Eric and Nick have spent the last couple of months hanging out down in Charlotte, mainly to escape the frigid winters of the cold north, aka Minneapolis. As their days are running out we decided to do a little trip down to Greenville. No, not Pro town, the other one. The one where fireworks works are legal but you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays. Some know it as South Carolina. The crew was a simple crew, but packed full of all kinds of characteristics.
We’ve got a Zach Rogers, dubbed the giraffe. Then there’s a Seamus McKeon, similar to that of a bobcat. Eric Holley is like a pitbull. Nick Anderson, who’s straits mimic that of a rottweiler. Then myself, Michael McQueen, aka the garden snake. And last but not least, a sleek equestrian dream, the most beautiful of all known as Joey Seawell, our trip photographer. Confused? Me too. Apparently these names were made up by Nick and Seamus late one evening after riding too much.
And riding too much is pretty much what we did. We rode, ate and slept. Priorities in that order. Our trip started out with Joey and myself stopping in Charlotte to scoop up the crew in the TL88, a common Eastern Bikes travel vessel. Bikes were loaded as was tons of gear. We ventured south towards peach/fireworks country. Stopping only to refuel and resist the urge to purchase lots of explosives. When we reached Greenville we were quickly greeted by our trip hosts, Colin and Danny. Danny was puttin us up for the weekend in his extravagant home, actually its his parents. Our first spot, twin towers. A spot quickly gaining a lot of attention from out of towners. A demolished mill’s flooring and foundation have led way to a DIY skatepark of sorts. All sorts of ledges, wedges, quarters and rails scattered amongst. A good warm up spot that we ended up getting a couple of clips and photos at.
A quick hop and a skip up the streets led us to Greenville’s downtown district. We then pedaled around to a couple of spots. Stunts were getting documented but “the man” wasn’t havin it so he gave us the boot from downtown. So then we went and rode a sewer pipe for an hour. And yeah, I did an abubuca on it. After riding a sewer pipe for an hour you start to get hungry. But fast food was not on our agenda for this trip. Incase you’ve been living under a rock or are filthy rich, we’re in a recession. So that means we gota be productive with the little money we’ve got. Bilo was our food source, and Danny’s mom’s kitchen was the spot. Sandwiches, burgers and breakfast meals meant for a king were all conjured up for our devouring with very little cash. We spent about as much on gas as we did on food. Efficiency. After feeding ourselves silly we decided to take a trip up to No Name skatepark for a little after hour/hangout/heckle session. Right off the bat Seamus went to drop in on the box and woops, the lip was gone. So instead of landing on a box lip, he landed on his head. I think it has something to do with going out of the state with Eric and myself. Whenever we do, Seamus hits his head, 3 times in a row now. Other than that, we rode too long and got too tired. The next day would leave us all sore and half broken.
Danny had us sleeping in his attic/dungeon. Sun never touches that room. Nick called out sleeping all day first try. I think it was I who snaked him, so therefor he didn’t pull it. It was hard but somehow I managed to awake everyone by 11. It was probably the smell of breakfast being assembled like an Eastern hercules complete bike. Next thing I know everyone’s full and starting to ride the ramp. I opted for basketball and ended up tweaking my back out. I’m a 15 year old trapped in a 69 year old’s body. After my quick recovery mode we headed out amongst the streets of G’ville. Danny had some awesome spots lined up for us. First setup was a sweet manual pad spot. Nick had moves, over and done with. Seamus was next on the list. He was strongly commited with a sick nosemanual across this dock, but eventually the law informed us that if we weren’t employees of the Dharma initiative yoga institute or Big Lots, that we couldn’t play. Off to the Next spot. The theme of the day was similar to that incident. Nick started to put in work on a sweet line, but once again, the law shut us down. After the fun police gave us the boot we headed over to Blazer, the local bike/skate/motox shop to hang out a bit and ride the kicker. I ate some laffy taffys and did some documenting of the crew hanging out and shredding.
After that hard day of riding and frustration it was time for some feel good. And what better way to feel good than to cook out. Joey muscled up some burgers while Zach and I opted for some Veggie options. Danny’s family really hooked us up. They had such a sweet pad. After refueling the crew we opted for a spot that cop #1 told us we could ride. He probably didn’t expect us to haul a generator and lights out there though. But, that’s what we did. And for a good 2 hours we had an awesome rail session in a park. Nick, Eric and Zach were the stunt masters for this scenario. They came with a tricklist and then they left me with a memory card full of sweet clips. 2 hours of standing beside a cold river kind of sucks, but Joey and I pulled through like the equestrian and garden snake that we were. Now back to sleep and thaw out. Day 3 was aimed at getting back to the places we got kicked out of on days 1 and 2. First stop out the door that morning was back to Nick’s spot from the previous day. We all roll up, not a soul in sight. Everyone piled out of our vehicles, Joey and I set up our camera gear while Nick played around on some curbs. “You ready?” Nick asked, “yup, lets do this” I replied. And then we did, first try, out the gate. Off to the next spot. We decided to head back to Dharma/Big Lots for Seamus’ nose manual. Unfortunately Seamus didn’t have it out the gate, but being the committed bobcat he is, pulled it clean as a whistle a couple tries in. After that we went to a couple of other spots to get a few more clips in before heading back out. I think the crew was pretty much exhausted by that time. I don’t blame them. Both Joey and I were fairly done for ourselves. So after a quick stop back at the Siden residence we assembled our gear, annihilated the rest of our food and hit the road. One new addition on this trip was my new camera, a Nikon D90. A new breed of camera’s recently released. Its a digital SLR camera that has a video function. All the photos for this article were taken with said camera and the included video clip was as well. We would also like to thank the Siden family for their kindness of letting a bunch of dudes crash their house for a weekend, hopefully we didn’t leave the place in shambles. I tried to make them behave... And thanks to Danny and Colin for showing us how to shred a city proper!
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