9.29.08 TWS PARK JAM SESSION
We were in the windy city over the weekend to do a demo/skatejam with Transworld Skateboarding Magazine on the Saturday that just passed. The event was at the Northbrook Skatepark out in the suburbs of Chicago. I went out there with John Rattray, Shuriken Shannon and James Brockman to check what Chi-town had to offer. James was the only one out of the crew that had been there before, so the rest of us were pretty excited. We met up with one of our flow riders, Dax Miller, right after we checked in to the hotel. Dax is what you call a local of the Chi and always on the up and up about in the city. We skated with him for a bit and then met up with the rest of the crew later on at a local bar. As some of the guys decided to take in more of the nightlife, Shuriken, Rattray and I headed back to the hotel to keep it mellow. Shuriken wanted to skate a tall flatbar in front of our hotel in the morning, so we called it a night pretty early.
We woke up on Saturday and headed straight to the flatbar. Our friend Ben also met up with us in the morning to shred the flatbar for a bit before rolling with us to the skatepark. Shuriken and Ben skated the thing for about 30 minutes before we had to head to the skatepark. On the van ride to the skatepark we rolled a few games of cilo on James’ Iphone and before we knew it we were there. There were a bunch of kids at the park and our rep Travis was already holding it down with the tent and stickers for the kids. The park was fun but lacked a few street obstacles, but we had a blast and that’s all that counts. The main attraction was probably the smaller bump to bump. Everyone was skating and having a good time. Shuriken did more then a handful of tricks over the bump to bump and was cruising. Rattray in true atv form shredded up the whole entire park with precision and even got a couple tricks over this ridiculous bump to flatbar as you will see in the footage. James was shredding around the park right off the bat and front heeled the bump to bump in my eye to hype up the session. As the day was winding down Shuriken snapped this huge ollie over the big bump to bump. The event was great and everyone had fun! Afterwards we got some dinner at the first Pizzeria Uno to start up the night. Only on skate trips do we end up in these crazy clubs and this trip was no different. We ended up in this club with beds inside and also bottle service, so by the end of the night that equals dance party USA I would say. Good times. We ended the night at a sports bar that was open after hours and knocked a few down then said our good byes and hopped back in a cab to make it to our hotel. We woke up just in time to make our 1:30 flight and back to San Diego we headed. Short and Sweet! I would give Chicago a 3-thumbs up if I had a third thumb.