Well, I've been putting this off for while...
What up everyone? How are things in the district? I moved for college, so now I'm representing DC in NYC. Real quick, NYC is mad dope; spots and shreders everywhere! Anyways, on to the trip:
One of the craziest experiences of my life. I don't have any photos worth sharing to be honest, but there was a photographer there to document the entire thing (
http://www.davidlangphoto.com/blog/).
The first day the team was hungover (a theme for the trip), so the owner of Joe Mama's Bike Shop, Jose, picked me up. He took me on a tour of Ottowa, listening to 80's hip-hop the entire time ...word (a little Public Enemy, and NWA, ya feel me?). Ottowa is really dope, such a pretty city. Anyways, we went back to the shop and I assembled my bike.
Right after the team showed up. What a bunch of party animals, wow, haha. Sponsorship tastes delicious, doesn't it, Alli?
We rode around the shop for a while, than went to BBQ at Jose's house. Burgers, bikes, and beers--solid combination (spoken like a true college kid, right?).
Afterwards, some of us went out riding. This included Chris Silva, Chijioke Okafo, David Lang, and myself. There are sooo many dope spots in Ottowa!
Let em' fly!
Definitely my favorite shot of the night:
Afterwards, some of the team went out partying, but I was mad jet lagged (6am flight), so getting hammered was not on my agenda. Call me a pussy...
The next day the team had a demo at a skatepark. The park was freaking packed, but the jam was mad fun.
The Daily Bugle was out looking for Spiderman at the demo. No I'm kidding, but there was a some press there.
During the demo a few of us went out and did our own thing
Now, the awesome part. I told Jay Miron, owner of Macneil, that I wanted to do my first handrail while in Canada.
http://vimeo.com/5191486Having dudes who I watched shred so hard over the weekend, yell my name and high five me afterwards, genuinely excited and happy for me, was one of the best feelings ever. I described it to my basketball playing friend as "it was like having Jordan come up to me and say 'hey man, that was a nice shot!'." It was really epic. (Making The Come Up wasn't a bad plus either, haha). Anyways, we ended up getting some tex-mex and celebrating afterwards (as seen in the video).
That night we went out drinking. Dancing with fat girls, yelling "cock" as loud as possible in Quebec, 3am pizza, vodka sodas, birthday shots, hitting on adorable bartenders, having the bouncers look at my American drivers license in confusion, going to 5 different bars, gambling on Jay Miron's dollar (and winning) toasting to America while drinking Canadian brews; all that jazz. It was a really fun night, and the party basically didn't stop until 4am, when Travis
SEXsmith brought home a girl (there was no noise coming from your room, sir, tisk tisk).
The next morning we went cliff jumping in a quarry on the outskirts of town. A local showed us the spot and we couldn't resist.
Oh hey me (texting...
)
Scott Storch showed up:
The Canadian Beast showing us how it gets done:
Chris Martindale started getting pretty crazy (he must have watched too many Mark Webb videos or something)
Last day of the trip, we ended up just riding some street getting some clips.
Jaumell Campbell holds it down at a whopping 6' 4".
Dillion was the young kid on the trip, even at 16 he was still 5 times better than me...
Sexsmith got crazy
So did Chris Silva:
Chijioke even got in on the action, with a huge hop to double peg hop over to jeans photo shoot (not going to lie, I was eyeing this up myself, but I decided to let the pros do their thing)
Jay, Jose, and I spent the rest of the afternoon just cruising around Ottowa, doing all the touristy things you'd expect us to do. It was real nice and a perfect way to finish off an awesome trip.
A photo to wrap things up:
Real quick, support this company. I learned alot about how Jay operates and what Macneil stands for: good, quality, innovative. He's got his head in the right place, and they deserve to be noticed. Buy Macneil, you won't regret it.
It was an amazing experience, and I had nonstop fun. I made a whole bunch of friends, rode some killer spots, did my first handrail (which Jay politely called a "pussy rail" haha), got hammered with a bunch of pros, learned a whole bunch of super secret industry stuff, and overall had an amazing time. I told Jay he has to do this again for some kid, it was too awesome not too.
Well, that's the story, time to go rewrite an essay and learn about colonialism in Congo
