This tour was sponsored by Adaptive Action Sports, with support from:
Balance
Thrasher Mag
NHS

Find out ,more info about Adaptive Action Sports here:
http://adaptiveactionsports.com/

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Find out more on the tour here:

07/12

I pulled out of town Thurs eve around 7pm. I got to my friend Shane's house in Newport News and settled in with a few beers and watched a couple of movies. This was a great place to leave my truck. He took me to the train station Fri morn (Thanks Shane). It took 9 hours to get to NYC. I met up with the rest of the team and checked into our hostel in Upper Westside. Sat we took the subway to Brooklyn and hit KCDC, pretty low key miniramp session. We took the subway over to the infamous Brooklyn Banks and got some good old NYC old school skate vibe. We tried to get into the heliport bowl in Manhattan and they close at 7. We got there at 7. Place was loud as hell with the helicopters coming and going right next to the bowl. We managed one run each.

Trying to be brief so I can get these shots up and forward them out to family and such. Hang in there for more details and more pictures. We are headed to FDR tomorrow am. These shots are pure trial run with my new flash/fisheye setup. So far I'm pretty stoked on it. Check back later.

Shane's garage lurk.

07/14 NYC

Evan Strong from Santa Cruz, kills it with tons of style.

Evan slams these to hang up, peep that back foot. That's a make!

Oscar Lorreto from Downy CA, throwing up the ollie fakie.

Oscar riding the red pony to fakie

Dan Gale keeps us going and pushed this 5-0 at KCDC.

Rob Nelson Outer Banks NC, taking a break from behind the camera

Local Pat Smith hooks up the directions and rules the ramp there.

Dan berts the banks, this was not an easy place to get speed.

Evan not complying

Evan wall rides to fakie

Oscar gets his wall jam through the crack........s

Oscar front boards to fakie headed down the line.

07/15

After packing up and renting a minivan we loading that mutha down. We then hit B&H photo in Manhattan. This place takes up a city block and is run like a McDonalds. Efficient! quoted by Oscar.... After looking for the release cord and hitting 95 out of NYC we get a little off track headed into Philly. We make the token cheese steak stop before hitting FDR park. We skated FDR for a few hours and headed out to Garry Moore's house in Reading for some tacos and a little eve mini sesh.

FDR Park Philadelphia

If you have been here, you've seen this.....Jose defies gravity

Chad tail taps the Bunker wall.

Evan to fakie on the curb thang

Local was throwing down the rewind

Dan grinds right into human

Evan floats up the extension in the new section

Evan finishes out the eve at Garry Moore's woodsy moldy mini

Oscar rock n roll in deep woods Reading PA

07/16

Mon. chillaxing.....for most of the day. We headed over to somewhere near Lancaster to skate this little backyard homegrown pool and have a little BBQ. Pool was a humbler. Lots of lines in a little space. Made it over my first love seat, though it was fairly easy.
Good times! Thank you Matt and family, you guys have a great spot!

Chris Gentry is on board now and throws down at one of his local spots in Adamstown during a gas/beer up.

The Chou Choe mini, we stopped at the future home of the Adamstown skatepark.

Great spot, lots of shade and good elevation. The plans look sick. Good things to come.

Here's the scene at Matt's. Break time for a quick rain shower. The kids jumped in and kicked balls around while it dried.

Mike Hellman, skated here twice and already fly's around this thing like he's been skating it for years.

Mike floats the hip.

Mike threw a couple of these and landing in a tight spot. Kudos...

Rob, Rock n Roll the continent....

Ken was all up in this bowl, standing up in the corn fields of PA

Matt stands one up over the shallow corner over the love seat.

Sorry I didn't get any shots of others while I was skating/filming. There will be a next time. Got some good video though.

Here is couple of shots from NYC that didn't make it up on the last post. Ground zero was pretty intense. Pretty much a whole city block completely gone. Thinking about people running, fire, smoke, sirens, and the trauma people went through that day was a heavy load as we walked around. It pretty much is a construction site now. Check the photo below to see what they got in store.

Ground Zero Manhattan

Future of the site....

07/17 Arlington VA

We arrived at the hotel and settled in for a few hours. It was 99 degrees when we got there. We got to the park around 6 and lots of locals came out and skated with us. The session went on till closing and I managed to get some grinds and a few photos.

Little grom Arlington VA

So stoked to see Danielle getting some riding in, she is an inspiration

Daniel la kick turning on the banks

Evan smith grinds

Chris gets his nose slide on

Chris with some calloused up hands

Party Artie gets his deep end grind

Evan stands one up right in the death lens.... I really do not have words about how sick that is......

Beau smiths into the eve, he has this place so wired, killer to watch.

Chris Albright all the way from OK

Zach throwing up some frontside

Dan closes out the eve with sick frontside air. Bye VA....

7/18: We flew into Orlando and landed around 1. WE got our rental and hooked up with Nicole (UT) and Kep (CO) and headed over to our resort condo courtesy of edaptive. The place is sick, with two pools, bar, little cafe. Lounged most of the day Thurs while they ran the booth at event central.

We got to our resort.

7/19-22

This was the scene starting of the 07 Extremity Games sponsored by O&P Prosthetics. The opening ceremonies were similar to last year with the exception of live music and a few "different" talents. They added Motor cross and Surfing this year thus bringing the prize money down in all the events. We didn't really have time to catch any of the other events, though our own Evan Strong tried to race the mountain bike event on a loaner that would of served better for a sun cruise through the park. I did manage to catch the last few runs of the wake boarding and watched as our leader and celeb Amy Purdy surfed into third place. Check the results below for the second place rider. Fellow Amped Rider Bibian Mental pulled her beautiful self into first place wake boarding. Making many 180's across the wake and a barrel roll. She is good.

Skateboarding: The course was way different this year than the mini they had last year. They brought in local park builders Old School Skate Parks to build us a street course. There were wedge ramps, a fly box with a rail all sandwiched between a tall vert wall/1/4/bank and a long start box with a rollover, stairs, and a big steep rail. This was on some pretty rough asphalt. It wasn't that slow, but it had it's moments where it didn't really feel that fast. We had a few new skaters this year. Evan who was on tour with us, Jevon traveled from Roanoke VA, and Tim who broke his leg during comp was from ????? The heats started around 10, you had about 45 secs to do two runs. Did I say the heat started? Yup, it was so hot that's about all you could stand. Highlights during these heats were Chaz, last years winner, getting the kickflip over the wedges, rail sliding the box rail, and ollieing the stairs along with solid ollies and lip tricks. Garry Moore threw a few airs off the vert wall while Jevon worked on his back d. Evan Strong was pretty solid, ollies over the wedges, bean plants, 180's, nose manuals, grinds, etc... Justin from Tampa brought back a handstand, some solid fakies on the vert wall, and a few footplants. He was working some weird triple pressure flip trick towards the end almost making it. Tim from Alabama stomped his runs with early grabbers, 360's, and good long runs, and Ben from Orlando worked the 1/4 and tried to get his kickflip. I skated like crap, managing a few tricks on the 1/4 and then not getting a last run for some reason? My two highlights for this contest would be watching Chris Gentry skate. He was killing it, going for his patented flips and boneless ones, def stepping it up this year. The other being Oscar Loretto. He knocked out some bangers early, Rail slide on the steep start box rail, ollie over the steps, and he back 180'd the start box steps. If that wasn't enough he rail slid the box rail and kickflipped to fakie the 1/4. The final was a jam session and some opted to try new tricks and some kept with what they had. We didn't find out who won what till the awards dinner later and it was there after quest judge and ripper Jon Comer called us all pirates did we learn that Chaz came in 6th, Tim Burt, 5th, Justin 4th, and in the money Chris Gentry 3rd, Oscar Loretto 2nd, and Evan Strong 1st. He explained it as being a really hard event to judge. Skaters already have such a unique approach to what they are skating and when you add in a factor as one leg, no foot, or no arm you get a lot of different styles and ability. I will say that what won the event was a frontside grind on the tall vert wall.....

Check the results and the pictures below for more, we moved onto CA after this event, so join us below.

Results:
Skateboarding:
1. Evan Strong
2. Oscar Loreto
3.Chris Gentry
4. Justin Beuche
5. Tim burton
6. Charles House

Double Amputee flying in for the opening

Chaz's every move being followed while eyeing up this bomb drop

Chaz ollies the gap with an extremely photo shopped sky....

Chaz kickflips the gap no problem

Chaz sliding the tall rail on the box

Chris signing autographs for his fans

Chris gets the gap with a hand/kickflip boneless....

He's stoked

Jevon from Roanoke getting the back disaster

Justin fakies the vert wall

Justin no comply footplant?

Tim Burton eyes up the course before his run.

Garry MooreAmped Rider founder airs off the vert wall.

Evan gets some grinds during his run.

Evan with a lien footplant over the gap.

Evan floats over the gap.

Evan with the 1500 dollar grind

Oscar with the kickflip fakie

Oscar RnR's the 1/4

Oscar stair counting looks like 8

Oscar gets the tall rail during comp.

Some dorking off during the wait for the copter shots.

Quick, get some action going, copters are flying...... Zach and Oscar

Jon Comer throws up some frontside

Eric from Old School skateparks bbbbbbbblasting to tail

That was it for the Extremity games, will there be another one next year? Who knows. We hope so, but maybe in Alaska next time......

7/22

Sun we head over to the Warped Tour at the Orlando arena. AAS had a booth set up to raise awareness and road funds and the place is totally nuts. I counted at least 10 stages with bands all playing at once. The only band I saw was Revolution Mother with Mike V and they were good. Heavy, loud, fast rock n roll. We met Mike after his show and we got Pennywise to sign a few decks since they were right behind us. We skated the metal mini and ended up being in the contest. A couple of mini ramp champs took that ramp over and prob won......

Pennywise signing some AAS Decks

I have a little gap here, we skated the Cocoa Beach park Sun night. We got there about 15 min before they close, but thanks to the guy working the park, not only did he keep the park open a little late for us he called Mike Rogers from Grind 4 Life and he came out with some tunes and the keys! We all had a killer time skating the bowls, the banks, and the big cradle. I didn't pull out my camera but our photographer Christina did, looks like she got some shots of Mike killing that cradle. Thanks again Mike! We stayed at a hotel right on the beach and hit some breakfast in Cocoa with the whole team except for Chris and Garry. We flew out around 3.

7/23

We have the most beautiful people on this team. Eva from Switzerland, Danielle from San Diego, and Bibian from the Netherlands

Have a lot of luggage that absolutely has to be there, pay for curbside check in.

We called it, Miss Texas won the Miss Galaxy and sat right in front of us on the plane.

7/23

After a small lay over in Houston, a late night in San Francisco, we skated around town hitting the DLX shop for tape and headed to the demo. Every where in town is a downhill haul at some point. You can skate any where in San Fran.

This is where we meet up with the The Collective Sound Summer music camp. Here is some more info on our stops out west. Element Youth Movement. 50 or so kids all playing music at each stop. The music was pretty good. It sounded killer while they played Union Square. We had a special permit to skate the marble here at Union square, granted we put down masonite. We had some prefab ramps donated from Free Ramps. It wasn't that bad.

We had a couple of new skaters skating with us, this was Ryan. He gets some flow from Black Label and has a huge bag of tricks.

Ryan tweaked crail air

Ryan with a big ole kickflip over the boundry markers

This is the other ripper, send me your name, backside 180 bonk off the marker.

Evan gets his finger flip footplant during the best trick with Oskar.

Oscar kickflip in the mist

Oscar frontside flip

To keep it fair, Element rider Brent Atchley splits the 100 bucks and two decks for best trick between Oscar and Evan.

Stoked local grom couldn't wait to ride his AAS board.

7/24

Goodbye San Fran, hello San Diego. We have a demo at 5 in Costa Mesa at the Camp shopping plaza.

Hey Evan, check that out......

If your bag comes out last, it's prob gonna look like this.......I lost quite a few things....

Click on the picture for more art from the belt buckles that were on display.

Anyone know this guy, he ollied the fence no problem.

Ryan again blasting at the Costa Mesa demo.

Ryan crail transfer across a janky hip.

Oscar rail sliding

Getting ready for the night.

7/26

We have an off day and head to Etnies which is aout 5 miles from out hotel. This park is so good. I ran into Nick from Broken mag while I was there. Thanks for the grip Nick. After cruising around at half speed for a few I look down and my leg is twice the size of my right leg. I hobble home on that and went to the emergency room, turns out I have a Baker's cyst, glad it wasn't a blood clout.

Danielle cruising a new line at the Etnies park.

Evan learns a new trick on the vert wall.

Another sequence of Danielle cruising the street course.

Danielle and Evan cheesing for the camera.

Oscar's mom hooked us up with some much needed home cooking! Thanks Mom!

This 85 year old lady sang back up for Billy Holiday and brought the house down at this LA art party for Shalon Goss. more pics from that night here.

7/27

Washington Street. place will humble the hardest skater out there. Lines don't come free here. Get a couple and you will find yourself flying around one of the best under the bridge projects out there. I really wanted to get that seat, but was a little held down with my leg. Evan and Dan took care of it though, hell yeah!

See some lines?

Evan got the seat in the corner.

Evan dog piss where I'm sure there's been some real dog piss.

Another peep of Evan with the crew watching.

Later that eve, we head over to the OB Rob Field Skatepark. Lots of locals turn out for this event. I saw Pineapple, Delgato, Heddings, Romeo, and his roommate Matt McGuire. We even had G&S 80's pro Steve Claar come out and ride. Turns out he is a fellow Amp Rider and is now on the team. Great session at a great park. Right on the water at sunset was pretty rad.

Danielle finds her lines

Evan feebles the spine

Matt McGuire blast over the hip.

Mike Romeo grinds

Evan and Danielle again for the camera

Oscar floats backside over the hip

Steve Claar cruising the park.

Thats a wrap everybody!

Thanks to everybody involved making our tour a complete success! We couldn't of done it with out you. Dan and Amy, you guys are the most motivating people I know. You both went way out of your ways to make all the athletes comfortable and cared for during this two week trek. I can only hope to be a part of something like this again, real soon.

Thank you the reader for keeping the inspiration along the trip, we had over a thousand views on our blog in the last two weeks. That really means allot!

Take care until we tour again....