Albe's Road Trip update #5

Right as we were getting ready to leave we found that we almost left vinny.  Seems we all forgot to wake him up. After waiting for 25 mins. for him to shower we were off.  We arrived at Bully and met up with Jimmy (Hale), David Healy, and Brian Fell.  We checked the place out for a bit and a few of the crew were stoked to see so many bike parts in one place.  Brian even went as far as booking us a room in the area since he heard we had such a problem finding one the night before.  Since Brian knew the area he was able to find us a room smack dab in the middle of the skate park we were going to, the beach (Ft. Lauderdale) and the club scene.

Jimmy took us to the beach and we frolicked in the water for an hour or two.  The crew was stoked to be at the beach and to go in the ocean as this was the first time many of them ever went into the ocean.  A couple of us went and scored some ice cream and sat in the sand.  We then headed back to the hotel and got ready to go to Brian Piccolo () Skate Park.  On the way to the park we stopped for some food at Subway and I scored a 12" sub for the price of a 6"..now that's news!  We arrived at the Park and it looked quite nice.  It was very big and well built.  The park was ridden by the Props Roadfools crew in Road Fools # 7. Mr. Healy hooked us up with the people running the park and scored us in for little or no money again. Bayliss broke his mp3 player and was PISSED.  I think this was the first time on the trip Bayliss didn't have music playing.  We wondered how he would be able to ride. Turns out he couldn't. Seems that without his mp3 player Bayliss is useless.  He still managed to do a fufanu to icepick to 270 tailtap to icepick back over on the 6' tall street spine..WHATEVER!  Many of the locals were killing the place.  I didn't catch any names but they all seemed pretty cool.  I saw one fellow jump a 7' tall hip probably about 9' high.  One of the other hips there seemed to be the hot spot as all the locals and the crew killed it together.  Allen Smalls was doing BIG downside whips to stomp out the fire, Ron Thomas was doing nice turndown 270's over it. Jace was doing super high turndowns and Jimmy Hale was 270 tailwhiping it like it was nothing.  Kris Marcum was making everybody stare in awe when he was doing hurricane's and disasters to 540 tail taps on the funny no crank bike. Sparks had not been feeling too good and had not been riding but decided to take a few runs.  in the first 5 mins. he was on his bike he did a super nice opposite downside whip over the big hip to tail whip on the next tranny. His next run he flipped the hip and did a 4' air on the vert wall to FLAT.  He landed so flat he punched himself in the face when he landed.  Then he was done for the night.  I tried to talk him into making use of the big 5' tall 12' box for some stuff he has up his sleeve but he wasn't in the mood for it. The big trick of the night came from Dane Wild.  DJ did an AMAZING icepick grind down a grind box. Not only was the grind box about 24' long and went from 8' high down but he did it on the OUTSIDE. When he stated to try it one of the locals said it wasn't possible and told Dane that if he pulled it he'd give him his bike. 3 or 4 tries later he did it perfect.  Dane being the swell guy he is told the kid he can keep his bike but did collect a dollar. The park was closing so we packed up and said good-bye to everybody and we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the fun night we had planned.  Thanks to the Park and David Healy for taking care of us and Jimmy Hale for showing us around.

Jace Turndown over the big hip

Squrriell over the bigger hip.

Local Ripper

Alan Smalls one footed invert

Sparks flair loop thing over the hip

Now it was time to go clubbing so we came up with a wonderful plan.  Dane, Bayliss, and Jimmy Hale we going to drive the rest of the crew in the bus to the club and then they were going to go ride street.  Then pick us up when it was time.  The group that headed to the club was Flip, Rusty, Squrriell, Evan, Marcum, Smalls, Jace, Vinny, and Stevie.  Everybody was told to bring their phone since last year we lost a man.  We found a club that had some decent loud music and went to see if it was worth checking out.  The lady at the entrance informed us that tonight was a wet t-shirt contest and it was $15 ALL YOU CAN DRINK!!  As good as we though that was I knew it was going to end up bad.  Lots of drinking and foam dancing went down and 3 hours later Rusty and I had to drag a a few of the crew out of the club as they could barely walk.  We called Dane to come get us and tried to find the rest of the crew. We had Squirrel, Rusty, Evan, Smalls and Myself waiting for Dane to arrive but we were still missing Marcum, Stevie, and Vinny.  Dane arrived and already had Marcum with him but we were still missing the others.  We at this point we had acquired a girl that needed a ride home also so we decided that we'd drive her home and try to get ahold of Stevie and Vinny on their phone and come back to pick them up.  About halfway to the lady's hotel Jace decided we needed to make an unplanned stop to get rid of his dinner and we had to do it in a hurry.  As soon as we pulled over and opened the door he fell out of the bus and got sick all over the side walk. At this point I started to worry that other may need to get sick and I didn't want them to do it in the bus that we have to live in for the next 5 days so I pulled out the fellows that were in rough shape and I chilled with them on some street corner while the rest of the crew took home the girl.  I watched Jace and Rusty get sick and I had to keep Brawler from throwing coconuts at cars. Now I know how Evan got that nick name.  He turns into some Tasmanian Devil when he's drunk.  He spins around tearing everything up and throwing stuff at people.  Once the bus came back to get us Rusty and Jace were passed out but Evan was still in Brawler form, he got on the bus he tore up a box and bit Bayliss and we were on our way to pick up Vinny who had called and said he was going to be waiting for us in front of the club.  We picked Vinny up but there was still no signs of Stevie.  We tried to call him a few more times and just got his voice mail.  We had to get the drunk fellows back to the room so we drove back with Stevie missing in action.  We made it back to the rooms and poured the drunks into bed and went to sleep.  9am rolled around and my cell phone rings.   It was Stevie.  Turns out he passed out somewhere in the club and spent the night there.  I guess he woke up and walked the 2 miles back to the room.  Glad to see we didn't lose him for good!

the Joker wears beer goggles too.

vinny was surprised to get in the club

Kris marcum turned 21 and vodka stocks went up.

I have nothing to say about this photo

Random girl photo # 534534

10 BMX'ers + all you can drink = the above photo

Once we got all the hungover fellows out of bed we decided we were going to head to South Beach to chill in the sun and ocean.  Also we wanted to check out the sites (topless beach.)  We spent the next few hours relaxing, body surfing and burring Jace in the sand. 

Allen Smalls looks like a monkey.

We left South Beach and are now heading to the Tampa to meet up with Matt Copelan and the Profile crew. Matt has set us up with a buddy of his named Forrest who is going to let us stay at his place for the night.  Maybe we'll get a decent nights sleep as we need to get up early and pick up JOE GALL from the airport.  Seems he's been reading the updates and couldn't take it anymore and had to meet up with us for the second half of the trip.  I have a feeling the next few updates will be hard for me to make PG rated!!

I guess tomorrow we will be checking out Clearwater beach, riding SPOT (Skate Park of Tampa) in the evening and going to Ybor City for some crazy clubbing Team Young style at night.

we'll keep ya updated.

--Flip