced riding turny, big mountain roads and really changed the way I skated afterwards, reshaping my outlook on how to spend my summer.
In the end the race came down to Zak Maytum, Louis, Will Brunson and King Brian. The road had gotten pretty dry and the hairpins were mostly dry for the final heat. It was a pretty close heat with Zak in front taking it home for the locals followed by King Brian ripping with his floaty, stand up style through the hairpins wearing shorts and a wind breaker type jacket. Will Brunson and Louis were a little behind them and in the last hairpin Louis took a suicide line on the inside and made the pass on the white line with his hand over the grass. It was chaos when we got to the top of the hill with beer being splashed everywhere, schwag getting thrown into the crowd a podium in front of the Loco. All the local kids were battling it out for free stuff, wrestling over boards and shirts. It was an awesome scene of celebration at the end of a successful event.
After all the podium shots were taken and everyone packed up to leave there was still the problem of course tear down. I was riding in the big passenger van so I could both get to the after part at Coop’s house and get a ride to the airport the following morning so I stayed and helped huck hay. The hay was soaked from the snow and rain, but I did my part, throwing bale after bale, and I’m a scronny person, into the Uhauls we had. It was cool seeing how the riders all take care of each other to put on these events since I wasn’t the only skater doing this. Will Brunson, Rizzo, Jason and K-Rimes were throwing hay as well as Justin Dubois who’s event it was. Will’s wife was throwing hay too, giving us all shit that we had a hard time with the 50lb bales since she deals with 80lbs daily on her farm. It’s cool to look at the way these events run because none of them are for profit, there are no big corporations and crews of people to run them. It’s all just done for each other. It’s the kind of thing you don’t see very often in the world.
Once we had the Uhauls literally packed to capacity with what hay was salvageable we needed to take them to the farm supply store to sell them back. The only problem was there were too many cars to people, so I drove a Uhaul full of hay down Lookout Mountain and a couple miles down the interstate after drank a few beers and never driving anything that big before. We had the walky-talkies from the course workers so we could communicate between the two uhauls, passenger van and Justin’s truck. It was a lot of fun driving that huge thing trying to keep up going down the mountain, cutting lanes as if it were a sports car or a skateboard. We finally got the hay unloaded and sold back with Justin coming out close to even on hay. Then we had to take the Uhauls to the rental place all the way back near town, hop in the van, then drive the hour to Coop’s for the party. We stopped in Boulder for dinner at some little Mexican burrito place before moving into the mountains to get to wherever the hell we were going.
It was getting dark and rainy as we left Boulder towards the after party. We had been driving for a while with no other cars around, completely unaware of probably breathe taking scenery that was indiscernible through the thick, dark, cloudy night. As we got settled into the drone of driving through the night we see slowly rolling along in front of us none other than the Loco Express in full rave mode. The strobe lights were on, everyone was dancing with drinks in their hand and it looked like a mad house. Justin called from his truck and said we need to try and mess with them and pull them over so we started flashing our lights and honking trying to signal them over but they were having too good a time to even notice. The bus couldn’t make it up the passes very well so we ended up passing them and took turns throwing things as we passed back and forth for a few miles. Somehow we started individually turning our lights off between the van, Justin’s truck and the Loco, sometimes resulting in no ones headlights being on as we drove through the pitch black mountainous terrain. Whenever a car was spotted we’d turn the lights back on but one time the Loco didn’t turn their lights on and there is no way the car passing saw them until they were right next to it, with the full blow of wild dance party taking place. It’s one of those scenes that sounds made up or out of some movie about hippies in the 60s or something but it was a crazy ass drive. Eventually we just went on our way leaving them to putter their way up the mountains.
When we finally got to the party there was already a ton of people, a huge bonfire and the keg was flowing. Coop’s compound is an incredible place. There are huge rocks off in the backyard framing a stage, a big six foot tall super wide mini ramp, and the most intimidating zip line I’ve ever seen. To get on the zip line you have to climb a ladder to get on top of a shed then climb another six feet or more up into this pine tree that sways with each ride down, leaving everyone clutching to stay on the platform. At the other end of the line you get stopped by a knot with a towel in it that you hit swinging you in every direction just far enough from the other anchor tree so you don’t hit it. After you stop you’re still six feet off the ground and need to hang upside down, unhook yourself off the pulley and then unhook the pulley so the next person can use it then you hang and drop to your feet. Justin Dubois’ band played a set with the rocks as a back drop and in no time there was a pit going. Dubes was in charge of the fire and it just kept getting bigger and bigger through out the night. At one point Coop threw a fallen tree on and we all took turns running over the fire on it. I also remember someone searching the dark forest floor with a head lamp and asking if anyone had seen a large quantity of weed laying around and then later finding out that it was just under his hat.
I have no idea how long the party went on for. Some people probably went all night. I spent a good amount of time talking with Rob Mckendry by the keg hearing some of his crazy stories from his travels. That guy has more experiences than I could ever hope for. I also sat by the fire with Dubes reminiscing about when we first met in 2007 at a freeride in North Carolina. I think he was still living in Florida then and was pretty sketchy and now he’s one of the fastest guys in the world. I had also been bugging Zak for bushings the whole weekend because there was no way I would ever buy bushings online or anything so this was the only time I’d be able to reasonably get Venoms. I was pretty drunk when he finally brought some bushings for me and he didn’t have exactly what I was looking for. I somehow ended up with three barrels and two eliminators for a good price and just pocketed them without thinking about what I got but eliminators didn’t even fit my downhill trucks. It was a funny drunk moment in my life, to me anyway.
As things started to die down and only the hardest partiers still going, I found myself nodding off in a chair by the fire. I decided sleeping in the van was the best option that way I couldn’t be left behind in the morning. We were going to wake up and go to Justin’s house with Graham Buska and Krimes so that we could skate and I could get a ride to the airport with Jason. I managed to stumble to the van, find my sleeping bag and pass out almost immediately regardless of the cold.
I woke up hours later to the early morning sun shining through the trees and Graham digging through gear in the back of the van. I managed to climb out into the brisk morning and survey things in the day light. The ramp looked much bigger and I could really take in the beauty of Coop’s land. Over the trees you could see the the snow caps of the Rockies looming up. Most people were in the house with Coop cooking eggs for those still around. Everyone was laying around recovering from the night before, watching a little t.v. and sharing experiences like we’d been doing all weekend. It was another great family scene of downhillers all doing what they do. I know I keep mentioning this aspect but it’s something that is actually hard to describe if you aren’t a part of something like this.
We soon said our goodbyes and Kevin, Graham and myself piled back into the van and headed to Justin’s house where he, Jason and Rizzo where. Justin lives in a really nice little town nestled in a valley near some resorts or something. It’s a picturesque small Colorado, ski town. When we got there we just missed the viewing of the Sector 9 movie that Rizzo had been working on, that has still yet to be released and I’m not sure if it ever will. The trailer for it has been online for the past year and looks so sick though. After some coffee and hanging out we decided it was time to go skate and Justin said he had the perfect little neighborhood to session.
We all piled in the van and headed down the street a mile or so to a nice little private neighborhood with a good number of hairpins and nice pitch. Jason was hurting from a bad hipper he took so he decided to just drive and film. It was such an honor to skate such a road with Rizzo and Kevin. I’ve never seen people rip so hard in my life. Rizzo was on a 36” deck with 70mm race formula wheels and throwing down so hard. Kevin was throwing standers longer than I had ever seen in my life on his avenger. Watching Kevin throw huge thirty foot stand up slides into hairpins and doing huge 180s and switch checks was an eye opening experience. Also seeing Rizzo riding a similar style on the small pool deck, sessioning the ledge at the top of the hill as well was sweet and totally changed the way I wanted to ride a skateboard. I had so much fun trying to keep up and shred this gnarly, steep, sand coated run. We only had enough time for a few runs but what we got in was so much fun and I witnessed some of the best downhill skating ever.
After that quick session we went back to Justin’s to pack up and head to the airport. On the drive back there were a couple of Caribou hanging out next to the road. I’d never seen game that big or with huge antlers like that before. It really tripped me out and completed my experience in Colorado. As I was putting my board and extraneous gear in my duffle bag I was talking to Rizzo as he was packing his stuff up and out of no where he offered me a set of Sector 9 race formula wheels. It was awesome getting to know him because he’s been in the sport for so long and such an interesting guy. As we were finishing packing, Dubes rolled up looking to go skate fast. Him, Graham and Kevin borrowed Justin’s truck to go skate Rist while Justin, Rizzo, Jason and myself headed to the airport. It’s crazy that I just missed skating the fastest road in the world and that I watched a group of guys on their way out to do it. While I was boarding my plane they were going in the upper 70s on skateboards.
The drive back to the airport was pretty fun and interesting. We drove around the opposite way from when I was picked up which takes you far off from Denver. It was interesting to realize that half of Colorado is plains and that Denver is just on the edge of the Rockies. In one direction you look out and see flat fields to the horizon and in the other you see a wall of mountains growing into the clouds and covered with snow caps. I was sad to be leaving so soon. The landscape was so beautiful and I’d only just begun to see any of it and only skated two hills in a sea of mountains. The last memorable thing before I boarded my plane was stopping on the highway just outside the airport for Rizzo to get out and pee in a field. We got to the airport and Jason had barely enough time to make his flight and I had an hour or so to wait around. When I got on the plane I passed right out and woke up in Charloette but with enough time to make it to my next gate and hang out unlike on the way there. I’m pretty sure I passed right back out once on my connecting flight too and woke up home in Virginia. It all seemed like a dream that I just woke up from and needed to continue trying to be in. This trip completely set the pace and direction for the rest of my summer which I filled with the most traveling and skating I’d ever done. It was one of the best trips of my life and I hope so badly I can do it again and stay longer this year.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Buffalo Bill Downhill part 2
I woke up at six to a cat in my face checking me out. I’m pretty allergic to cats; my airways constrict and it’s really hard to breathe so it was not the best thing to wake up to. After forcing the cat off of me I laid around for a little before deciding to get up and see if there was any activity in the house. I walked in my typical lack of sleep zombie fashion to the kitchen to find Mark and his wife sitting at the kitchen table with an unreasonable amount of paper bags set up. After hearing good morning the next thing said was “do you like coffee? Help yourself to the coffee and there’s bagels over there.” Coffee is one of the worst drugs I’ve gotten myself into but man is it good. The bags were going to be the lunches of all of the skaters at the event. Apparently the week before the race they still needed someone to set up food for the riders and luckily Mark’s wife is a caterer and he volunteered her time. So I sat and drank a few cups of coffee and examined the surroundings. The neighborhood was nestled in between some large foothills and was just below a rather large rocky mesa. Across the valley was Lookout Mountain and you could see the bottom of the road we were going to be racing and the towers that marked the top of the mountain.
We threw our gear in the car and got under way around eight or nine. It was a slow morning even after we got up to the top of the hill. I set up Calvin’s old board with my wheels and duct taped his old suit back together in the places it needed most. I had only seen the road in Youtube videos and was excited to really scope it out so when they asked for volunteers to sweep hay off the road I was immediately ready to ride down and really see what I was up against. The hill looked dreamy with a good mix of everything a race course needs: straight-aways, sweepers and the bottom section of right hairpin, left hairpin, right hairpin, left hairpin to the finish line. It took about an hour with Mark, a local guy and me sweeping the course. As we got finished the fabled Loco Express was spotted slowly making it’s way up the hill.
The Loco is an old bus that was rebuilt and repainted that was on the adventure of a lifetime. It started in Vancouver with seven people and made it’s way down the west coast to L.A. where it picked up a few more travelers. It then made it’s way to Ditch Slap in Albuquerque, New Mexico and from there up to Colorado for this race. After this weekend it was completing the loop back to British Columbia for three more races in the following week. I can’t imagine the adventure that they went through. Mine couldn’t possibly compare to theirs. There is little more that I want than having the ability to drop everything for a few weeks and go on an adventure, traveling place to place, seeing beautiful scenery and skating some of the most incredible roads and spots in the world. Doing all that with some of the best skaters and people in the world just puts it over the top. It would be hard to keep going, skating and partying hard everyday but the experience gained is something that I think out weighs any fault in the plan. It would be comparable to touring with some of the best jazz/improv musicians in the world and making new ground breaking music every day except doing it in only incredibly beautiful places.
We found a ride back to the top of the hill from one of the organizers and finally had a riders meeting after being on the hill for an hour or two. We only had the road until three and it was late morning. My first run of the day was mellow but felt great as I tried to get acquainted to this odd board set up. After two more runs on Calvin’s board I couldn’t control it well enough in the first hairpin and switched to one of Jason’s extra boards. Since I actually owned the same board that I borrowed it was easier to get a feel for it. They only problem after that was the fact that this hill ate wheels and the wheels I had brought for racing wear incredibly quickly. It was awesome doing 30mph standing slides to stop after the finish line on some buttery worn in wheels but was hard to keep speed in corners because of scrubbing out in all the hairpins. I put on fresh wheels before what was going to be the second to last run to see how huge a difference it would make and how to conserve wheels for racing. I took my last run with Calvin and had the most intense run of the day where I pushed out in front and in the big straight he gave me a huge bump. He passed me going into the first hairpin that determines the rest of the course and through a huge predrift nearly hitting the hay, while I did a small foot break and then predrifted. I passed him back immediately but he caught back up going into the final turn and we went in side by side forcing me to have to rail the inside line or take both of us out and he ended up with his hand basically under my board trying to hold his own line. I had no place to put a hand down and had to surf the corner and somehow we made it. It was one of those moments that when you make it out you just yell and laugh maniacally because you shouldn’t have made it.
We had to get off the road on time so the city granting the permits wouldn’t get angry and pull the plug on racing the following day. Everyone was quickly relocated to a picnic area around the corner from the top of the racecourse. The partying started there as we tried to figure out how to get to the racers campground. The beer and weed were gotten out as quick as we got into the parking lot and it was a continuation of the get together of old and new friends. Heats were being drawn at the campground so I was pretty set on getting there but Mark wasn’t going and Calvin was getting a ride from someone else so I needed to find a way to travel the hour from the race site to the camp site. I got in one of the big passenger vans that was rented as a shuttle with two guys from California who ride for Comet and Graham who runs Rayne Longboards.
We followed Justin Dubois, who I had met the year before; first at a race in New York then at the Maryhill Festival of Speed in Washington State. We stopped to get some beers and find somewhere to stop and grab food to cook at the campsite. For whatever reason we got three 30 packs of beer and an airplane size bottle of Jaeger and after picking up some sausages and buns (as well as pocketed condiments) we started the drinking and the drive to the campground. The campground was a little less than an hour away and right before the continental divide on top of a mountain.
Justin had Rizzo riding with him and almost every mountain pass we went through Rizzo got out and shredded down the mountain without ever seeing the hill and only in a helmet and gloves. He kept messing with the cars going in the other direction by carving into the other lane and back before they got up to him. It was really something else to watch someone so comfortable on a skateboard ripping down a mountain at 45 or 50 just jamming. On the last pass before the turn for the campground he happened to do this to an off duty cop who pulled us over and called for back up. There were three cars total. While waiting we hurried to hide the open beer and empty cans. The cops seemed incredibly agitated because when Justin tried to get out to tell us what was going on they yelled at him to get back in his truck and were threatening him. The whole time we were sitting in the van and making jokes because all the cops had mustaches and aviators, which made them look just like caricatures out of Super Troopers. It became less of a joke when we realized that our driver had been drinking and had his wallet stolen a few days earlier meaning no driver’s license on him. Neither of which ended up being a problem but we were definitely waiting for a long time for nothing to happen at the bottom of the hill that goes to the campsite.
The road up to the campground was super gnarly. It was crazy steep with really big Montreal style cracks running perpendicular across it with a hand full of tight turns. From there you turn onto a hilly dirt/gravel road to the actual camping area, which Rizzo kept ripping on a 36” pool deck with soft wheels. We got there before most people and started cooking our cheese-impregnated sausages over the fire. There was a slackline set up and someone’s mini dirt bike getting played on. It was pretty cold out and it was supposed to snow as we waited for the Loco Express to make it’s appearance. Once more people showed up we were going to pick heats in the most Pagan way, as Justin would have said. He had this carnival game type wheel with everyones names as well as different tasks to fill in the empty spots like shot gun a beer and do 40 pushups.
The sun went all the way down and the fire got bigger as more people showed up to the campsite. It was cool hanging out and drinking beers with everyone. Downhill skaters are the best people in the world. It’s such an inclusive group of people and everyone is always eager to share stories, beers or smokes. If the world was made of only downhill skaters there would be no war, although not much would probably get done but we’d all be happy. I had a lot of fun hanging out and talking with Krimes and James Kelly. The other good thing about this sport is that even the guys who are the idols of it are accessible and cool. There’s no bullshit in downhill skateboarding. It started snowing, we were in the Rockies after all, and the cold was pretty rough since I only had a hoodie with me, which made the decision to go back to Calvin’s house rather than stay at the campsite with none of my camping gear. We had to pile 7 people into a five-person sedan for the hour-long ride. Kevin decided to come with us when he found out there was an extra guest bed. When we got back we stayed up watching the news to try and catch the story about the race and talked skating. I’ve never met anyone so passionate about skateboarding before. Kevin lives skating and thinks more thoroughly about the mechanics and logistics of riding down mountain roads than I probably even know. Eventually we went to bed, hoping that the snow wouldn’t soak the course and that racing would go smoothly.
We threw our gear in the car and got under way around eight or nine. It was a slow morning even after we got up to the top of the hill. I set up Calvin’s old board with my wheels and duct taped his old suit back together in the places it needed most. I had only seen the road in Youtube videos and was excited to really scope it out so when they asked for volunteers to sweep hay off the road I was immediately ready to ride down and really see what I was up against. The hill looked dreamy with a good mix of everything a race course needs: straight-aways, sweepers and the bottom section of right hairpin, left hairpin, right hairpin, left hairpin to the finish line. It took about an hour with Mark, a local guy and me sweeping the course. As we got finished the fabled Loco Express was spotted slowly making it’s way up the hill.
The Loco is an old bus that was rebuilt and repainted that was on the adventure of a lifetime. It started in Vancouver with seven people and made it’s way down the west coast to L.A. where it picked up a few more travelers. It then made it’s way to Ditch Slap in Albuquerque, New Mexico and from there up to Colorado for this race. After this weekend it was completing the loop back to British Columbia for three more races in the following week. I can’t imagine the adventure that they went through. Mine couldn’t possibly compare to theirs. There is little more that I want than having the ability to drop everything for a few weeks and go on an adventure, traveling place to place, seeing beautiful scenery and skating some of the most incredible roads and spots in the world. Doing all that with some of the best skaters and people in the world just puts it over the top. It would be hard to keep going, skating and partying hard everyday but the experience gained is something that I think out weighs any fault in the plan. It would be comparable to touring with some of the best jazz/improv musicians in the world and making new ground breaking music every day except doing it in only incredibly beautiful places.
We found a ride back to the top of the hill from one of the organizers and finally had a riders meeting after being on the hill for an hour or two. We only had the road until three and it was late morning. My first run of the day was mellow but felt great as I tried to get acquainted to this odd board set up. After two more runs on Calvin’s board I couldn’t control it well enough in the first hairpin and switched to one of Jason’s extra boards. Since I actually owned the same board that I borrowed it was easier to get a feel for it. They only problem after that was the fact that this hill ate wheels and the wheels I had brought for racing wear incredibly quickly. It was awesome doing 30mph standing slides to stop after the finish line on some buttery worn in wheels but was hard to keep speed in corners because of scrubbing out in all the hairpins. I put on fresh wheels before what was going to be the second to last run to see how huge a difference it would make and how to conserve wheels for racing. I took my last run with Calvin and had the most intense run of the day where I pushed out in front and in the big straight he gave me a huge bump. He passed me going into the first hairpin that determines the rest of the course and through a huge predrift nearly hitting the hay, while I did a small foot break and then predrifted. I passed him back immediately but he caught back up going into the final turn and we went in side by side forcing me to have to rail the inside line or take both of us out and he ended up with his hand basically under my board trying to hold his own line. I had no place to put a hand down and had to surf the corner and somehow we made it. It was one of those moments that when you make it out you just yell and laugh maniacally because you shouldn’t have made it.
We had to get off the road on time so the city granting the permits wouldn’t get angry and pull the plug on racing the following day. Everyone was quickly relocated to a picnic area around the corner from the top of the racecourse. The partying started there as we tried to figure out how to get to the racers campground. The beer and weed were gotten out as quick as we got into the parking lot and it was a continuation of the get together of old and new friends. Heats were being drawn at the campground so I was pretty set on getting there but Mark wasn’t going and Calvin was getting a ride from someone else so I needed to find a way to travel the hour from the race site to the camp site. I got in one of the big passenger vans that was rented as a shuttle with two guys from California who ride for Comet and Graham who runs Rayne Longboards.
We followed Justin Dubois, who I had met the year before; first at a race in New York then at the Maryhill Festival of Speed in Washington State. We stopped to get some beers and find somewhere to stop and grab food to cook at the campsite. For whatever reason we got three 30 packs of beer and an airplane size bottle of Jaeger and after picking up some sausages and buns (as well as pocketed condiments) we started the drinking and the drive to the campground. The campground was a little less than an hour away and right before the continental divide on top of a mountain.
Justin had Rizzo riding with him and almost every mountain pass we went through Rizzo got out and shredded down the mountain without ever seeing the hill and only in a helmet and gloves. He kept messing with the cars going in the other direction by carving into the other lane and back before they got up to him. It was really something else to watch someone so comfortable on a skateboard ripping down a mountain at 45 or 50 just jamming. On the last pass before the turn for the campground he happened to do this to an off duty cop who pulled us over and called for back up. There were three cars total. While waiting we hurried to hide the open beer and empty cans. The cops seemed incredibly agitated because when Justin tried to get out to tell us what was going on they yelled at him to get back in his truck and were threatening him. The whole time we were sitting in the van and making jokes because all the cops had mustaches and aviators, which made them look just like caricatures out of Super Troopers. It became less of a joke when we realized that our driver had been drinking and had his wallet stolen a few days earlier meaning no driver’s license on him. Neither of which ended up being a problem but we were definitely waiting for a long time for nothing to happen at the bottom of the hill that goes to the campsite.
The road up to the campground was super gnarly. It was crazy steep with really big Montreal style cracks running perpendicular across it with a hand full of tight turns. From there you turn onto a hilly dirt/gravel road to the actual camping area, which Rizzo kept ripping on a 36” pool deck with soft wheels. We got there before most people and started cooking our cheese-impregnated sausages over the fire. There was a slackline set up and someone’s mini dirt bike getting played on. It was pretty cold out and it was supposed to snow as we waited for the Loco Express to make it’s appearance. Once more people showed up we were going to pick heats in the most Pagan way, as Justin would have said. He had this carnival game type wheel with everyones names as well as different tasks to fill in the empty spots like shot gun a beer and do 40 pushups.
The sun went all the way down and the fire got bigger as more people showed up to the campsite. It was cool hanging out and drinking beers with everyone. Downhill skaters are the best people in the world. It’s such an inclusive group of people and everyone is always eager to share stories, beers or smokes. If the world was made of only downhill skaters there would be no war, although not much would probably get done but we’d all be happy. I had a lot of fun hanging out and talking with Krimes and James Kelly. The other good thing about this sport is that even the guys who are the idols of it are accessible and cool. There’s no bullshit in downhill skateboarding. It started snowing, we were in the Rockies after all, and the cold was pretty rough since I only had a hoodie with me, which made the decision to go back to Calvin’s house rather than stay at the campsite with none of my camping gear. We had to pile 7 people into a five-person sedan for the hour-long ride. Kevin decided to come with us when he found out there was an extra guest bed. When we got back we stayed up watching the news to try and catch the story about the race and talked skating. I’ve never met anyone so passionate about skateboarding before. Kevin lives skating and thinks more thoroughly about the mechanics and logistics of riding down mountain roads than I probably even know. Eventually we went to bed, hoping that the snow wouldn’t soak the course and that racing would go smoothly.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Buffalo Bill Downhill part 1
I hadn’t slept in weeks. Events just kept taking place that didn’t allow for it. First was a marine on leave before shipping out, and then the attempt of finishing all schoolwork before the drunken haze of what Winchester knows as Apple Blossom began. After that was finals week, culminating in an 8am sound reinforcement final and a 10am piano jury on that Friday, after which meant an immediate bail to the airport and off to Colorado. I remember those three or so weeks as being arduous but at the same time don’t remember much through the haze of the smoke and drink consumed so heavily during that time. That seems to be how the whole semester is in my memory although I don’t recall pumping chemicals in my body as rapidly as in those three weeks. Did I accomplish anything or progress my skills in the ways I was seeking or am at this school for?
This was my 5th skate related adventure of the year and the fourth of the semester. The routine is beginning to be all too familiar, although I guess that is why it’s called a routine. There is always some set point in time where everything else gets dropped and the adventure begins. It’s either a set time, which I feel I have to leave by to make it to my destination on time, or a relative time such as after a certain class it’s bail time. Living this way means you forget a lot of little things you wanted for each trip but had no time to think about. All you end up with is the skate gear you need to race (maybe some extra parts for riding later) and the clothes on your back, and potentially sleeping materials.
I woke up on my couch in my new house on Friday morning next to a nice redheaded beauty. There was potentially enough time to get food and study more but it didn’t happen. I normally hate to smoke cigarettes so early in the morning but this was a big exception with the amount of stress I was feeling. My brain had clocked out two weeks ago and I stopped caring about these last two finals because my important juries were out of the way and all that was on my mind was ripping down a legendary mountain road in Colorado with some of the fastest guys in the world. Both finals went well but were entirely more half assed than I ever like to be. I was done at 11 after waiting for a half hour beyond my scheduled 10 o’clock appointment for my piano jury. My flight left at six and I needed to eat, pack, shower, clean my car, say bye to my girlfriend and drive an hour back to the suburbs I am currently running from. I managed to do it all in enough time that I even cleaned my helmet off for the first time since buying it a year ago and still get back to the street of my up-bringing by two or two-thirty.
To no surprise at all there was a group of regulars out on the street. It’s strange to run into a group of people you told you probably weren’t going to see or communicate with for a long while. It was good feelings of reminiscence on the street of youth but still the same game. After parting ways I made my way to my house to eat and wait for my mom to drive me to the airport. I had forgotten to email my flight itinerary to both the people picking me up in Denver and my mom who was driving me to the airport and picking me up. I tried to send it before leaving but ended up messing it up and not pasting the link in the email to my mom. I ate a mass produced, over processed, frozen breakfast sandwich and shot the shit with my mom until almost four o’clock when we left for Dulles International.
I had thought my flight was through United Airlines and got in line for domestic flights. It was a long line and I was kind of worried that the security line would be just as long and that I could miss my flight. After a half hour or forty-five minutes of waiting in line I got to a machine to get my boarding pass only to be told my reservations were not in the system and that United didn’t even have a flight near the time mine was supposed to be. After a quick phone call to my girlfriend that seemed endless and painful at the time, I was informed that my flight was actually with US Airways. It was nearly five and I needed to get my boarding passes, get through security and get on my flight. Luckily there was a one-person wait for US Air’s check in desk and the line for security wasn’t bad. The only problem was that I was informed my second flight might have been over sold and seats might not be available but there was nothing I could do about that. I managed to get through it all and to my gate of departure by 5:30 only to find out my flight was being delayed. This gave me enough time to get a sandwich from subway for dinner but ate wearily worrying if I would make my connecting flight in Charlotte, North Carolina since I only had a forty-minute layover. We started boarding after six when departure was originally scheduled and didn’t take off until six-thirty.
Immediately after take off I leaned my head against the wall of the plane and passed out until I was awoken by the captain informing of the planes’ final descent. After we were allowed to turn on cell phones I checked the time to find that I had only fifteen minutes to find my other gate and board the plane if it was running on time. I’d been in the Charlotte airport before but it had been a couple years. My gates were on opposite sides of the terminal from each other and I booked it the entire way getting to my gate with only a few people in line to get on the plane and not knowing if I had a seat or not. When I got to the counter I was out of breath and sweaty, I held out my ticket with no seat assignment on it and inquired about whether or not I was getting on this plane. I was no where near prepared to be stuck in Charlotte trying to figure out how to either get to Denver or get back home. I wouldn’t even know where to begin in that situation. The guy taking tickets looked at my blank ticket and compared it to others on the desk and handed me my actual boarding pass with my name on it and a seat assignment.
The plane was almost entirely full when I got on and almost everyone was settled already. I had an aisle seat next to a young, tan woman in her late twenties with long brown hair and a flowing purple hippy dress of sorts and her half black son of maybe three years. At first I got bad vibes from the lady because of the angry, bitchy way she was trying to calm down her son. They both went to sleep for a while and I tried as well but was too awake after the nap on the first flight and running across the airport. As the stewardess’ came around with drinks, the girl ordered two shots of vodka and juice while I ordered a coke. She turned to me and said that she’d been sick and that her remedy of the day was some Dayquil, Theraflu, and two shots of vodka and that so far it had been working or at least not making anything worse. For some reason she slipped in that she had been smoking a lot of weed, about an eighth to herself. Her name was Cayenne, “like the pepper,” she told me, and she “used to be a dancer, well a stripper really.” The conversation only kept getting weirder as we traded stories of our travels, me for skateboarding and her for apparently no reason other than to travel and see the world. I suspect that she had some sort of sugar daddy who was either a pimp or very well off drug dealer.
The discussion somehow turned to psychedelics and we continued on talking in normal voices about crazy drugs that only a small percentage of the population has tried and that the majority thinks are the scourge of the earth. Planes are usually very quiet with little to no conversation and only the noise is the engines and the wind rushing by at six hundred miles an hour. It was odd talking so openly in front of all these businessmen and everyday, suburban, middle-class travelers. She told me a horror story of her worst shroom trip. Her and her boyfriend of the time had eaten mushrooms and after her little boy was asleep, she thought she could tell the babysitter to leave. “He usually just slept quietly all night and was never much of a problem, but for some reason that night he woke up screaming and crying. I went in to check on him and couldn’t even look at him because he was an alien baby and I couldn’t handle it,” is what she told me. Before she even said the words “I felt like the worst parent in the world,” I was horrified at hearing such a thing. Her little boy was in the seat next to her asleep during this whole conversation. As he woke up our conversation dwindled and her little boy started confusing me for a friend of hers. We stopped talking after a while and I went to sleep for the last leg of the three-hour flight.
My plane landed on time and I was feeling good that I had made it this far. After exiting the plane and making my way to the train system in Denver’s airport, Cayenne’s little boy kept thinking I was her friend and she had to keep telling him I was not who he thought I was. After boarding the train to the main terminal I lost track of them and probably will never see them again. It’s strange to think that after such an intense encounter of a few hours that this person will never be in my life again. The information shared between us was no different than that of a new acquaintance at a party or gathering of like-minded people but because it happened on this journey and was not asked for, was what sets this moment apart. I’ve met and befriended many similar people but this simple and quick friendship and departure doesn’t happen often. I always get the feeling that I need to talk to certain people that I see on these types of journeys because of their appearance, demeanor or presence, but hardly follow through because of my own shyness and lack of confidence due to the situation that society sets forth at this point in time. There was a man that I kept seeing and being near in the airport before my first flight who ended up with the seat next to mine on the plane and although I felt a large urge to gain information from him, the only words passed between us where about the time right after I woke up and before we landed in Charlotte. I don’t know if any new knowledge or world insights were gained from my dealings with Cayenne but I’m glad it happened and lack any reason other than it’s a good story.
After searching upon a constantly changing screen of arrival flights I found my baggage claim carrousel on the east side of Denver International. This was the side I was told my ride was going to be on when I arrived. It was ten at night in Denver and midnight on the east coast and I was running on fumes. When I approached the carrousel my ride found me with his daughter in tow. My chauffer was named Mark and I had met him and his son the summer before at an event in upstate New York. They were generous enough to pick me up after a single meeting. As we waited for the bags to start appearing out of the black hole of the airport, we rambled about what had been going on in Colorado leading up to the event I was arriving for. It was supposedly an experience to be directing traffic while they lined the road with straw bails compared to their normal “barge the hill for a run or two and get out before the cops show up” everyday session. After waiting and talking for a long while and as the bags poured onto the conveyer belt my camouflage duffle over stuffed with my race board, leathers and camping equipment was no where to be seen. Mark told me his gear usually showed up on the oversized luggage carrousel. After watching that turn with only a few bags, none of which were mine, we decided it had definitely been lost between my connecting flights.
I was too tired and content that I myself had made it to Colorado to put up any sort of fight with the airline and there was nothing I could do to get my bag there any faster anyway. I filled out the necessary papers and left Mark’s address as the location to deliver my bags. It was supposedly going to be delivered sometime the following afternoon. Now I needed to find a board and leathers to be able to ride for the first day. I tried calling my friend Jason, to see if he brought extra boards to the race but his phone was dead. Luckily Calvin, Mark’s son, had just bought new leathers and had an old board. His suit was too big and the board was so far from what I am used to but at least I had something. When I got to their house, where I would spend the night, all the local skaters who had been hanging out had headed home to sleep and it was just the residing family. Calvin gave me his board and leathers and I started to set up the board before bed but didn’t have the right size bearings so I gave up and went to sleep. I knew it could be dealt with in the morning and that my mental acuity was more important.
This was my 5th skate related adventure of the year and the fourth of the semester. The routine is beginning to be all too familiar, although I guess that is why it’s called a routine. There is always some set point in time where everything else gets dropped and the adventure begins. It’s either a set time, which I feel I have to leave by to make it to my destination on time, or a relative time such as after a certain class it’s bail time. Living this way means you forget a lot of little things you wanted for each trip but had no time to think about. All you end up with is the skate gear you need to race (maybe some extra parts for riding later) and the clothes on your back, and potentially sleeping materials.
I woke up on my couch in my new house on Friday morning next to a nice redheaded beauty. There was potentially enough time to get food and study more but it didn’t happen. I normally hate to smoke cigarettes so early in the morning but this was a big exception with the amount of stress I was feeling. My brain had clocked out two weeks ago and I stopped caring about these last two finals because my important juries were out of the way and all that was on my mind was ripping down a legendary mountain road in Colorado with some of the fastest guys in the world. Both finals went well but were entirely more half assed than I ever like to be. I was done at 11 after waiting for a half hour beyond my scheduled 10 o’clock appointment for my piano jury. My flight left at six and I needed to eat, pack, shower, clean my car, say bye to my girlfriend and drive an hour back to the suburbs I am currently running from. I managed to do it all in enough time that I even cleaned my helmet off for the first time since buying it a year ago and still get back to the street of my up-bringing by two or two-thirty.
To no surprise at all there was a group of regulars out on the street. It’s strange to run into a group of people you told you probably weren’t going to see or communicate with for a long while. It was good feelings of reminiscence on the street of youth but still the same game. After parting ways I made my way to my house to eat and wait for my mom to drive me to the airport. I had forgotten to email my flight itinerary to both the people picking me up in Denver and my mom who was driving me to the airport and picking me up. I tried to send it before leaving but ended up messing it up and not pasting the link in the email to my mom. I ate a mass produced, over processed, frozen breakfast sandwich and shot the shit with my mom until almost four o’clock when we left for Dulles International.
I had thought my flight was through United Airlines and got in line for domestic flights. It was a long line and I was kind of worried that the security line would be just as long and that I could miss my flight. After a half hour or forty-five minutes of waiting in line I got to a machine to get my boarding pass only to be told my reservations were not in the system and that United didn’t even have a flight near the time mine was supposed to be. After a quick phone call to my girlfriend that seemed endless and painful at the time, I was informed that my flight was actually with US Airways. It was nearly five and I needed to get my boarding passes, get through security and get on my flight. Luckily there was a one-person wait for US Air’s check in desk and the line for security wasn’t bad. The only problem was that I was informed my second flight might have been over sold and seats might not be available but there was nothing I could do about that. I managed to get through it all and to my gate of departure by 5:30 only to find out my flight was being delayed. This gave me enough time to get a sandwich from subway for dinner but ate wearily worrying if I would make my connecting flight in Charlotte, North Carolina since I only had a forty-minute layover. We started boarding after six when departure was originally scheduled and didn’t take off until six-thirty.
Immediately after take off I leaned my head against the wall of the plane and passed out until I was awoken by the captain informing of the planes’ final descent. After we were allowed to turn on cell phones I checked the time to find that I had only fifteen minutes to find my other gate and board the plane if it was running on time. I’d been in the Charlotte airport before but it had been a couple years. My gates were on opposite sides of the terminal from each other and I booked it the entire way getting to my gate with only a few people in line to get on the plane and not knowing if I had a seat or not. When I got to the counter I was out of breath and sweaty, I held out my ticket with no seat assignment on it and inquired about whether or not I was getting on this plane. I was no where near prepared to be stuck in Charlotte trying to figure out how to either get to Denver or get back home. I wouldn’t even know where to begin in that situation. The guy taking tickets looked at my blank ticket and compared it to others on the desk and handed me my actual boarding pass with my name on it and a seat assignment.
The plane was almost entirely full when I got on and almost everyone was settled already. I had an aisle seat next to a young, tan woman in her late twenties with long brown hair and a flowing purple hippy dress of sorts and her half black son of maybe three years. At first I got bad vibes from the lady because of the angry, bitchy way she was trying to calm down her son. They both went to sleep for a while and I tried as well but was too awake after the nap on the first flight and running across the airport. As the stewardess’ came around with drinks, the girl ordered two shots of vodka and juice while I ordered a coke. She turned to me and said that she’d been sick and that her remedy of the day was some Dayquil, Theraflu, and two shots of vodka and that so far it had been working or at least not making anything worse. For some reason she slipped in that she had been smoking a lot of weed, about an eighth to herself. Her name was Cayenne, “like the pepper,” she told me, and she “used to be a dancer, well a stripper really.” The conversation only kept getting weirder as we traded stories of our travels, me for skateboarding and her for apparently no reason other than to travel and see the world. I suspect that she had some sort of sugar daddy who was either a pimp or very well off drug dealer.
The discussion somehow turned to psychedelics and we continued on talking in normal voices about crazy drugs that only a small percentage of the population has tried and that the majority thinks are the scourge of the earth. Planes are usually very quiet with little to no conversation and only the noise is the engines and the wind rushing by at six hundred miles an hour. It was odd talking so openly in front of all these businessmen and everyday, suburban, middle-class travelers. She told me a horror story of her worst shroom trip. Her and her boyfriend of the time had eaten mushrooms and after her little boy was asleep, she thought she could tell the babysitter to leave. “He usually just slept quietly all night and was never much of a problem, but for some reason that night he woke up screaming and crying. I went in to check on him and couldn’t even look at him because he was an alien baby and I couldn’t handle it,” is what she told me. Before she even said the words “I felt like the worst parent in the world,” I was horrified at hearing such a thing. Her little boy was in the seat next to her asleep during this whole conversation. As he woke up our conversation dwindled and her little boy started confusing me for a friend of hers. We stopped talking after a while and I went to sleep for the last leg of the three-hour flight.
My plane landed on time and I was feeling good that I had made it this far. After exiting the plane and making my way to the train system in Denver’s airport, Cayenne’s little boy kept thinking I was her friend and she had to keep telling him I was not who he thought I was. After boarding the train to the main terminal I lost track of them and probably will never see them again. It’s strange to think that after such an intense encounter of a few hours that this person will never be in my life again. The information shared between us was no different than that of a new acquaintance at a party or gathering of like-minded people but because it happened on this journey and was not asked for, was what sets this moment apart. I’ve met and befriended many similar people but this simple and quick friendship and departure doesn’t happen often. I always get the feeling that I need to talk to certain people that I see on these types of journeys because of their appearance, demeanor or presence, but hardly follow through because of my own shyness and lack of confidence due to the situation that society sets forth at this point in time. There was a man that I kept seeing and being near in the airport before my first flight who ended up with the seat next to mine on the plane and although I felt a large urge to gain information from him, the only words passed between us where about the time right after I woke up and before we landed in Charlotte. I don’t know if any new knowledge or world insights were gained from my dealings with Cayenne but I’m glad it happened and lack any reason other than it’s a good story.
After searching upon a constantly changing screen of arrival flights I found my baggage claim carrousel on the east side of Denver International. This was the side I was told my ride was going to be on when I arrived. It was ten at night in Denver and midnight on the east coast and I was running on fumes. When I approached the carrousel my ride found me with his daughter in tow. My chauffer was named Mark and I had met him and his son the summer before at an event in upstate New York. They were generous enough to pick me up after a single meeting. As we waited for the bags to start appearing out of the black hole of the airport, we rambled about what had been going on in Colorado leading up to the event I was arriving for. It was supposedly an experience to be directing traffic while they lined the road with straw bails compared to their normal “barge the hill for a run or two and get out before the cops show up” everyday session. After waiting and talking for a long while and as the bags poured onto the conveyer belt my camouflage duffle over stuffed with my race board, leathers and camping equipment was no where to be seen. Mark told me his gear usually showed up on the oversized luggage carrousel. After watching that turn with only a few bags, none of which were mine, we decided it had definitely been lost between my connecting flights.
I was too tired and content that I myself had made it to Colorado to put up any sort of fight with the airline and there was nothing I could do to get my bag there any faster anyway. I filled out the necessary papers and left Mark’s address as the location to deliver my bags. It was supposedly going to be delivered sometime the following afternoon. Now I needed to find a board and leathers to be able to ride for the first day. I tried calling my friend Jason, to see if he brought extra boards to the race but his phone was dead. Luckily Calvin, Mark’s son, had just bought new leathers and had an old board. His suit was too big and the board was so far from what I am used to but at least I had something. When I got to their house, where I would spend the night, all the local skaters who had been hanging out had headed home to sleep and it was just the residing family. Calvin gave me his board and leathers and I started to set up the board before bed but didn’t have the right size bearings so I gave up and went to sleep. I knew it could be dealt with in the morning and that my mental acuity was more important.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
2009 recap part 2
Then came three events three weekends in a row: Boarding for Boobies, Rumple Flatspot and Clearfield, PA. Boarding for Boobies was a cool fundraiser in Maryland run by a cool guy who was super stoked on downhill but the course was extremely lacking. It was chip seal pavement and maybe 35mph at fastest with only two sweepers. It came down to me vs. Fifi again and although he beat me down the hill every other heat I managed to pull off some solid tactics and lines to hold out for the win. This event had the most swag of any as well as a cash prize, which was awesome making it possible to travel the next two weekends. After that event was an after party were we drank and smoked a bit then sessioned the steep driveway to the house. No one was satisfied with the skating of the day so we drove out to Harrisburg to Deans house to freeride the following day, which was so much fun.
Rumple Flatspot, outside of Marion, N.C., was a real fun event even though the original super gnarly course was busted. It always takes just one person to ruin it for everyone and that’s exactly what happened here. This was also the first and only time I’ve been chased by the cops while downhilling. We were riding down the two miles of hill from the race course to the meeting location and me and Chris Buono just kept going for it after one cop passed us, narrowly avoiding being run over by a pack of Harleys in a right hand hairpin and right before our destination another cop car started playing chicken with us forcing us to stop. The backup hill was super lame and I got 5th to a bunch of Floridians and Kyle. Afterwards though we used the uhaul Kyle rented for the event to shuttle us on some of the best freeride spots on the beast coast. There’s nothing like 15 minutes of straight downhill with your friends just pushing each other around and constantly mixing it up. You forget that you’ve done anything but skate down a hill all day, it’s insane.
Clearfield was another race that got busted and moved to a back up hill but this time was because of Helen again. The original race hill would have been super gnarly to ride but after my first practice run cop cars rolled up to the bottom and top of the hill. The back up hill was a fun short bomb but nothing intense. Since there was a push limit I just beasted everyone off the push and was out front in every heat to win. I went back up to Ithaca with Keith, followed by Jeremy Ross and Nick Chamberlain, skated some fun roads around town and explored the Comet factory. It was fun freeriding and pushing the limits of what could be done on a longboard.
The next trip I went on was to Montreal to skate with A.J. and race in the St. Sauveur race. I was so excited because I’d never been out of the states before and we were going to skate some of the most legendary spots in longboarding. Keith and I got stopped at the border going into Canada for some reason and they searched the car and had us there for an hour. We got into Montreal at 3:30am and met A.J. on the street. He told us we had to go skate right then because it was going to rain all day and this would be our only chance to skate Westmount. We skated those gnarly runs like Devil’s Toy and the cemetery until the sun was up, then we got breakfast and passed out around eight or nine. The next day we skated the alpine luge track at Tremblant but it started storming and we didn’t get much skating in. On the morning before the race we skated a really gnarly road near Matt K’s house as a warm up before the race. The race was cool with a super steep straight into a 100 degree right then 90 left to a flat finish. Keith got 8th and I got 4th. I didn’t compete in the slide competition because I broke two fsm’s skating a pool in Ithaca before the trip but launching off a two foot ramp on my race board and getting another foot of air was sick.
In August there was the Tussey Mountain race, just outside State College, PA, then a race I held in Winchester the same night followed by a five day adventure to North Carolina and back. The PA race was the best hill of the year; it was fast, had some gnarly sweepers and there were three guys from Rado there: Rob Mckendry III, Calvin Staub and Mark, Calvin’s dad. The top 8 for this race was nothing but fast motherfuckers and it could of gone to anyone. The final ended up being Rob, Calvin, Pat Schep and myself and it was a fast epic run. I had it off the line but we were nearly four wide through the first left, then Calvin passed me into the chicane but I was right in his draft and started passing him down the straight. He started flicking me off and I fired right back and barely made the pass before the finish followed by Rob and Pat. We all headed south to Winchester and had a night race at my place. It was the most lax race ever and in the final heat I bump drafted both Pat and Sean because I was just having fun. I early grabbed over something in all of my heats and everyone just had fun skating with each other. The next day those left at my house went out freeriding before heading home and Keith, Chris Sheehy, Michael Rubin and myself began our journey south. It was rainy in NC and we got one two runs in before the rain then found a gnarly turny road on our way back to town as things were drying and skated until getting asked to leave by police. We drove all the way up the Blue Ridge Parkway to get back to Virginia, stopping to skate roads off the parkway and experience the beauty of the Appalachians.
Then it was time for school to start and it was difficult leaving a life of traveling and skating constantly. There were a few trips to Ithaca in between events over the summer to skate and film that I have failed to mention thus far and those were some of the most fun times I’ve had. I don’t remember going to any events in September but I played a lot of drums and got my head back into school.
October was time for Pennsyltucky II. This time there were a lot more people, many of which were really good at skating like Brian Peck. I got in late again because of a concert and caught the end of the night slide jam held by Ray. I spent the night talking with AD Smooth, Radiation Ray and Rob Mckendry who were reminiscing about their skate roots. The race was gnarly and anyone in the top 8 could have won it. I nearly died in the semi finals when I hit every patch of rough pavement at the fastest point of the hill nearly wobbling me out allowing Bpizz to go on to the finals and win the thing. The consolation round was basically a repeat of the first Pennsyltucky with Fifi passing me in the straight before the finish. After the race we stayed and skated the hill for a little before going to Dean’s for the after party/ barbeque.
The last event I went to was the failed Vermont outlaw. I drove through the night to Hoboken where we slept for two hours before making our way to Brattleboro, VT. It had been snowing and raining the day before so the race hill was soaked. We went to the backup hill but got kicked out of there after two or three runs. After that people gave up on skating for some reason, except for the kids from Montreal and our car consisting of Pat, Keith and myself. We went back to the race hill and skated it in the wet anyway. The hill is 60mph in the dry with a couple hard sweepers so we were going around 50 in the wet and going edge to edge on the road to keep it together. It was a lot of fun but disappointing that so many people pussied out on skating and walked away with swag.
Over the thanksgiving holiday weekend Pat, Keith, Michael Rubin and myself went out to skate some of my favorite Virginia runs and film the video Mac ‘N Cheese On Your Hot Dog. It was a lot of fun getting to show my friends these runs that hardly anyone has skated before. To read the full story from that weekend check out the blog on the Comet skateboards site: http://www.cometskateboards.com/blog/
That brings us almost to the present. Since then I’ve gotten back into street and park skating, went to Anton’s slide jam in South Jersey and had a few sessions at the underground skate warehouse in DC known as Fight Club. I can only hope that 2010 brings as much excitement and gnar as 2009 did.
Rumple Flatspot, outside of Marion, N.C., was a real fun event even though the original super gnarly course was busted. It always takes just one person to ruin it for everyone and that’s exactly what happened here. This was also the first and only time I’ve been chased by the cops while downhilling. We were riding down the two miles of hill from the race course to the meeting location and me and Chris Buono just kept going for it after one cop passed us, narrowly avoiding being run over by a pack of Harleys in a right hand hairpin and right before our destination another cop car started playing chicken with us forcing us to stop. The backup hill was super lame and I got 5th to a bunch of Floridians and Kyle. Afterwards though we used the uhaul Kyle rented for the event to shuttle us on some of the best freeride spots on the beast coast. There’s nothing like 15 minutes of straight downhill with your friends just pushing each other around and constantly mixing it up. You forget that you’ve done anything but skate down a hill all day, it’s insane.
Clearfield was another race that got busted and moved to a back up hill but this time was because of Helen again. The original race hill would have been super gnarly to ride but after my first practice run cop cars rolled up to the bottom and top of the hill. The back up hill was a fun short bomb but nothing intense. Since there was a push limit I just beasted everyone off the push and was out front in every heat to win. I went back up to Ithaca with Keith, followed by Jeremy Ross and Nick Chamberlain, skated some fun roads around town and explored the Comet factory. It was fun freeriding and pushing the limits of what could be done on a longboard.
The next trip I went on was to Montreal to skate with A.J. and race in the St. Sauveur race. I was so excited because I’d never been out of the states before and we were going to skate some of the most legendary spots in longboarding. Keith and I got stopped at the border going into Canada for some reason and they searched the car and had us there for an hour. We got into Montreal at 3:30am and met A.J. on the street. He told us we had to go skate right then because it was going to rain all day and this would be our only chance to skate Westmount. We skated those gnarly runs like Devil’s Toy and the cemetery until the sun was up, then we got breakfast and passed out around eight or nine. The next day we skated the alpine luge track at Tremblant but it started storming and we didn’t get much skating in. On the morning before the race we skated a really gnarly road near Matt K’s house as a warm up before the race. The race was cool with a super steep straight into a 100 degree right then 90 left to a flat finish. Keith got 8th and I got 4th. I didn’t compete in the slide competition because I broke two fsm’s skating a pool in Ithaca before the trip but launching off a two foot ramp on my race board and getting another foot of air was sick.
In August there was the Tussey Mountain race, just outside State College, PA, then a race I held in Winchester the same night followed by a five day adventure to North Carolina and back. The PA race was the best hill of the year; it was fast, had some gnarly sweepers and there were three guys from Rado there: Rob Mckendry III, Calvin Staub and Mark, Calvin’s dad. The top 8 for this race was nothing but fast motherfuckers and it could of gone to anyone. The final ended up being Rob, Calvin, Pat Schep and myself and it was a fast epic run. I had it off the line but we were nearly four wide through the first left, then Calvin passed me into the chicane but I was right in his draft and started passing him down the straight. He started flicking me off and I fired right back and barely made the pass before the finish followed by Rob and Pat. We all headed south to Winchester and had a night race at my place. It was the most lax race ever and in the final heat I bump drafted both Pat and Sean because I was just having fun. I early grabbed over something in all of my heats and everyone just had fun skating with each other. The next day those left at my house went out freeriding before heading home and Keith, Chris Sheehy, Michael Rubin and myself began our journey south. It was rainy in NC and we got one two runs in before the rain then found a gnarly turny road on our way back to town as things were drying and skated until getting asked to leave by police. We drove all the way up the Blue Ridge Parkway to get back to Virginia, stopping to skate roads off the parkway and experience the beauty of the Appalachians.
Then it was time for school to start and it was difficult leaving a life of traveling and skating constantly. There were a few trips to Ithaca in between events over the summer to skate and film that I have failed to mention thus far and those were some of the most fun times I’ve had. I don’t remember going to any events in September but I played a lot of drums and got my head back into school.
October was time for Pennsyltucky II. This time there were a lot more people, many of which were really good at skating like Brian Peck. I got in late again because of a concert and caught the end of the night slide jam held by Ray. I spent the night talking with AD Smooth, Radiation Ray and Rob Mckendry who were reminiscing about their skate roots. The race was gnarly and anyone in the top 8 could have won it. I nearly died in the semi finals when I hit every patch of rough pavement at the fastest point of the hill nearly wobbling me out allowing Bpizz to go on to the finals and win the thing. The consolation round was basically a repeat of the first Pennsyltucky with Fifi passing me in the straight before the finish. After the race we stayed and skated the hill for a little before going to Dean’s for the after party/ barbeque.
The last event I went to was the failed Vermont outlaw. I drove through the night to Hoboken where we slept for two hours before making our way to Brattleboro, VT. It had been snowing and raining the day before so the race hill was soaked. We went to the backup hill but got kicked out of there after two or three runs. After that people gave up on skating for some reason, except for the kids from Montreal and our car consisting of Pat, Keith and myself. We went back to the race hill and skated it in the wet anyway. The hill is 60mph in the dry with a couple hard sweepers so we were going around 50 in the wet and going edge to edge on the road to keep it together. It was a lot of fun but disappointing that so many people pussied out on skating and walked away with swag.
Over the thanksgiving holiday weekend Pat, Keith, Michael Rubin and myself went out to skate some of my favorite Virginia runs and film the video Mac ‘N Cheese On Your Hot Dog. It was a lot of fun getting to show my friends these runs that hardly anyone has skated before. To read the full story from that weekend check out the blog on the Comet skateboards site: http://www.cometskateboards.com/blog/
That brings us almost to the present. Since then I’ve gotten back into street and park skating, went to Anton’s slide jam in South Jersey and had a few sessions at the underground skate warehouse in DC known as Fight Club. I can only hope that 2010 brings as much excitement and gnar as 2009 did.
2009 recap part 1
Since it’s so early in the year and there’s only been a slide jam I’m going to try and recap last year in a concise way and maybe throw in some full length tails from the most memorable trips. So many events happened last year it’s hard to remember them all. There was at least one race a month sometimes more for the entire year except December. As well as the local east coast events I traveled to Golden, Colorado for the Buffalo Bill Downhill, which was the only major event I got to since there were no large, international events in the east this year. I also had the pleasure of traveling to Montreal and racing in one of Fast Freddy’s races and skating some of the legendary terrain up north. It was a very ragtag and seat of your pants year of traveling where I learned the true meaning of “dollar menu” and how to spend as little money as possible to pay for gas.
It started with Sultans of Speed II in West Conshohocken, PA in January. I think the race was on the third but I went up a day early to skate in Reading with people such as Chris Oh No, AJ Powell, Mason Holden, current women’s downhill skateboarding champ Dasha Kornienko and Ramon Konigshausen from Switzerland. It was a snowy but fun day as we got kicked out of multiple parking garages and skated some fun hairpin filled roads in the snow. The next day was the race and it came down to the final of Ramon, Alex Newton, Fifi and myself. I was the only one not wearing leathers and ended up in third after Ramon and Alex had a better jump off the start. After the race we went across to Conshohoken to skate a few hairpins and a garage only to get into some misfortune with a very angry woman, named Helen Ignas, who called the police and would try and cause future damage to our skate scene.
In February was a President’s Day race in Rock Creek Park, in the heart of Washington DC. The guys who got me into downhilling years before were the ones hosting the event. The day before the race Pat Schep and Keith Rebhorn, along with their girlfriends of the time came and stayed at my dorm so we could go south, meet up with North Carolina skater Kyle Northrop and skate a legendary VA road called Mountain Lake. The road was covered in gravel but we had a hell of a fun time anyway and got to watch Keith’s fat ass kill his first set of wheels on an FSM prototype. The race was fun but kind of bunk with a round robin style mixed with elimination that was rather confusing. We had a lot of fun taking six or seven man runs down a closed road and really getting to mix it up. The final was Kyle and King Barua from the very top, which is an extra block in length, through an intersection with 16th street where you have to time the light and make it through a gate that is just wide enough for one person comfortably.
March brought the Major Stokem race, which I again traveled a day ahead of time to skate gnar in New York with Pat and Keith. I first traveled south to play drums at a basketball game then ten hours north to Hoboken to drop in on the biggest party of the year at Pat and Keith’s. We slept a few hours then skated some gnarly hairpins and a cinder coated service road as well as a little highway bomb. The original race hill got busted ahead of time by the evil Helen from Conshohoken who started patrolling the online forums and alerted the police in Jersey. We had an interesting run in with four cop cars when we tried to check out the race hill anyway the night before the event. The race was cool though since it was snowing while we raced down the hill right to the Hudson to get a big eye full of Manhatten. The race was alright but I just kicked out front every heat and stayed there. The final heat was closest though with Keith right on my ass into the left 90 at the bottom but he slid out and had a really gnarly bail. There was a slide jam after the race and that was super fun too. To get home I had to drive through a snow storm and drop off CJ Hicks in Maryland to find 6” of snow there but when I got over the Blue Ridge there was nothing in the Valley and had to go to class the next day. It was rough.
April had the first truly gnar race of the year for the east coast, the Pennsyltucky Derby. The race was hosted by some guys I met in passing at the Sultans of Speed race and I was really skeptical going into it but really excited because none of them had really gone all out on their own hill before. I got in the night before the race because I had a concert at school so I drove through the night to get there and find the man, Adam Dabonka himself, chilling with Rayzor Ray on the back patio. The first thing I hear is there’s beer in the fridge so I hung out a chilled for a few hours waiting on Keith to get out of the hospital because he ran into a Van, broke his pelvis and got a concussion earlier in the day. The race was so good. The hill is a gnarly 55+mph drag race after a left 90 you have to rail. The final was just a two man heat between me and Fifi. I beat him off the line but he passed me right before the finish to take the win. Afterwards Ray took out a hundred dollar bill and waved it around saying it went to whoever could post the fastest speed on the GPS. I set the first speed and then Fifi beat it by one mile per hour so I had to go back up and try and beat it. Pat was going to bump draft me but couldn’t get close enough but I still managed to put out the highest recorded speed. Pat definitely went faster than me that run because of how much he gained on me in my draft but I had the gps. I gave the money back to Ray to cover gas for the van he rented and then we had a cook out at Deans. It was exactly the kind of vibe that makes these events so awesome.
In May I traveled to Colorado for Justin Dubois’ Buffalo Bill Downhill on the legendary Lookout Mountain. I finished my last final on Friday before the event and flew out that evening and met a very nice stripper on the plane who had her son with her sitting next to me. The conversations with her were definitely a little sketchier than you should talk about in a confined public area like a plane but it was damn funny. My first flight was delayed and I had to run across the Charlotte airport to make my connecting flight and because of this my bag was no where to be found in Denver. I borrowed leathers and a board from Calvin Staub, who I was staying with. The Staub’s were the best hosts ever. I woke up to coffee and bagels while Mrs. Staub was putting together lunches for all the racers and course workers (the brownies were awesome!). The first day was practice and it was a ton of fun skating with all these people from across the continent. I was having a hard time riding the boards I was borrowing but it was so much fun regardless. My bags arrived that night at the Staubs so I had my gear for race day but it made little difference since the road was soaked and covered in fog. I was eliminated in my first heat after highsiding and doing a somersault on the last hairpin before the finish. (So many things happened on this trip that it’s unfair to write so little about this event but there is still so much more of the year to get through so I think I’ll post the full story at a later time)
It started with Sultans of Speed II in West Conshohocken, PA in January. I think the race was on the third but I went up a day early to skate in Reading with people such as Chris Oh No, AJ Powell, Mason Holden, current women’s downhill skateboarding champ Dasha Kornienko and Ramon Konigshausen from Switzerland. It was a snowy but fun day as we got kicked out of multiple parking garages and skated some fun hairpin filled roads in the snow. The next day was the race and it came down to the final of Ramon, Alex Newton, Fifi and myself. I was the only one not wearing leathers and ended up in third after Ramon and Alex had a better jump off the start. After the race we went across to Conshohoken to skate a few hairpins and a garage only to get into some misfortune with a very angry woman, named Helen Ignas, who called the police and would try and cause future damage to our skate scene.
In February was a President’s Day race in Rock Creek Park, in the heart of Washington DC. The guys who got me into downhilling years before were the ones hosting the event. The day before the race Pat Schep and Keith Rebhorn, along with their girlfriends of the time came and stayed at my dorm so we could go south, meet up with North Carolina skater Kyle Northrop and skate a legendary VA road called Mountain Lake. The road was covered in gravel but we had a hell of a fun time anyway and got to watch Keith’s fat ass kill his first set of wheels on an FSM prototype. The race was fun but kind of bunk with a round robin style mixed with elimination that was rather confusing. We had a lot of fun taking six or seven man runs down a closed road and really getting to mix it up. The final was Kyle and King Barua from the very top, which is an extra block in length, through an intersection with 16th street where you have to time the light and make it through a gate that is just wide enough for one person comfortably.
March brought the Major Stokem race, which I again traveled a day ahead of time to skate gnar in New York with Pat and Keith. I first traveled south to play drums at a basketball game then ten hours north to Hoboken to drop in on the biggest party of the year at Pat and Keith’s. We slept a few hours then skated some gnarly hairpins and a cinder coated service road as well as a little highway bomb. The original race hill got busted ahead of time by the evil Helen from Conshohoken who started patrolling the online forums and alerted the police in Jersey. We had an interesting run in with four cop cars when we tried to check out the race hill anyway the night before the event. The race was cool though since it was snowing while we raced down the hill right to the Hudson to get a big eye full of Manhatten. The race was alright but I just kicked out front every heat and stayed there. The final heat was closest though with Keith right on my ass into the left 90 at the bottom but he slid out and had a really gnarly bail. There was a slide jam after the race and that was super fun too. To get home I had to drive through a snow storm and drop off CJ Hicks in Maryland to find 6” of snow there but when I got over the Blue Ridge there was nothing in the Valley and had to go to class the next day. It was rough.
April had the first truly gnar race of the year for the east coast, the Pennsyltucky Derby. The race was hosted by some guys I met in passing at the Sultans of Speed race and I was really skeptical going into it but really excited because none of them had really gone all out on their own hill before. I got in the night before the race because I had a concert at school so I drove through the night to get there and find the man, Adam Dabonka himself, chilling with Rayzor Ray on the back patio. The first thing I hear is there’s beer in the fridge so I hung out a chilled for a few hours waiting on Keith to get out of the hospital because he ran into a Van, broke his pelvis and got a concussion earlier in the day. The race was so good. The hill is a gnarly 55+mph drag race after a left 90 you have to rail. The final was just a two man heat between me and Fifi. I beat him off the line but he passed me right before the finish to take the win. Afterwards Ray took out a hundred dollar bill and waved it around saying it went to whoever could post the fastest speed on the GPS. I set the first speed and then Fifi beat it by one mile per hour so I had to go back up and try and beat it. Pat was going to bump draft me but couldn’t get close enough but I still managed to put out the highest recorded speed. Pat definitely went faster than me that run because of how much he gained on me in my draft but I had the gps. I gave the money back to Ray to cover gas for the van he rented and then we had a cook out at Deans. It was exactly the kind of vibe that makes these events so awesome.
In May I traveled to Colorado for Justin Dubois’ Buffalo Bill Downhill on the legendary Lookout Mountain. I finished my last final on Friday before the event and flew out that evening and met a very nice stripper on the plane who had her son with her sitting next to me. The conversations with her were definitely a little sketchier than you should talk about in a confined public area like a plane but it was damn funny. My first flight was delayed and I had to run across the Charlotte airport to make my connecting flight and because of this my bag was no where to be found in Denver. I borrowed leathers and a board from Calvin Staub, who I was staying with. The Staub’s were the best hosts ever. I woke up to coffee and bagels while Mrs. Staub was putting together lunches for all the racers and course workers (the brownies were awesome!). The first day was practice and it was a ton of fun skating with all these people from across the continent. I was having a hard time riding the boards I was borrowing but it was so much fun regardless. My bags arrived that night at the Staubs so I had my gear for race day but it made little difference since the road was soaked and covered in fog. I was eliminated in my first heat after highsiding and doing a somersault on the last hairpin before the finish. (So many things happened on this trip that it’s unfair to write so little about this event but there is still so much more of the year to get through so I think I’ll post the full story at a later time)
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
A New Year
2010 marks the beginning of a new decade and the end of the first ten years of skateboarding in my life. As time moved on skating became more than just a way to have fun while passing days. It’s become my passion, art and love. I spend every day in between skate trips thinking about the next one and my musicianship and college life has suffered for it.
Last year was the biggest year for my skate career. I traveled more than ever, constantly on a quest to have more fun and ride gnarlier terrain. The east coast downhill scene exploded with someone hosting a race at least once a month and I went to all of them I could and then some. On top of that I won or was on the podium of nearly all of them. There’s no fame, money or swarms of kids asking for autographs; no t.v. cameras, no magazines, nothing. In fact most of the events were illegal. It was all about skating other things along the way, the experience, the camaraderie and the feeling you get railing a corner only to come into the next drifting 40 feet ahead of time to be able to make it hoping there’s no car in your lane. It’s about finishing the day, sharing a few beers with some people who are now your closest friends yet only a few months before you’d never met and probably never would if it weren’t for this rogue activity. It’s almost like something out of the Kerouac book On The Road and is the true essence of what Stacy Peralta was trying to say with the classic The Search for Animal Chin.
Sharing my experiences of this lifestyle is the purpose of starting this blog. It’s going to be my attempt to recount my adventures from here out in gruesome detail and show the meaning behind the journey downhill skateboarding takes me on.
Last year was the biggest year for my skate career. I traveled more than ever, constantly on a quest to have more fun and ride gnarlier terrain. The east coast downhill scene exploded with someone hosting a race at least once a month and I went to all of them I could and then some. On top of that I won or was on the podium of nearly all of them. There’s no fame, money or swarms of kids asking for autographs; no t.v. cameras, no magazines, nothing. In fact most of the events were illegal. It was all about skating other things along the way, the experience, the camaraderie and the feeling you get railing a corner only to come into the next drifting 40 feet ahead of time to be able to make it hoping there’s no car in your lane. It’s about finishing the day, sharing a few beers with some people who are now your closest friends yet only a few months before you’d never met and probably never would if it weren’t for this rogue activity. It’s almost like something out of the Kerouac book On The Road and is the true essence of what Stacy Peralta was trying to say with the classic The Search for Animal Chin.
Sharing my experiences of this lifestyle is the purpose of starting this blog. It’s going to be my attempt to recount my adventures from here out in gruesome detail and show the meaning behind the journey downhill skateboarding takes me on.
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