Zeal Trip '09

Can we all actually spoon? – Isaac Lesser, within the first 2 hours of the journey

I was stoked to be invited on the 2nd annual Zeal trip, and it definitely didn’t disappoint I had more laughs than ever, with interesting van journeys in “the nest”, quotes galore from camp Essex, some eccentric roadside dancing from Mr Martyn Cooper and I even saw some incredible things go down on those tiny bicycles.

Liverpool Halloween Jam was packed and made filming anything a challenge so we got a few clips but all just concentrated on trying to shred in the little space that was available, a few good things went down, Isaac won a well deserved £50 for 360 whipping the big box backwards and double 360 whipping it forwards in best trick, Larry won £50 for best dressed in his ‘Rocky Horror Picture show’ inspired transvestite get up. Unfortunately I got broke off at the first stop in Liverpool with a whip to fuf to slip off and bosh my hip bone on the coping below! After a night in A&E to get checked out I was left on crutches and unable to ride for the rest of the trip. This just meant I concentrated entirely on filming when we got to Glasgow.

We arrived late to the BSD jam after a trek up from Wigan where the rest of the team crashed at Larry Lomotey’s house who also joined the trip leaving his transvestite dream outfit from the Liverpool Jam there. We had just enough time for the most eager of the crew to get a run in the bowl Jam, Martin Cooper killed it in his runs and qualified for the final, pulling all the whip, barspin and upside down variations he could muster came 2nd overall to Kris Kyle who has that bowl on lockdown being an actual resident in Unit 23 skatepark. The rest of the team got their session on, in various areas of the skatepark with Josh, Isaac, Hitchcox and Timmy going to work on the spine mini. Isaac got annoyingly close to a double bars to footjam and Josh was getting ever closer to whip to ice on the quarterpipe. Lots of other mini-esque technical nib jib manoeuvres went down which was a treat to watch before we headed out to get to the hotel.

Sean Lafferty that in this picture actually looks like Satan himself joined us in the hotel and caused mischief by throwing Isaacs beloved chicken carcasses all over him whilst he was in the shower.

“There’s chicken carcasses bloody everywhere!” We proceeded to venture onto the Glasgow streets to make our way to the legendary Nice ‘n’ Sleazy bar in the centre of town, discovering that the Scott’s take Halloween and dressing up in general very seriously and an abundance of exotic outfits were on display, with an enormous Pac man, a variety of super-heroes and a plethora of different animals it was a treat to see the Zeal International Dance team get fully involved!

After catching a few drunken Z’s at the hotel we all managed to get ourselves together in some sort of fashion to make it back to the Unit 23 for another session before leaving. Most of the crew shredded a long, wide perfect driveway for about 3 hours with all kinds of front wheel stunts being put to rest one of which that sticks out in my mind being Billy Cooper’s Sexton along the grind ledge and off the high end, scary as hell to watch. Martyn Cooper then took us all too school on how to destroy a jumpbox with every move in his arsenal popping up. I managed to use an entire tape to film just two clips, one being a hung over Tommy Bruza doing hang ten round the bowl to footjam which when he eventually pulled it was a treat.

We wrapped things up at Unit 23 and begun piling the bikes back into the rig slowly before our colossal journey back down south to Harrow. We stopped at Weatherby by Ben Manuals skatepark for a well earned fish and chips to then discover the van key was on the verge of snapping hundreds of miles from home. As Ben gingerly put the key in it snapped but luckily the snapped half was already in the barrel and left half a key that could be turned to start the rig. It was a tense few minutes but the rest of us took it in our stride with talks about SPDL (sexy polish donut lady) and the theory behind the nest. We all finished the trip with a smile on our faces, some with a limp in their step but all with some funny memories.

Oh yeah I supported a mustache for the trip too!

900+ miles were covered
13 riders in the big rig
4 creates or rockstar
32 rolls handmade and labelled by Vienna

Crew rolling deep were:
Adam Hough
Ben Manual
Billy Purcell
Billy Cooper
Duncan Smith
Isaac Lesser
Martyn Cooper
Larry Lomotey
James Hithcox
Joshua Wyles
James (Bruza) Ivett
Thomas (Bruza) Ivett
Pete Briton
Timmy Docherty
Sean Pointing (myself)

Oh and of course Eisa Bakos