Skates Zone

This was my KOTR Assignment, and I gotta Tell you, I had been most stoked on the team I went with. The Vans group has always beentop of the food chain, therefore when I was contacted by them agreed without hesitation. I didn't even bother to ask whichpassengers were coming. I knew that we would end up with the best crew, and what we were working with. Pfanner was about theoriginal team, but because of a bike accident on the streets of DC, he was shifted to the [sizes of skateboards](https://github.com/skateszone/skate/wiki/How-To-Know-What-Size-Of-Skateboard-Should-I-Need-To-Get). In his position was Johnny Layton,who was fresh off an injury. Tony Trujillo was on the group. He had been on the team for the very initial KOTR, and is a skater asyou can locate. Additionally, his excitement to go above and beyond on all challenges and any makes him invaluable. Elijah Berle'stotally gnarly, and also. Vert, bowls railings gaps--you name it, and he is ready. Daniel Lutheran was our highest-longest-mostguy, not only for skating, but also for the make-outs with over-40 milfs and women. And whoa, he did not disappoint. Rounding outthe skaters was one of the very technical guys out having a knack for getting gnar, Gilbert Crockett. Cody Green and Thizzmanhandled the filming responsibilities, and former Birdhouse am Griffin Collins drove the van, handed over his driver's license andcredit cards whenever desired, and normally handled all the abuse that we or the extended arm of the law would dish out. FIRST STOP, DENVERThey like to keep you Something we have to know is our city that is starting, although prior to the trip begins. Denver wasobtained by us. Stoked. Denver's an awesome town for skating and would serve us well. Along with amazing homies Denver has mostanything you can ask for in terms of areas: Gaps, rails amazing parks--the whole nine yards. We thought it was going to be awonderful beginning... till we got that text at midnight with our town challenges. Purchase popsicles at the Denver park foreveryone? No issue there. Receive David Reyes lipslid in his Thrasher interview to a trick on the rail? It is a one, however DanLu, J-Lay, and Gilbert all have sufficient pop. Their faces are painted by everybody like the Insane Clown Posse for the period inDenver? WTF? That served to reduce our time short. Nothing like whilst looking like a bunch of Juggalos asking for directions to aspot. You wonder why the cashier at 7-11 is considering you and overlook that the paint's on your face so strangely. Then youwatch a clown looking back at you, and get back in the van, check the mirror. So fucked! We did what we so were gon na bounce fromthe Denver city limits as soon as possible and needed to perform. Well, almost. Among those challenges was to create out with aJuggalette, than to look just like a Juggalo and the better way to attract a Juggalette? You know, game recognizes game... Yeah,right! Juggalos are damn good at spotting imposters. And the feminine Juggalos don't like being called Juggalettes, possibly, sothat our trek along 16th Street mall was fulfilled with un-open arms from members of "the household." So we soon were headed upand west the hills, washing the paint out of our faces. SLC PUNKSTony started off the trip with a fresh Mohawk, And little did we know exactly how it would come into play. We seen a red PTCruiser before us en route from Denver. Now, here enjoying the drive along the winding streets of Western Colorado, left arm outthe window, taking it all in. Griff sped up along with the car and Tony stuck on his spiked head . A pleasant wave caught thedriver's eye, and he responded with a grin. Then he was given the bird by Tony. That triggered a 180 mood swing in the driver, andnearly a 180 of his vehicle. The man with just one hand on the steering wheel ran us off the street, and jammed his finger back atus. His face was as red. "Young punks got no regard for America!" Is probably what was going through his head as we were tailgatedby him for another 30 miles. Ours was made, although his day was probably ruined. The skate terrain in Salt Lake is much like Denver's, also without an embarrassing challenge to plague us for our visit, we couldstick around. Our first order of business was to contact Mark White. Mark was a member of the group that was Blind for a filmerthat, and was born and raised in Salt Lake they won KOTR. Being no stranger to the rules of the match, he wasted no time ingetting us. We had a pole ready for action, and just a couple blocks away was. Added to this was the bonus 21-stair which Dyetgrinded for "longest railroad" on a preceding KOTR. With thoughts along the lines of "It worked before, why won't it work again?"We began constructing a runway to the run-up. Then the rains came, and instead of simply attempting to grind the longest rail, itturned into a potential "many gnar" or "best suggestion." I'm pretty certain Daniel secured "worst slam" when he slipped out andlanded on his neck. Pain this could have caused was forgotten about when we randomly watched Pat Duffy at a pub that night. Dan Lumust meet with the guy. OUR SALT LAKE CITY CHALLENGES: Locate a Mormon Who will ollieup the dress in killer snowboard gear and receive a snowboard-stylecatch and get a hint. Mark White made this as simple as possible. The railroad was about the road therefore Dan Lu managed thatbefore the rest of us'd wiped the crust from our eyes. Mormons run Milo Sport, so the man who sold us the snowboard equipmentagreed to meet us at the park the following day for the ollie and happened to be fresh off a mission. Trevor Brady is his titleand he can do much more than just ollie. The 2 years off his board did not seem to have hindered his skate skills all that much,and we knew the ollie would not be a problemo if he screeched a lip that is rear across the face wall of the bowl. After a few"get it done" fashion ollies on apartment, Lizard King indicated that Trevor ollie his legs, which were hanging over the edge ofthe bowl. RENOReno wasn't on our record, but it had been on our Route from Salt Lake to the midway meet-up in SF Why not stop by for a trip?First order was to line up Javelle and Silent Mike to assist with finding probably and spots participants for our challenges.First stop were the smallest seven-stair rails I've ever seen, that were accompanied by a few of the world's fastest-responding security guards. With that stone a wash, we went on an tried all-night quest for stains. Lakai had already contacted one of our guides, see toshow them and we were a bit nervous that he had been likely to take them into the places. But when they arrived, he'd feel wouldbe too tired to display them around the following morning if we kept him out all night. Or so we thought. Turns out Lakai had todress up as Reno 911 while in the city, so they employed a strategy that is similar in Denver. That left us with free reign ofthose areas. With the exclusion of the tiniest seven-stair (which we didn't get to skate), the Reno spots were rather rough. Butthe chances for encounters were amazing. There was a cop who might ollie; the Tattoo, that is run by skateboarders of Ace; andJavelle. Yeah, for real. Dude's got a line in the world on some of the craziest females, and most of them reside in Reno! He waspretty confident she would be down for the make-out and left the call, so after a round of tattoos, we were off to fulfill her.Much like every struggle on KOTR, there is a lack of proof problem. Javelle wasn't sure how persuasive she went to be as aJuggalette. He knew that she did not have any ICP-related tattoos, which would have been the best type of identity, and he alsowas not certain how many of her teenaged Juggalo manners she still held on to. We figured we had nothing to lose, and when Dan Lusaw how sexy she was, he guessed it was worth a make out... things or no points. We let the show start and handed our Juggalomakeup kit to her. Any doubts of authenticity were pushed out the door when she began to sing and dance along and cued her iPod upinto the ICP. There was a bit of a party and let's just say that those party-goers hadn't really seen this side of her earlier. But she had not a care in the world. Hatchet Man tattoo or not, this woman was a Juggalo. You can never truly leave the Juggalohousehold. Following a makeup-exchanging make-out session--which motivated Dan Lu to remain in Reno, where he would be taken bythe celebration, just to see--we chose to divide for Sacramento. J-Lay had already come close to the "fucked up" switch tre lip on that Salt Lake seven-stair, and he would also come close on therails at UC Davis a few months' prior. Together with 150 points for a single suggestion on the line, we made the plan to visit theAggies' home. Dan Lu managed to get the front crooks while some efforts are put in by J-Lay. When Johnny had no longer switch treattempts left in him Dan and Elijah took it to a number of the college's bigger rails to get points. Time to high-tail it to SF toyour mystery guest pickup. SAN FRANCISCOApart from a spotting of the Lakai Team at a gas station in Sac, this will be our very first experience with all the teams. Howwould the other vans be decorated? How were the guys holding up? We'd heard rumors of Shane? Was it a hoax? The Nike men weredoing a great job of keeping the story moving, when it had been. And if it was real, did they stand a chance to repeat? We were ina mad scramble for Snuggies and did not get our SF struggles before the dawn of the afternoon. Apparently they're not "in season"yet, so neither Target nor Walmart had any in stock. With an hour before the deadline to be at Thrasher, we were to fill out thechallenge that is P-Stone. It worked in our favor, although we arrived a few minutes late on the offices. [https://github.com/skateszone/skate/wiki/How-To-Choose-The-Best-Complete-Skateboard-For-Beginners-2017](https://github.com/skateszone/skate/wiki/How-To-Choose-The-Best-Complete-Skateboard-For-Beginners-2017) The quarter-stick ofdynamite thrown out of our Mad Max phone would have fallen on deaf ears had we arrived. The mystery guests Are Merely that, but there's Always a motif. So when the Dekline team was handed Salman Agah, some began tothink that it was gonna be an all-OG San Jose team. Subsequently Andrew Reynolds was declared as Lakai's guest, and also theconfusion placed in.  What's the criteria? Company owners? It became clear that the mystery guests were former SOTYs when Arto wasassigned to us. Nike got Leo Romero, however if he unzipped his jacket to show a "Fuck Koston" shirt, nobody was sure if it was ablessing or a curse. Together with the mystery guests in tow, it was time For your midway challenges. A soap box derby-style race was so, with mysteryguests group managers, and press members as the key contestants. We did not fare too well here. Arto wrecked, and I (being theovercautious type) hauled my feet far too frequently and arrived in DFL. We subbed at Frank Gerwer for what appeared to be ajudges'-accepted winning movement, but as soon as the points were tallied, Frank was DQ'd in the race. It was getting late in the day when we Set out to our staying two city challenges. First was an early-grab 360 in The Dish inhonour of Tommy Guerrero. No problem I could muster that one. The challenge was to bomb a hill with Phelps, his choice. Instead ofhammering the shit out of us with some road such as Backside or Taylor 9th he even took it easy on everybody with a half-mile,cruise on Russian Hill. LOS ANGELESThe all-night shift was taken by grif and drove us to LA.. It was a time after when we entered the city limits and our challengescame in within the World-Wide Internet. First was Muska for a day. Second was to possess Ed Templeton shoot tasteful nudephotographs of those riders of one. Third was going to skate Arto's backyard bowl, and complete' his challenges. Of course, wewere worn out of a week on the road, and Arto was quick to detect. While we slept, he had been taking care of assembling a Muskakit for himself. Plus hecalled Ed Templeton, and advised the rest of us to swing by some time after noon. Arto and Ed put thefinishing touches on his Muska costume once we arrived. "What up dog, chillin' chillin', 1-2, 1-2 chillin' chillin'." So afteralive like Chad, photo shoots, and an enjoyable day of swimming skating, it was time. Seems like every time we attempted to calloff it, we found ourselves skating after and harder than every day before. This was all of the way up into the final hour, when welit up Beverly Hills High, where J-Lay and Elijah must have earned another 400 points united. However, the icing on the cake thatthere watched Matt Bennett mill his namesake at the final moments with our borrowed lights--something we guessed Dekline couldhave handled on the rail they stumbled upon at the onset of the trip. The finish line is where you can see Everyone in their best; where the wack haircuts, road rash, and team riders are vulnerableunabashed. Looked like everyone got among the dreads of Nyjah and at least made an attempt at decorating their van. "Strip Club"was a frequent van motif, and when Nike came in hot, we were a bit worried that our time spent decorating would go unnoticed.Creativity beats on hormones with this one, and developing a war wagon surpassed simply sticking a rod in the center of the car. The Vans men sailed the end line struggles, with Tony putting a decal in the rafters for paste and Gilbert leaping greater in thehippy jump contest than both Marc Johnson and Ryan Spencer. With that, we moved back in 10 days to the hotel for our initialfull-night's sleep. This night was the awards ceremony in Arto's backyard. Everyone was overwhelmed with anticipation as we saw the trailer. Sure,this is a contest, and the goal is to win. But it's a road trip of epic proportions--and also any road trip's purpose is to get asmuch fun as possible. The footage was off the charts: The gnarliest skating and ever constructed into moments. It was Lakai who'dstacked the points. And congrats to those guys, since they deserved it. But if you should judge things based on the footageintroduced at the awards, it looked to be a four-way tie. BY JOE HAMMEKEDENVEREVERYONE paint their faces like the insane Clown Posse and keep it. Locate and Find a hint on this rail;Popsicles of EVERYONE. Shoot at a group photograph. SALT LAKE CITYLocate Mormon Missionary who will ollie over a board. Find and get a trick on this rail:While sporting a killer ski outfit, do a Snowboard-style catch this off kicker:CODY GREEN'S CRAZY ANGLESCODY GREEN IS ONE of Vans' team videographers. Not only does he love his craft, but he is a genuine expert at it and a skater toboot. His brain is crying--thinking of new angles, lighting situations that are better, and also the best point the skating. Thefinished product, as you can see, seems impressive. He takes inspiration from a number of the finest, filming alongside Greg Huntand analyzing Ty Evans' techniques. When it comes to filming skateboarders, Cody settles for nothing but the very best, butsometimes you haveta compromise. KOTR was full of these cases, and you could tell that it had been becoming under Cody's skin. Atone skatepark, Cody had put up behind a stone, which he used as a foreground component for the manuals of J-Lay that went downsome 60-feet away with his camera. The kids kept getting in the way of Cody's awesome angle, not to mention skating straightthrough the path of Johnny and had no idea there wasn't any camera function. All of this caused a meltdown in the mountains. Therewere different situations like this, like the time when Cody was set up beneath a stairwell and a vehicle decided to park rightbetween Johnny and him. I mean, you can't mistake the driver--WHO WOULD HAVE KNOWN SOME GUY WOULD BE HIDING UNDER THE STAIRS WITHA BIDEO CAMERA? MAD MAXIF YOU'VE EVER MADE THE DRIVE on Interstate 5 Between Los Angeles and San Francisco, then you understand how bare it is. And ifyou haven't watch the final scene. That is what I had pictured in my head: All four groups, burning the 5 at a Battle Royale downto the passing. Seeing that one of our challenges that were KOTR required us to decorate the interior of our van, I understood MadMax was the thing to do. So one morning in Reno we hit the hardware store up and accumulated several essentials: Duct tape, twine,string fencing, pipes, Rope, rebar, and warning signals. All that, combined with the "Gators" (shredded big rig tires) that we'dpicked up along the side of the highway, some fucked-up BARBOE DOLLS, MOLOTOV COCKTAILS, OIL CANS, AND A BABY CONOR, and itemswere on. We started work behind the Holiday Inn casino. The first thing: Throw out all of the road excursion consumer garbage. The next:Lay down our Gators as floormats and dashboard armorDuct tape our windows and the chain-link fence together. By now we fired upthe generator through the PVC pipe, the casino manager had come out and told us to stop dumping our garbage in his lot. Assuringhim that we had every intention of cleaning up the trash, he gave the green light to us and we lasted. All that was left were thesmall information, when the PVC reinforcement bars were in place. We rolled to the meeting that was halfway Point at Thrasher. Everybody stared at us. So we dropped a quarter-stick of dynamite inthe lot and also the Road Warrior warfare was on. All of Us GOT REAL GOOD SWITCH AND AT THE PINCH, PISSING IN A BOTTLE is a on a skate trip. If you would like to drink beer in thevan, it's pretty much mandatory; differently, the van's gonna need to pull over for stops every hour, and that immediately addstime to the travels. Normally those bottles are tossed by you out when you reach your destination. Apparently, Scott Bourne wasnot one to discard his stink bottles, therefore this challenge took us to maintain our containers . There was a misunderstandingon the part. We believed it was likely to be judged on the amount of bottles full of piss, instead. Instead of finding out withjust two days left, this would have been good to know in the start. We'd been pissing in eight-ouncers in a bid to make the mostof the bottle count necessitating more or four bottles per escape. A skill that come in handy. However, it would have been ratherrelieving just to piss in gallon jugs. I can speak from experience about how good it felt to take just one long wizz, draining mybladder when the trip was over. We thought we had it, with this being a winner-take-all challenge. Nike? They would not wish tosit around all that pee. Dekline simply did not have the storage space. We guessed Lakai would not bother, either -- but weunderestimated Mike Carroll's involvement and his appreciation for life's scummier side. We had an impressive collection but youcould see the grin as he chucked it into a pile at the playground of AVE and brought out box after box of boats. Was the reactionwhen confronted with tallying the results of Burnett. Not expecting such quantity of fluids that are disgusting, coupled with arambunctious crowd (of which numerous members were drunk enough not to be bothered by spilled piss), the potential for disasterwas tremendous! SAN FRANCISCOP-stone's Confort: EVERYONE wears and buys a For its entrie time they are san Francisco. Do and catch 360 Dish in honor of Tommy Guerrero. [how to know what size skateboard to get](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-size-skateboard-should-i-get-skates-zone/) Bomb a mountain with Phelps. LOS ANGELESMuska for a Day: Dress up in your best Fulfill The Dream-era Muska outfit and get wild in the streets. While holding a ghettoblaster you have to noseslide a rail, argue with security, get up your label, and bust a Traditional Muska-style frontside flipGo into Arto's pool and complete his special challenges.