November 25th, 2009 - by
Stuff
Boston Street Battle 2009 Report
Tags:
blake obrien, boston, brian bruno, bsb 2009, gabe holm, jeff dalnas, keegan smith
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My girlfriend, Kara, and I left the suburbs of Illinois on Tuesday night around 8pm to embark on a 16hr drive to Boston, MA. We passed through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Rhode Island.
My girlfriend, Kara, and I left the suburbs of Illinois on Tuesday night around 8pm to embark on a 16hr drive to Boston, MA. We passed through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Rhode Island. Our first destination was Gabe Holm's apartment, which is located in Dartmouth, MA on the campus of UMASS. Our second destination was the Airport on Thursday in Boston to scoop up the Scribe crew, Dan Fabiano, Blake O’Brien, and Marc Clune from Minnesota. After 4 gas stops, tons of coffee, energy drinks, and un McDonalds breakfast, we finally arrived at Gabe's place.
We finally reach our destination around 1:30pm and I'm very excited to blade. After Kara and I changed, we left Gabe's apartment and headed to the tennis courts to warm-up on some p-rails and boxes that Gabe had built there. Homies, Taylor Green and Mo Marzuq meet up with us and were ready to hit up some spots. Gabe informed me that there were tons of rails on campus that we could skate to, so we decided to do that. After we skated a long sticky rail and a super fun quad kink rail, which was unfortunately just as sticky, we ended up at a really nice rail down the middle of some stairs. Gabe snapped some photos and we called it a day due to exhaustion, lack of sunlight, and hunger. We swallowed down some overpriced yet amazing bacon cheeseburgers, picked up a 30 case and headed back to Gabe's to call it a day.
Thursday morning I woke up to Kara informing me about a text message from Dan about flight problems. Apparently, there flight never existed according to the airlines. I guess priceline.com messed up big on that one. Fortunately, they were able to book a later flight. Gabe had class all day and work so we decided to be tourists for the afternoon and ventured off into the city of Boston. We drove around for a while and couldn't really find a spot to park nor did we have any prior knowledge about where the "hot" spots were. After speaking to Mo, he directed us towards a great area in Boston filled with really cool boutiques and actual parking spots. We picked up some threads, ate at an amazing diner, and set off to the airport.
The airport was surprising super easy to navigate through and in no time, we spotted the Minnesota kids and some how managed to pack everything into the trunk. Luckily, Dan's parents had a really nice place in Boston and just so happened to be out of town that weekend. We decided to head there first to settle in and get fresh. Everyone was really hungry so we headed to the Piccadilly pub for a nice meal and a few brews. We called it an early night and headed back to Dan's for a few episodes of Californication.
We got off to a late start on Friday but Blake made friends with the espresso maker and we were all ready to blade. Aquarium ledges were first on the schedule, which turned out to be quite the task to accomplish. Parking was horrendous but after about 45 minutes of searching we found a meter spot. We finally got to the ledges to see about 15 other rollerbladers shredding. This spot consisted of few marble ledges in lines that we all were excited to tear up. After about an hour and a few clips here and there, we headed to a spot we had seen while we were trying to find parking earlier. It was a large metal sculpture that Blake decided to lace a huge 540 off of. To avoid a parking ticket, we had to head back to the car plus, it was getting dark out. We went back to Dan’s place to change and get ready for a bar session in Boston. Our first bar consisted of dirty looks and overpriced drinks. Anxiously waiting Gabe’s arrival we ran into Andrew “Smokes” Smolak. This was the first time I had met Smokes and immediately I was stoked on his presence. Easily, one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever gotten the pleasure to meet. After waiting forever for Gabe to show up, Smokes suggested a more price friendly bahh. Bahh, you say? Smokes was also gifted with the most amazing Boston accent ever. Fact. He meant bar but we all enjoyed his efforts thoroughly. So we took his advice and after what were supposed to be a 10-minute walk, turned into a 45-minute Oregon trail like adventure. Luckily, nobody got the flew but I did get denied access into this joint. Apparently, only having one form of out of state identification is not the best plan of attack when trying to get drinks in a foreign city. So, we ended up walking another block or so until we reached a more ID friendly establishment. A couple hours passed and everyone besides me had had their fair share of alcoholic beverages. Knowing the Boston Street Battle was the next day, I decided to gather everyone up and head back to Dan’s place. We all passed out promptly anxiously awaiting the competition.
We awoke Saturday to find out that the comp had been rescheduled to Sunday due to the excessive amount of rainfall that had come in from a prior hurricane. Unfortunately, our Boston trip was supposed to end on Sunday morning. Kara had to work on Monday morning but she decided to call in so we could attend the comp. Did I mention that Kara is the shit? Anyways, Gabe invited us to come out to the Rye Airfield Skate Park, which was about an hour away from Dan’s place. We all really wanted to attend except for Dan. He had drunk way too much the night before and was currently becoming great friends with the toilet. So we gave him an hour and a half and were convinced he could make the trip as long as he was granted shotgun. I agreed and we left shortly after. After driving through heavy rain, we had finally reached our destination. The park was enormous and actually quite rollerblader friendly as far as the terrain was concerned. We ended up filming a bunch after we set up a sweet launch to rainbow box. 4 hours later and some delicious pizza, we headed back to Dan’s for a quiet evening filled with zero alcohol.
It was finally Sunday, the day of the Boston Street Battle. Everyone was up early and ready to head to the meeting spot. We all met up at concrete skate park that was still a little damp. Hakeem, from Create Originals, brought a box he built to the park. I’m not going to go into all the details of the comp but I will tell you that it was a great time and everyone killed it. Blake O’Brien took first along with fellow Scribe teammate Marc Clune at 2nd. Good job boys. After the comp we all went out to dinner to celebrate. Kara and I decided to drive back to Illinois after dinner. We parted ways with the Minnesota guys and headed back home.
- Brian Bruno
Photos by Gabe Holm
Roadtrip Shots by Brian Burno
2009 BSB Results:Spot 1:
1st: Blake Obrien
2nd: Keegan Smith
3rd: Jeff Dalnas
Spot 2:
1st: Marc Clune
2nd: Kyle Couture
3rd: Jeff Dalnas
Spot 3:
1st: Blake Obrien
2nd: Keegan Smith
3rd: Kyle Couture
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Comments
Nice!