Albe's Road Trip update # 6

Stevie avoided the police in order to come to SPOT and do this look back....don't call it a comeback!

Thursday, We woke up at a nice fella's house named Forest Roberts. This fella is known for housing random people at all times. What a good person. His house was equipped with multiple places to crash, and the TV / family room had the ability to have 5 of the guys online all at once. Technology these days. We sat around till 4 oclock or so with eveyone slowly waking. When I woke up I realized Joe Gall was already in the house. Flipper picked him up early in the day and it was quite a nice surprise to see someone like that. The drama that manny brought was getting old and Joe Gall was exactly what we needed. He only brings new, exciting, fun stuff that we love to see. Anyways we sat around till about 4 oclock waiting for showers to finish and everyone to try to make their attempt at cleaning the van or themselves.. something like that.

Around 5 oclock we finally found our ways around to this faboulous place called S.P.O.T. Skatepark of Tampa. Very well built skatepark that I've been waiting to ride forever. Matt Coplon met us up at the place along with fellow Michigan Team Green riders 'Sean Miksys & Matt carmickle' 2 very high fly'n riders. (Sean and Matt were on their own vacation the same time as us. Carmickles a professional 22 year old at 19 and kills it on his bike. Sean is a florist and good bike rider). We started the session off with a slow high speed craziness. Rain and glomyness had that kind of effect and driving to the park made it all depressing. Once we showed up at SPOT, Everyone knew instantly that some things were gonna get off the hook. Crazy good transfers and good hips and almost all the types of things you would want to ride were located in this nice big warehouse. Almost within 15 minutes video and photos were needed to be taking thanks to people like Allen Smalls riding like its his last day on earth and threw down huge tailwhip gaps. At this point the hardcore session was starting and Dane Wild and Vinnie were starting to throw down the tech/rail tricks. Stevie Jessome has been off his bike for quite a while now and was finally riding like he cared again.. Full speed bump this to bump that to doing walrides no one else could do. Stevie's back in the full effect and shreading happily. Mark Filipowicz (flip) turned into a tough young guy again and pedaled full speed at a wall to only bail before he even hits the wall almost matrix style doing a body run mid wall ride before his body went flying into some ompa loompa type of spin. The second atempt he made it to the wall quite high but didn't think he was going to make it and hit the eject button. His pedal exploded on impact so he quit and got behind the camera. Evan was crashing and doing high airs on all the good quarters there, one of Evans highlights was an alioop 270 over the big 7ft hip with a trick in now n then. Joe Gall was doing fakie tricks at full speed and looking good. Negative was rocking high table airs to fakie and wicked 360 canadian nosepicks before he had to put his bike down and pick up the camera. Flipper and Mike were getting ready for the Matt Sparks show. By now everyone realized sparks wasent on the trip to ride and do stunts, he was here to prove how flat he really could land. After trying a few big wallrides to earthquakres, Sparks started to feel the pain setting in from the flatlander pulled off a few days priar at the Brian Picallo park. Sparks gave flip more riding time and put down the bike and picked up the camera just in time to catch Vinnie and Dane doing rails and rails. Over croocked gind. over double pegs, grind up to manual to grind down and double bunny hops to railing rides to barspin in. If you wanted to see real rail use, Dane and Eric/Vinnie are who ya wanted to see. Seriously precision type riding. Kenny Sanders was getting a kick out of the place and throwing down high turndowns, good xups & inverts. Smooth as Utah Mormons get. It didnt take much longer before we heard the PA tell us the park was closing soon. Dane pulled off a few 540 truckdrivers and Marcum continued to pull unbeleivable crankless tricks. Kris Marcum defitnally has to be making people blink twice after pulling huge 6ft airs, 540s to fakies and a few big gaps, riding with no cranks and just 6 pegs [bottom bracket full of Fusion pegs]. Baylis was in the other building trying hard to exceed the level of tech riding in his life and trying to icepick some crazy tranny wall. Not sure if he pulled it but to see him smile about trying it was enough proof to know it was a challenge for him. Local skateboarders and park locals started to sit back and chill as the session was ending and matt sparks was convinced that he could throw himself a good 20 ft or so. It was fun for everyone to watch sparks try to gap some quarter to roller and just throw himself straight into a wall of 2x4s and almost lost parts of his face. That kid just loves to fall. After a lil bit of laughter and multiple OTB's Sparks actually managed to put his body back on the bike and did some longjump gap multiple tailwhip thinge trick. Nothing you wouldnt expect from the one trick trashtalker. The session ended and a few more random shots of insaneness went down. But video will tell the rest.

Allan Smalls with the huge 16ft quarter to quarter tailwhip transfer second try. Out of control and full speed.

Bret from Bikeguide showed up and did a few good stunts. Here he pulls a massive barhump.

Matt Carmickle from Team Green with a downside opposite no footed can can air.

Dane Wild was hard at work as usual shredding every ramp. Barspin to fakie air .

Flipper doing the biggest wallride at the park, quarter to quarter and crazy. 1/10th after this picture was taken, Mark jumped off his bike and avoided death somehow.

Kenny Sanders. I like this kid. One of the many xup airs Kenny shredded the park with.

Kris Marcum with the quarter quarter gap. What makes this so cool and clicked is that he is CRANKLESS! he pumps as hard as he can and pulls big airs. Kris Marcum is a stud.

Kris Marcum with what you really wanted to see. 1 footed rocket tire grab air. Rocket? Who knows whats going on in his head.

Matt Coplon fufanuing a sharp edge, at high speed.

Not only is matt sparks a flatlander, he's also bowl-legged. Here he trys to fly. Kids on the left, to kids on the right. Sparks double whipped it.

People were getting ancy and the bike trailer already was located with a traveling Keg. This day was no joke for our hardcore St Pattyday partiers. We got back to Forrest' fine crib and everyone took showers again (almost), started drinking and getting ready for the night that was coming. Fellow riders were swetting the idea of being too young to have fun in a 18+ club, but after a bit of intense street walking and picture taking, We found the place to be. Everyone that cared to get in was having no problem, but with Vinnie/Eric using a fake ID and questioning a bouncers power trip, a Police Officer came into action and threatened to arrest Vinnie and make his life miserable. Luckily he pulled off a suave move that only he can and shows up in the club minutes later already partly hammerd. By this point the crew was ready for bright lights, loud sounds and preppy idiots. The crew was hard at work trying to bring a party back to Forrest' house but for the most part the clubs and street walking got too many pictures of girls and shady bike riders. We rounded up a few ladies that dont fear the shade and brought them back to Forrest's and some random dirtballs slept easily while the rest of the albes crew slept on stuff from kitchen floor's to pool tables. I hope today we proved we're a serious hardcore joke and if you got into our path you laugh'd your ass off, ran from the cops {or nasty girls} and maybe got pressured into joining Team Green. i'm about to go sleep on the pool table Thanks for reading---- Love Sparks

This girl wanted Allen bad but Allen turned her down.

Shreak heard we were in town and wanted to come hang out with us

Joe Gall flew in to help push the maddness Team Young style

All girls though we were in a band and loved being in photos with us.

Joes arms are the size of Kenny's body yet they eat the same.

Matt kissed more girls on this trip that the herpeas clinic would have liked him too.

Yet another

HOT GIRL & sparks

P.S. After reading this all over the next day, we still somehow have shady broads from our original place of picking them up, but at this second they're helping the crew put ducttape on their legs hoping for the best. Looks like today could be better than yesterday. Read more to find out.

P.S.S.  we are a day or so behind on updates as we are running out of time.  We went to Central/668 yesterday and some CRAZY shit went down.  We'll get a post up as soon as possible.