2009 Shadow Flow Team Trip Update #2

FatTony

May 04 2009
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Hopefully you are keeping up with the Shadow Flow Team Trip and know that our day started out at Mesh Skatepark in Orlando. Even with minimal sleep and fairly intense heat and humidity the crew managed to get a ton of clips today. Dave Rytell and Trey Jones have Mesh place wired and ride there on a regular basis, but both still managed to find new tricks and lines to film. Albert Mercado and Caleb Quanbeck had never ridden there before and were stoked on both the street side and flow side.

Trey Jones boosting the step up and letting the back wheel get ahead of the front.

Caleb is quickly becoming the official trip front wheel king. Today’s nose wheelie of the day was up and around a bank and 180 into another bank. One of Albert Mercado’s standout moves was a footjam whip on top of the Jersey barrier. Then Dave Rytell 180ed over the barrier into the bank, which was pretty awesome. Trey Jones tried to flair the barrier, but couldn’t quite get it around…but it doesn’t matter because he can impress anyone just blasting the hips and spine. But if I must call out Trey’s banger, it was a huge gap to wallride on the street side of the park. Rickey Bates didn’t ride too much in the park because his bum knee was swelling up, but he did find a gnarly fence gap down the road. The setup was at a hospital and started from a helicopter landing pad and gapped a really far distance over some grass and a big fence before landing flat. Just before his first attempt a security guard came out. Rickey knew he had to give it a go before we had to jet so he went for it in front of the guard, clipped the fence, and ate shit really hard. I would have gone cry like a girl after a fall like that, but that’s why I’m on my side of the lens and Rickey Bates is Rickey Bates. With the guard still talking into his walkie talkie, giving our descriptions to the person on the other end, Rickey went back at it not one, but three more times until he pulled it. However, by that time the filmer had stopped filming because we were getting threats like, “You know you are going to jail, right?” So an hour later we did a quick stealth mission to get a clean photo and clip without the security guard in the shot. Mission accomplished. I’ve heard a lot about how hardcore and wild Rickey is, and now it is totally confirmed in my eyes. Sorry though, you’ll have to wait a while for the photos of all the bangers of the trip.

After a full day at Mesh we went to the famous Maitland brick quarters and got in a good session before a cop showed up and put an end our fun. At least he was nice about it though.

Dave Rytell and Caleb Quanbeck helping unload the van.

As I write this it is about midnight and we just got back from a tour of Orlando trying to find a bike rack at a Walmart. We failed. Hopefully Trey Jones’ bike rack works on the rental van in the morning and we can find a city within a few hours driving distance where it isn’t raining to invade and get in some street riding. Thanks for tuning in, keep checking because this trip is just getting started!

Albert Mercado says his trucks usually look like busdrivers, but these hands are about as far off those bars as you can get before it becomes a suicide.