Road Trip Update # 6 (Greenville NC.)

Matt Carmickle had a broken foot this whole trip but couldn't resist riding at Ryan Nyquist's UNIT SkatePark.

We weren't about to let a blown transmission slow us down.  We rented a truck in Team Pimpske fashion and headed towards our next stop which just happened to be Ryan Nyquist's new super warehouse called "The Unit" in Pro Town USA, Greenville, NC.

Once we made it to "The Unit" we were greeted by Ryan's brother Shea Nyquist as Ryan was out of town and an old buddy of ours originally from Chicago named Casey Burke.  Once inside the crew got to work fast. Probably too fast as everybody was so excited they all smashed into each other. Once everybody calmed down and started to take turns much fun was had.  The park / unit is insane.  It's hard to believe that a place like that was built for one person and all his friends.  It's VERY cool that Ryan lets others ride there. 

Jamie, Shanton, Vinnie, and Smalls went to work killing the hips and sub rail as a bunch of the other played in the foam pit for hours.  Jamie was jumping one of the hips at least 9 feet as well as 180ing over the big sub rail.  Smalls was whipping the box, 270 whipping the hip and flowing all around like he'd ridden there plenty times before.  Shanton was jumping the box doing no handed front peg grabs as well as these damn cool no footed cancan tables. Vinnie was killing the bowl with his normal tricks like hurricanes and downside peg grinds. Matt Carmickle couldn't take it anymore...he had to ride this place even with his smashed foot.  He taped it up and did a couple of tricks including a flair.  not bad for a guy with a sunburn that can't even walk right now.  Sparks has been pretty low key on this trip but still pulled out some moves here.  360whips over the big box, tailwhips over the spine and even a handplant barspin on the top of the 16' vert wall.  I'd love to tell you all the stuff Shea Nyquist and Rob Darden were doing but they rode so fast and went so high i couldn't even keep up. I will say that Rob Darden is under rated and is a SUPER nice guy.  Thanks to Rob, Shea and the other locals for letting us ride and hanging out with us.

Dane pulled his first back flip into the foam after just a few trys.  i wonder how long it will take before he's doing them everyday.

Casey Burke knows howt o talk to the ladies. Smooth i tell ya.

Paul Wall was so sunburned that we should have taken him to the hospitol.  Even though it hurt for him to mov e he still HAD to ride the Nyquist warehouse. Here Paul 270 tables the hip.

Shanton is a die hard.  He rode at every stop and stayed up late every night to get loose. I knew Shanton was good but after going on this trip with him i got to see how good he reall is.  Expect more Shanton.

This was Sparks goofing off / warming up.  If he ever returns to the Nyquist Unit and is feeling good he'll probably jump through the roof.

Sparks seems to come up with very original tricks and then he does them out of nowhere.  It only took him a few trys. Hand plant barspin on a BIG vert wall.

Squirell had knee surgery just a few weeks ago and came on the trip just to hang out.  He also couldn't resist the power of Ryan Nyquist's unit and decided to ride.

I'm an Asshole and forgot this fellows name.  He's one of the Unit locals and had the place pretty wired.

After we left the Nyquist Unit we headed to Motel 6 and scored some rooms.  The party group got ready to go out.  We piled into the back of the UHaul and let Negative Mike drive since he knew where the bars were.  On the way there we were stopped at a cebriity check point.  Mike wasn't drinking but still could have got into a bunch of trouble for having a bunch of drunk people in the back of a shady UHaul.  Mike told the cops some story about helping his sister move and they let him through without check the back.  Thank god.

How shady is this??  Motel 6 must have installed a bigger toilet than the original one so the door couldn't close with out a good kick.

We made it to the club and drinks were flowing fast.  It was St. Patty's day so the place was full.  After a while of getting loose the crew scored more shady girls and then got their dance on.  Smalls picked up a 34 year old lady, Suchan drank beer, Shanton claimed he wasn't "Thug" enough for that club, Squirell did some Team Young type photo shoots, Flip got hit on by ladies that were almost as wide as he is tall and the others sat back and watched.  Once the bar closed we stepped out to the pizza joint and sobered up a bit before e headed back to the room.  We got back to the room and i passed out before i made it to my bed.  I had seen the sunrise for the past 4 days and i wasn't about to see another.

St. Patty's day in GREENville. Flip livin' LARGE!

Squirell always makes the best faces in bar photos.

I don't remember this photo being shot as you may be able to tell from my face.

Smalls likes girls of all ages.  This one was 34.

Smalls and Casey Burke making the ladies smile.

Check out was noon so we made it out of there by 1:30.  half the crew hit up CiCi's and the other half scored Sonic.  We then made our way to the Greenville Jaycee Skate Park. When we got there we found Dave (daddy???) Mirra, Dennis McCoy, Josh Harrington, Allen Cooke, Scott Wirch, Large Ray and Mark Eaton.  Pretty Crazy that all those guys would be there on a normal day.  Dave and Allen didn't stick around long but we did end up riding with Josh Harrington and DMC for quite a while.  Joey Greenwald has some sort of odd crush on DMC so I was sure to introduce Dennis to him. Dennis told us a bunch of stories that started "Back in the day" and Joey could not have been anymore stoked.

I think Joey wet himself when I told him DMC was at the park.  After this photo was shot Joey claimed his life was complete.

The crew rode for a while as they knew this maybe the last time they get to ride outside for a while as we were heading home right after this.  Vinnie called out a big gap to rail and fired it out first try. Smalls flowed and went really high on the spine.  The rest of the crew goofed off and had a good time.  As we were getting ready to leave Sparks got "in the zone" and decided it was time to do his new Jedi trick.  The box was good size and Sparks just drank a BooKoo so Tailwhip to Tailwhip back was about to happen.  As a warm up Sparks once again did a few doublewhips and decided he was ready.  He dropped in and on his first try did the whip to whip back right to the pedals but in normal shitluck fashion slipped a pedal and ate some shit.  Sparks was PISSED and got up to try it again.  After a few shitty try he had to quit as his bike was KILLED.  He pulled it in my book.

Another Greenville local.  His name is Tyler Harris...remember that!  He's young and GOOD!

Josh Harrington probably 8 to 10 feet above the deck of the 7' quater.  Josh is a very nice guy.  I watched him give a very young local kid advice on tricks.  It's good to see "Big Time" pros help out the little kids at the park.

Allan Schmaltz (Smalls) is always fun to watch. If he traveled more he could probably do well in comps.

The trick of the day happen to be the last trick of the day. Vinnie nailed the gap to rail on his first try.  CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE IT LARGER.