Mr. Greasy. Photo: Bandy
One of the first articles I wrote for Wheelbase was about Van Trips, and in specific, riding dirty in the infamous Mercado van. Since then I’ve done about 10-15 more skate trips of that nature; rolling deep with a heavy crew of rippers to different skate events. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about being on the road since that first van trip when I was 15 years old. The most recent trip I did was from San Francisco, up the coast, arriving in BC Canada for the Giant’s Head Freeride. The thing about this trip that I had only done once before was travelling with every team member from Comet, Volante, and Caliber in a short bus painted with some trippy shit on it.
The crew stops off in Vancouver for a neighborhood session. Photo: Bandy.
While we’re on the subject of our dope bus lemme tell you why it’s so dope. No other skate bus is painted or laid out on the inside like the Sunset Sliders bus is. It attracts all kinds of people. Like 5 French/Canadian cherry-picker chicks. Killing it with the bitties, Sliders Bus!
Golden Gate replica donning the Sliders Bus dashboard. Photo: Bandy.
Anyway, after ten days on the road with twelve other dudes shit can go sideways; people stink, people complain, kooks start trying to rename LBDR, equally as big of kooks drift away from the group to rock their own “swag”. Sometimes team-strength is tested, but that’s really just focusing on the negative. Most of the time we all rocked it together having a great time skating, filming, swimming, and hollering at chicks that were fired-up on the bus. Once we finally got enough grinds on pool coping at every banger skatepark in Oregon, we were almost at Giant’s Head. If you haven’t heard about Giant’s Head but like to drift your skateboard sideways, you’re kind of blowing it. It’s nicknamed North America’s Best Freeride for a reason. Everyone gets runs for days down a narrow road with countless hairpins and sketchy plywood features to hit on the way. Jesse Breiman and I had a fun encounter with one of those plywood features when he put a shoe-sized hole in the decking. I was about five feet behind him hauling ass, I hit the hole, and smashed back onto the road pretty good.
Big Dave T, up and over at Giant’s Head. Photo: Bandy.
After getting some road rash and good vibes at Giants Head we started heading back home. We had just made a clean border crossing and were on the home stretch when the brakes started getting too hot. We let them cool. It was cool. But then our tire blew-out while mobbing down the highway. We slept overnight in the cuts, behind a repair shop. It sucked, but one of the thing it showed me was to be patient and keep it chill because on a two week skate trip to another country shit happens and you gotta roll with it. I encourage getting a crew of homies and doing a skate trip, seriously. Peace. -Liam
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GENERAL DISCLIAMER: The statements, comments, and opinions expressed by Liam Morgan through Notes of a Greasy Young Man are those of “Mr. Greasy” himself, who is solely responsible for them, and they do not necessarily represent the views of Wheelbase LLC. Questions or comments regarding any information listed in this particular column can be addressed by contacting aliens, or channeling the spirit of Isaac Hayes.
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