Road Trip update # 4 (Miami)
Dane Wild had a kid offer him his bike last year if he pulled this icepick grind and he did. He just took a buck. Dane did it again this trip and this time we got a photo.
We got to Mike Spinners house at the ass crack of 8:30 am. We said hello to mike and then PASSED OUT. This was probably the most tired I've been on the trip for sure. After about 3 hours of sleep we woke up and decided to go get some food and head off to the beach in Ft.Lauderdale.
After taking an hour for the crew to eat McDonalds. Everywhere we go to eat we get the "Oh Crap" look because there is so many of us. After leaving Mickey D's Mike Spinner showed us the way to the beach. Good sun, sand and ocean. Some of the people on the trip have never been to Florida and some have never seen the ocean so the were stoked. Many of the crew (including Danger Debbie) picked up chicks We all went swimming for an hour or two and had a good relaxing time because we also had the "red cups" in hand.
Spinner informed us that if we wanted to ride we had to head out so we started to head to the Brian Piccolo skate park. On the way back however we got side tracked. We came upon a hotel that is set up with the pool about 8' below level of the sidewalk so of course we think "somebody should jump in the pool." Carmickle was nominated and was all ready to do it with his bad ankle. There were a bunch of drunk spring break kids standing around the pool and saw what was about to go down so they started to get rowdy. Just the a security guard walked out. He also saw what was happening and quickly stood between the wall and the pool. We told Carmickle to jump over him but decided that would be a good idea because with his bad ankle he would be to quick at getting away. At that point I saw that the guard had his back to us right up against the wall. The wall was only about 2' away from the edge of the pool so of course it Think "we should nudge the security guard in the pool" I quietly offer anybody on the crew $50 to give the gurd a little tap. A couple people (Suchan and Carmickle) leaned down as far as they could and gave the poor guy a little shove. He stumbled forward and did the arm swinging baby flap to catch his balance. Every drunk kid there went "wooooo" and the guy caught himself right before falling in. We then decided to leave QUICKLY and headed back to the bus. I didn't think sooch had it in him but i was proud to see the old man having fun and being a little reckless.
We made it to the park about 15 mins after the session started. The locals were already killing the place and gave us a warm welcome. Jimmy Hale, David Healy, Shawn Something (sorry) and Mike Spinner were the local shredding standouts. David's bike was stolen a week or so before and he had not gotten a new one yet so he was riding Negative Mike's bike and doing really cool lookbacks as well as some crazy barrel roll summer salt rollovers on some of the grind ledges. The street spine there a MONSTER so it doesn't get 360'ed too often. Jimmy Hale 360 whipped the MONSTER street spine on his second try with a little coaxing from Flip. Jimmy later told us that he had only 360'ed that spine once ever and it was over a year ago. Not Bad!
The crew got to work. Dane did his crazy ass long ipecac grind again after a few tries and this time we even got a photo of it. DJ could ice pick grind the great wall of China if he wanted to. Jamie Charmers was jumping everything so high he was jumping over the moon...really we have photos. Smalls was jumping the big box and doing all his normal tricky stunts like tailwhips, 360's and a bunch of other good things. I think Smalls (Schmalz) is very fun to watch. He's very dialed yet doesn't look like a robot. The Mike Spinner fellow is GOOD. I mean real good. pretty much any tailwhip you can think of he can do. At one point i saw him stand with both feet on his seat as he rode up the ramp to tailwhip tail tap. Don't think all he does is tailwhips either because he doing a lot of cool stuff including 450 lookbacks over one of the big hips. You WILL hear more about this guy later in BMX...trust me. Shanton once again rode the park like he was a local. Fufanu on a vert wall, lots of cool box jumps as well as a BIG backflip over a bikini clad young lady holding the Albe's shirt we gave her. Shanton's first backflip over her was nice but he said he wasn't high enough so he wanted to do it again. He aired the vert wall and raced at the box. Right before hitting the lip you could hear his say out loud "yeah, this is going to be a good one." It was pretty funny and he was right. We checked the photo and he was happy. Aftter a little after session we were ready to go. The plan was to head back to Mike Spinners house and the older crew was going to go out to the bars as the die hards went street riding in Miami with Mike.
This is probably one of the coolest turndowns i've ever seen. Jamie is Chalmers is a good guy.
Bully Bikes Jimmy Hale is a bad mother
Paul Wall has funny eyes...a lot of the time.
Dane does more than barspins, 720's, 540's over spines, and nosewheelies.
Jamie snores REALLY LOUD!
Mike Spinner can do more than just tailwhips. 450 over a large hip.
Dane Wild rode up to fakie to half cab. Thoughts of myspace fill his head.
Shanton Looped this fine lady a few times. She seemed to have some fun with it.
Kris K made $22 to jump out of the park.
Miami Street
I was not there to see all the details because I went to the bars so I'll tell you what I know from the photos and video that was brought back. Mike Spinner is AWESOME. Wait till you see this kid. That is all I will say. Suchan did a nice gap to manual on some ledge that was in a road fools video and Sparks flaired the famous orange peels that have been in quite a few videos now.
Sparks has been feeling pretty crummy on this trip bus still went street riding for 5 hours with the Die Hard. Tailwhip and Flair on the "orange peels" in Miami.
Bars
Flip, Shanton, Vinnie, Kevin, Negative Mike, Steve Burnes, Kris K. Squirrel, and Smalls went down to Ft. Lauderdale to hit up the same club we went to last year that was $15 all you could drink. When we arrived we found out the club had went out of business so we were a little bummed but not to worry was there was plenty of other bars to choose from. We went in to one and it was lame so we left. As we were walking to another club Vinnie stuck and Albe's sticker on a cop car as it drove by.....and the cop noticed him do it. The cop jumped from the car and picked Vinnie up by his collar and sat him on the curb. the rest of us kinda hid out and watched as the cop decided if he should take vinnie to jail. after about 10 mins of trying to scare Vinnie he le him go and we were off to another bar. Squirrel and Smalls didn't feel good to they headed back to the bus to relax and the rest of us found a little bar to chill at. We quickly made friends with the waitresses and once they found out who / what we were they were out new best friends. Many photos were shot as well drinks. Some phone #'s, myspaces and e-mail addresses were exchanged and we left the bar at the closing time of 4am. As we were walking back to the bus some crazy girls starting talking to us. After hanging out in the street with them causing a little trouble we all headed back to the bus including the new girls. After a little while things got a little crazy and i won't go into too much detail.
If you want to see photos from the Bar hoppers click the link below. I'd suggest that if you may be offended that you do NOT click the link below.
We then headed back to Spinners house just in time to see the sunrise. Crazy thing is the die hard street riders got back AFTER we did.
Wed we rode the Merrit Island Park and had ourselves a grand time. We'll do an update in a day or so. Tomorrow we are going to head to a SECRET STOP on the trip that I tried not to let anybody in on. It seems to have slipped out so pretty much everybody on the trip knows but you don't and you will be stoked when you see where it is so be sure to check back.
--Flip
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