Every year before the Chicago Street Jam, the boys pack up in the van and take a trip somewhere around the Midwest. The entire crew was in town for this one which was a nice treat. Since it takes a whole day to gather up everyone, some of us cruised the city and hit up a couple parks with some friends. As the day continued, the crew got bigger. We caught a nice sunset sesh at burnham and headed back to Mokena.

Half the crew stayed at Shane’s apartment, our sales manager and the rest stayed at Collin’s. There was limited couch/floor space and it was a nice night so Jon and Issac decided to sleep on the balcony. Once everyone was up and fed, we met at the shop, snagged any last minutes parts, packed up the van and hit the road.

This year we decided to hit the Rust Belt cities of Detroit and Cleveland. The crew consisted of Jon Archer, Erik Feenstra, Jona Humbel, Jordan Jasa, Dylan Kasson, Tom Kvilhaug, Chris Martin, Ralph McMoran, Issac Miller, Josh Smukal, and Collin Snoek. After hours of driving, we were just minutes from Detroit and we still hadn’t nailed down a hotel to stay at. This is pretty normal for us for some reason. As one person drives, the other books a cheap hotel, or finds a place to eat, or locates the next spot.

As we neared the first spot we knew right away the neighborhood we were in was sketchy. The gas station we stopped at for drinks had a couple cops posted up and the checkout area used a sort of rotating lazy susan for the teller to take your money, because the rest of the counter had bulletproof glass separating the customers from the teller. We expected a bit of sketchiness, but what we didn’t expect was the wind!

The first spot had some of the gnarliest wind we have ever rode in. But the spot was so good that it didn’t even matter. Northwestern High School is filled with crazy banks, ledges, and transfers everywhere. You could start at one end, carve one wall for speed, then push up to the biggest wall with perfect tranny at the bottom to hit your trick. It wasn’t long before the tricks started going down.

Tom K switched things up by hitting the wallride off the side of the bank, and almost whipped into it. He got the whip in a couple of times but just couldn’t pull out of it to land. Some local homies showed up to the spot and helped us get into the abandoned building across the street so we could shoot some b-roll and explore. Tom K eventually broke his deck and we were outtie to the next spot.

This was one spot we knew some tricks would go down. It was a perfect 9 stair rail down a bank at some ATV dealership. This thing was seriously so low, it was like a park rail. So immediately Tom and Jon started trying tricks up it.

People were looking at tricks over the rail into the bank too. As Jona was working his way up to back sugarcaning down it, Tom and Jon both laced their tricks and Issac was able to lock into a backside over 5050.

The sun was beginning to set so we decided to make our way into the city for some extra light to see if we could find anything. We ended up at a random street by the river that of course Dylan knew a spot on, so we scoped it out. The place looked insane and had banks, tables, ledges, stairs, even manny pads.

This place looked like fun and was all downhill, but a lot of the obstacles had some minor flaw to it that made it hard to ride. The whole team was pretty tired so we decided to just head back to our hotel that was behind Hooters.

After breakfast and a round of crabapple dodgeball (which Chris lost), we hit up a really cool DIY. Everyone got clips despite the soaring temps. Some people came out and took some modeling photos which was strange because that DIY was just in a basketball court next to an empty field. The local homies ended up meeting up with us and we hit the next spot but not before we had some pizza at a bowling alley.

Once we finished we headed over to the abandoned building with a sunken in 2nd floor that created the perfect tranny you could hit. There was also a sketchy bump to rail and a random cinderblock ledge. This spot was low key famous. DVS, Rome SDS and some ski company have all ridden here. While some people were trying to film tricks, others went and explored around the building, and even got up on the roof for a bird’s eye view.

After leaving the warehouse we ended up driving up and down random roads to see if we could find anything. We did end up finding a wallride gap to sidewalk that Dylan attempted. It had a weird run up and of course Dylan had to go full speed at it.

We were there for about 30-40 minutes before he started getting sun sickness and had to call it otherwise he would of been drained the rest of the day. While we were there some of the crew noticed a 5 kinked rail that we would later come back to.

We continued to drive up and down roads and stumbled on another small DIY which was right next to another abandoned building.

Some of the team rode and some of us explored the building trying to find a way up on top of the roof to get a good B-roll shot but there wasn’t a way.

We headed to downtown Detroit, to Hart Plaza. We did get the kickout but not before Tom was able to sticker slap one of the sculptures. After driving around for a long time not finding anything, we came up on a red bump to bar outside a local youth boxing gym. After about five minutes there a dude in a van drove up on us super-fast, and started yelling at us to leave. He was saying how he owned the place and it was for the kids, and that they just painted the rail that Jon was about to grind. Over and over the guy yelled, “I did it for the kids” while he kicked Jon’s backpack and got in his face.

Jon just replied with, “chill man, I like the kids too”. We were fine with leaving but the dude was being unreasonably angry and nearly fought Jon. It was a tad scary because we were learning how sketchy Detroit can be and we didn’t know if this guy had a gun or anything. Everything happened pretty fast so we packed the van up and drove off while he was taking pictures of our license plate. We quickly realized Dylan wasn’t in the van and we had to go drive up and down the roads and try to find him and hope this guy wasn’t following us.

Once we got Dylan in the van we headed to the 5 kinked rail from earlier. Tom scoped it out and turns around and says, “Yeah I’ll hit it. This blew some of our minds how casual he said it. We got the lights out and the kids started flocking to us. Since the kids have nothing better to do, they come hangout with 11 dudes traveling in a van. These kids were a pain because they kept getting in the shot or using the rail as a gymnastics station. Tom gets about 10 or so tries into it and makes it past the 3rd kink but slips out.

The whole team gets hyped but shortly we get kicked out by a janitor. She said she already called the cops. Tom tries 2 more times and realizes he needs more time and not to be under pressure so we pack up and go. On our way back to the hotel we find a cool little manny pad and 4 or 5 benches sitting around it. Dylan and Jordan end up getting clips while some of the team ventures off and grabs some tasty beverages to bring back to the van for everyone.

With about a weeks notice, some of the Columbus homies took the CR-V to Cleveland to ride some new spots. The crew consisted of Dylan Kasson, Chris Martin, Josh Smukal, Kyle Arnholt and Max Lemonds. We got to Cleveland later than we wanted because Kyle left his scooter in his other car but we still cruised around and checked out some spots. A Clevelander and fellow rider, Nick Schroth was nice enough to house us for the night. The next morning we rode some spots outside of the city. Eric Zanath ended up hopping in the CR-V which meant 4 deep in the back seat. Every spot except for one that we went to, someone got a clip or a photo which is pretty odd. We only got kicked out of two spots. The first one, the security guard said it was cool and just be safe

but then the owner came out and told us we had to leave and that we couldn’t play here. Dylan got heated when he called scootering playing so we stuck around and rode for another 5 minutes until Dylan got the clip. The second time the cop was really nice about it. He understood that it was a nice day and we were just trying to have a good time. The whole trip involved endless chipotle lines, mobbing the streets of Cleveland, Skitching cars, talking Kyle into trying tricks, Josh and Kyle’s first trip together while being on Downside, Finding the two Hellagrip sheets that Jonny 2b left behind, dodging people as we cut through the rock and roll hall of fame ceremonies and hitting up a weird fountain bank spot right next to the projects.

Flying away from the snow, Jordan, Erik, and Dylan arrived at Ralphs house. Well, Erik ended up missing his flight but the crew picked him up the next morning at the airport. Alex Steadman drove up from Arizona. It was a warm day and without a care in the world, they zoomed out of Ralph’s neighborhood. As they accelerated on the freeway ramp they were met with a gridlocked highway, it was official, they were in LA. They quickly realized their next ten days were going to be sitting in a car. This wasn’t there only problem. They arrived on a Friday and were heading out ten days later on a Monday. This allowed four weekend days and six weekdays. Regardless of the city, riding street on weekdays is tough. People are working, walking, driving, and sitting on all the spots you are trying to ride. You also cant forget other riders. Jordan ended up posting a spot on instagram and before they knew it, 20 riders were there to hang out. This is cool and all but it always ends in a quick bust or too many people riding the same spot which is hard for filming. With that said, they thought of spots that simply didn’t have anybody there at anytime. The most common types of spots like this are ditches, DIY’s, abandoned businesses, and businesses after hours.

When you want to go to a spot in Los Angeles there are a lot of factors that dictate if you should go to it other than the desire. The major issue being if the spot stills exists. There has been many times when the team thinks they are in the wrong place, but the spot is wiped from the earth because they would rather demolish it instead of cap it. If they go to a well-known spot on a weekend, it is almost guaranteed there are multiple skate crews filming for their top-secret ground breaking video part. Spring break for schools is never a consistent time country wide like Christmas break so the team would search online to see if they were on break before going to a school. Erik and Ralph were in need of the most footage to finish their parts so the priority was on them. Everyday the team left the house at 11am and didn’t get back until 11pm. It was an intense trip with the non stop driving and riding all over Southern California. They all emerged with some more clips to put on the timeline, and photos to add to this article. This was the last official filming trip for Tilt 2 so what was filmed is the final material that will go into the film. The trip was successful because through all the setbacks that occur navigating the real world as a street rider, they managed to focus on the goal of finishing the video.

Day three in San Francisco was the filming of the Tilt 2 intro. We ghetto rigged the back door to stay open while Chris held onto the camera/tripod and filmed while Collin drove. If you have ever been in the van with Collin you know thats gnarly and we even had to blow a stop sign going about 20mph to get it. Once we split up for the day it went great for the Tilt van getting some good action but for the rental car it went way south. Lots of driving around and spot bust so they ended up checking out the golden gate bridge. They did scope out a killer school for after sunset sesh. We all met at the school that night which was in a neighborhood. Lighting it up was going to be risky but we felt like it was worth it. A lot of people were either watching us ride through their windows or hanging out on the street corners confused but intrigued. A couple cleaning people went into the school while we had the lights up and they seemed concerned but didn’t want to confront us. We hopped the fence in the back and lit up a 17 stair. Issac got the clip 1st try and the whole team started yelling in excitement. Tom started lining up for his trick but some lady drove by and said she called the cops and one of the cleaning guys came out and said we had to go. I have never seen a set up get torn down so quickly and packed in the van. We are talking lights, light stands, generator, gas can, extension cords, two HVX’s, 7D and flash all over a 10ft fence in about 90 seconds. The next day we drove around together hitting the same spots and getting portraits of the team for the website. We did a quick stop at Wallenberg just to peep it. There were a bunch of kids practicing basketball and a random yoga group but before we knew it, Issac was throwing himself down the set. Re-opened his hand again but in the end he landed the trick. Three times might I add but they weren’t as clean the first two times.

After Wallenberg we hit up Twin Peaks to check it out and see the sunset and take some photos. Mostly everyone still wanted to ride so we drove around for a bit and ended up at a ledge/mani pad. The main reason was for Jordan to get a clip but everyone else ended up getting something but he couldn’t pull through. We went back to the hotel, ate some pizza and went over the 2015 spring/summer apparel drop. By time we finished up it was close to 2am. Since this was our last night and tomorrow we had a long van ride so some of us decided to stay up all night and go out riding. Ralph didn’t even change out of his pajamas as we hit the streets. It was pretty interesting and fun but holy crap were we tired when that sun came up. On our way back to LA we stopped at Big Sur. Jona was pretty much asleep for the whole thing until we took one of the sketchiest roads up some mountains with vertical drops that would keep us rolling all the way to the ocean if we went off. Jona was not about that life at all. As part of the crew split off at Ralph’s house to hangout and film the other part drove the van back to Chicago with stops in Vegas, Canyonlands National Park, Breckenridge ski resort, Denver and from there we drove straight to the Tilt House. Some things that need to be noted is Collin peeing on people’s houses, actually Collin just peeing where ever he wants. Tom K going through a red light in front of a cop and the cop not doing anything. Going to a school while in session and getting kicked out because Ralph was smoking. The teacher then realized we were riding the spot and then got kicked out for scootering. Blaring Taylor Swift in the van and the whole vehicle rocking back and forth. Erik and Tom both having birthdays during the trip. The team battling to charge their phone inside the van and one hell of a time in the bay.

San Francisco was a mission, getting up at 8am and riding till 9pm if not later. The entire team was crammed in a van with everyones luggage from LA to Oakland. After our Denny’s experience we for sure thought we were getting a hotel with cockroaches but it turned out pretty swanky. The next morning we went over how the crews were going to split up. Half the team went in the Tilt van and the other half rolled around in style with the rental car. The first day doing this, everyone was hyped to be in the bay. Half the team had never been to San Francisco and the other half had been to the bay 7+ times. We hit some of the more famous spots to give the rookies their taste of what San Fran has to offer. The crews didn’t meet back up till night time to light up a bank to jersey barrier which almost everybody got a clip at. By the end of the day, one crew alone got 15 clips. That was pretty heavy and we for sure thought the rest of the trip was going to go that way, but it didn’t. We split the crews up a little differently the second day and some of us ended up hitting the same spot twice. Like the flower shop, I think we passed that place 8 times in the 4 days we were in the bay. The first spot the rental car hit was along the water and so many people were constantly in the way.

There was this one lady that ran into a friend and they started small talking and her little white dog that was off the leash was just barking at Jona as he stood there and waited for the lady to move. She was oblivious to what was going on so Jordan rode up to her and started circling her. Her dogs were barking like crazy and she couldn’t even hear her friend talk so finally she realized what was going on and continued to keep walking so Josh could hit the spot. Thank you Jordan, you were a hero that day. Again the crews didn’t meet up till later that night to sesh the same spot which was a DIY bank spot. Turned out to be a lot of fun and a bunch of tricks went down including a pretty sizable gap that Dylan hit twice to get a line. The funny part is half way through Dylan trying the trick, a mini van was parked by the landing which made the trick that much harder. Some of us split off to eat some dinner at a random taco food truck which turned out to be some of the best food on the trip and a famous San Francisco grub spot. Once back to the hotel, some of us got together and rode over to the Hella Grip house to watch some skate movies while the others either stayed up and went through footage or just went to bed.