Thrasher Magazine

A cryptic group text popped up on my phone: “Let’s Rev ATL to Tampsterdam for the contest.” GT, Raven and the Maka Lassi posse were fully hyping it up—a bus trip from ATL to Tampa. “Patlanta’s got intel on spots. Tap in family style,” the text continued. I mulled it over—all we’d need is a few hotels, a little gas money and some flights. I made a couple of calls and the trip was green lit. I suggested keeping the crew mellow, eight-to-ten skaters max so we could all fit comfortably in the bus, but once word got out, my phone started blowing up. All the homies wanted some. We quickly ended up with a guest list of 25. Better add a rental van to the budget. We were looking at six days on the road with five thundercloud icons on the weather app. Oh well, sometimes you just gotta roll the dice and say fuck it.

First one out, Cody boardslides off the back for his BMX fan base 

 

This baby comes equipped with eight available spew windows

The class learned you can't light up caulking scraps

GT took a break from driving to lien into the rafters on (another) rainy day in FL

 

We were grabbing some breakfast at a restaurant in Jacksonville, FL, when Rowan walks through the door carrying a used surfboard, looking like Jeff Spicoli. He bought it because it said “Rozo” on the top. Now, I’ve been on a ton of skate trips, but this was the first time I’d seen someone buy a surfboard on one. I’m not hating on surfing, it just seemed like an unnecessarily large item to buy on a trip. And there it sat in the back of the van, rattling around until the very last night when I got a text from Manchild at 1:30 am: “We need to get in the van.” He, Simon and Rozo wanted to go surf—the hotel pool. What started as running, jumping on the board and surfing across the pool quickly escalated to launching off of a nearby wall, catching an imaginary wave. I had to go to the airport at 4 am to catch a flight anyway, so I didn’t care if we got kicked out of the hotel at that point. I’m pretty sure the Rozo board is now back at Grant’s house in ATL—another great place for surfing…

Manchild surfs out a six-foot swell

You can have your Olympics, we'll stay in the jungle. Raney and Simon, doubles routine for team Thrasher

Simon grabbed the filmer's board to serve up this egg in Orlando, so don't kick him off the team, okay? 

 

Rozo keeps the surf vibe alive with a switch noseblunt on the brickwave

Back on his own board, Simon sails backside over the channel with Tony's horns of approval to summon the stoke



Receding hairlines are a fact of life for some of us more mature skaters. Unfortunately for Zeke, his hairline is creeping up higher than his ollie these days. He mentioned his woes to GT who suggested a solution: black spray paint. It looked pretty good from afar, but up close—not so tight. Zeke spent the remainder of the trip trying to scrub the paint off of his skin. To all adult balding males, don’t try this at home!

Raney, frontside fastplant in the sardine can

SOTY '13 grabs some tail on a nosegrind up the E. If you have to look up who this is, there's something wrong with you

C'mon, Tom! GT's dad, frontside 5-0 at Slim's

Getting Dad's back, GT skips the bricks with a stalefish

Manchild and Patlanta check off the acronymous classics—FSA and FSO

Raney goes Graba Lassi with a picture-perfect Smith vert

Taking a page from Cards' playbook, Ishod slides a frontside rock-and-roll around the bend

P-Stone's lookin' over these two



The high/low hijinx on a Maka Lassi trip are all time. Here’s how you play: you sneak up behind an unsuspecting victim, crouch down and have a partner give them a shove. They’ll trip over your body and fall onto their backs. (Bonus points if they’re holding a beer when they hit the dirt.) The guys got into an epic high/low battle one night in a muddy field next to our hotel. It ended with Manchild trust falling off the roof of the van (for some reason) and landing on his head because he didn’t fall flat. The next morning, a guy came up to me in the parking lot and asked, “What the fuck were your friends doing in the grass last night? You’re all insane!” Man, if this is crazy, I don’t want to be sane.

The warm-up before he took one to the dome. Manchild really trusts his friends

High/low? Nah, fool. Low TO high. GT gets lofty at an undisclosed skate paradise

Rowan and GT paddle in

Grant has a gift of making it look all too easy. Gap to noseblunt 

GT gaps out to a backside 50-50 while the rest of the crew nurse their hypebeast hangovers. Thanks, Elmyr

 

On the last day of the trip, Rowan was setting up a board and, as a joke, attached his trucks to the wrong side. Cody and Simon told him he should put on two sets of trucks—top and bottom. It’s an ABD on KOTR, but it was new to these guys. They put the four-trucker to the test in the Bro bowl, charging the waters with some surfy carves and early-grab airs. Then Manchi-hero took it to the next level and started flipping the damn thing. The added weight makes it really hard to navigate—it’s like a ground magnet—but after many failed attempts at landing a 1/2 flip over the hip, he rolled away, board upside down, into the sunset. No rules means no rules.

 

Rowan catches two out of four with our guy Rye right behind

Manch's trust fall was a bust but this frontside 1/2 flip on the ground magnet was aces

God bless it!

This wasn't a demo tour, but nobody told Cody before he blasted this back 180 over the bump-to-set

Rowan confuses the crew with his keg-tapping technique

As we pulled into Tampa we knew our journey was coming to an end. Between the high/low battles, blown fuses, hypebeast hangovers, petri-dish carpets in sketchy hotel rooms, Zeke-a-virus and the relentless rain that followed us, it had been a hell of a ride. A lot can happen in six days and this crew savored every second of it. Follow this formula and you’ll never lose: friends + the road + skateboards = freedom. Try it, you’ll like it. Hope to see you out there. We’ll be the dudes in the little bus pouring jugs of piss out the window. Don’t ask.

 

The road goes on forever...

Thanks to Monster.