Tampa to NYC for Street League Article at Skatepark of Tampa

Tampa to NYC for Street League

Posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 by Ryan

By Ryan Clements

Here’s Part 1 from my motorcycle ride from Tampa to NYC for Street League. With Street League one weekend and Maloof DC the following, it was the perfect opportunity to head up the east coast. I was actually racing Hurricane Irene, and nearly 1,200 miles and a day and a half later, I was in the greatest city in the world. Thanks to Jefferson Pang and the rest of our friends at DC for taking such great care of us during our stay.

It was an early Thursday morning send off from my alleyway in Ybor City.
The sun was just coming up and I was driving through Orlando.
Just after 9am I was blazing through Jacksonville.
It was still morning time and I was in Georgia. That’s definitely the fastest I’ve ever made it out of Florida.
I had to stop about every 200 miles or so for gas. I’m psyched on my new tour pack with the luggage/skateboard holder on top!
Savannah came and went and before I knew it I was in South Carolina.
South of the Border is pretty much the wackiest attraction of all time.
I was a bit far off, but that’s the Welcome to North Caka sign! I was flying and just missing the rain. The roads were wet from previous storms, but so far I had kept dry.
Ryan Clements
Mandatory mid-afternoon boredom-induced self portrait.
It was about 5pm and I entered Virginia. This was the last picture of the day because at about 6pm, in Richmond, I encountered a gnarly storm that forced me to pull over and put an end to my riding. 800 miles in 12 hours isn’t bad.
On Friday morning the weather was beautiful and I had the HOV lanes all to myself on the way to Washington, DC.
I missed Delaware and Maryland, but I got a picture of the New Jersey sign. It should say Welcome to Dirty Jersey – Home of Fred Gall!
By lunchtime I was in Northern Jersey and had the pleasure of stopping by a friend’s house. The ledges look good, but I need some tranny.
Chris Nieratko
The friend happened to be Chris Nieratko, who graciously made some amazing burgers. Thanks to you and your family for taking me in for the day, Chris!
Back on the road and on the way into NYC I decided to stop for gas. I forgot that in NJ it’s “full service.” Then to top it off, that whole hurricane scare was going on, too, so everyone was filling up before the predicted catastrophe.
As I circled into the Holland Tunnel, the view of the City was amazing. Still no sign of Hurricane Irene and I had 1,150 miles under my belt.
Justin Ryan
I navigated through the worst traffic ever, paid too much for parking, got settled at the Ace Hotel, and then skated down to Chelsea with Justin. Over vert grind! He got it, but I missed the picture.
Then we met our friends at DC for pizza. Work was about to start.
Saturday morning at the DC offices we found out that Ryan Smith was no longer on the team. What? Kidding...kidding...
Jefferson Pang
Jefferson Pang is evil-eyeing me because he thinks that I’m going to write some lame comment about him, but really I’m just going to say thanks to DC for giving us the opportunity to comment on next year’s line.
Torey Pudwill
From the DC offices we hustled over to Newark to watch Street League. T-Puds is still hurt, but he’ll be coming out swinging next year.
Here’s the view from the DC suite. Street League got moved from Sunday to Saturday due to Hurricane Irene’s influence.
Sean Malto
Malto came up $200,000 for 1st place! Thanks to Nick from Escapist for the picture. Hurricane Irene was still in charge. We got escorted right out of the Prudential Center and onto shuttles back to NYC.
Then it was time to eat yet again. This is some real NYC stuff right here...pastrami at Katz’s Deli. Tim and Malcolm from Pit Crew and Trent from Cowtown show us how it’s done.
Preston Maigetter aka P-Stone
After dinner we stumbled over to Max Fish and ran into P-Stone. Nope, he’s not sweating...that’s rain from Hurricane Irene, which simply turned out to be a rain storm with a little wind.

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