Greenville, SC Filming Trip

Eastern Bikes Greenville, SC weekend trip from Eastern Bikes on Vimeo.
 

Eric and Nick have spent the last couple of months hanging out down in
Charlotte, mainly to escape the frigid winters of the cold north, aka
Minneapolis. As their days are running out we decided to do a little
trip down to Greenville. No, not Pro town, the other one. The one
where fireworks works are legal but you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays.
Some know it as South Carolina.
 
The crew was a simple crew, but packed full of all kinds of characteristics.
 
We’ve got a Zach Rogers, dubbed the giraffe. Then there’s a Seamus
McKeon, similar to that of a bobcat. Eric Holley is like a pitbull.
Nick Anderson, who’s straits mimic that of a rottweiler. Then myself,
Michael McQueen, aka the garden snake. And last but not least, a sleek
equestrian dream, the most beautiful of all known as Joey Seawell, our
trip photographer.
 
Confused? Me too. Apparently these names were made up by Nick and
Seamus late one evening after riding too much.
 
And riding too much is pretty much what we did. We rode, ate and
slept. Priorities in that order.
  
Our trip started out with Joey and myself stopping in Charlotte to
scoop up the crew in the TL88, a common Eastern Bikes travel vessel.
Bikes were loaded as was tons of gear. We ventured south towards
peach/fireworks country. Stopping only to refuel and resist the urge
to purchase lots of explosives. When we reached Greenville we were
quickly greeted by our trip hosts, Colin and Danny. Danny was puttin
us up for the weekend in his extravagant home, actually its his
parents. Our first spot, twin towers. A spot quickly gaining a lot of
attention from out of towners. A demolished mill’s flooring and
foundation have led way to a DIY skatepark of sorts. All sorts of
ledges, wedges, quarters and rails scattered amongst. A good warm up
spot that we ended up getting a couple of clips and photos at.
  


A quick hop and a skip up the streets led us to Greenville’s downtown
district. We then pedaled around to a couple of spots. Stunts were
getting documented but “the man” wasn’t havin it so he gave us the
boot from downtown. So then we went and rode a sewer pipe for an hour.
And yeah, I did an abubuca on it.
 
After riding a sewer pipe for an hour you start to get hungry. But
fast food was not on our agenda for this trip. Incase you’ve been
living under a rock or are filthy rich, we’re in a recession. So that
means we gota be productive with the little money we’ve got. Bilo was
our food source, and Danny’s mom’s kitchen was the spot. Sandwiches,
burgers and breakfast meals meant for a king were all conjured up for
our devouring with very little cash. We spent about as much on gas as
we did on food. Efficiency.
 
After feeding ourselves silly we decided to take a trip up to No Name
skatepark for a little after hour/hangout/heckle session. Right off
the bat Seamus went to drop in on the box and woops, the lip was gone.
So instead of landing on a box lip, he landed on his head. I think it
has something to do with going out of the state with Eric and myself.
Whenever we do, Seamus hits his head, 3 times in a row now. Other than
that, we rode too long and got too tired. The next day would leave us
all sore and half broken.
 
Danny had us sleeping in his attic/dungeon. Sun never touches that
room. Nick called out sleeping all day first try. I think it was I who
snaked him, so therefor he didn’t pull it. It was hard but somehow I
managed to awake everyone by 11. It was probably the smell of
breakfast being assembled like an Eastern hercules complete bike. Next
thing I know everyone’s full and starting to ride the ramp. I opted
for basketball and ended up tweaking my back out. I’m a 15 year old
trapped in a 69 year old’s body.

After my quick recovery mode we headed out amongst the streets of
G’ville. Danny had some awesome spots lined up for us. First setup was
a sweet manual pad spot. Nick had moves, over and done with. Seamus
was next on the list. He was strongly commited with a sick nosemanual
across this dock, but eventually the law informed us that if we
weren’t employees of the Dharma initiative yoga institute or Big Lots,
that we couldn’t play. Off to the Next spot. The theme of the day was
similar to that incident. Nick started to put in work on a sweet line,
but once again, the law shut us down. After the fun police gave us the
boot we headed over to Blazer, the local bike/skate/motox shop to hang
out a bit and ride the kicker. I ate some laffy taffys and did some
documenting of the crew hanging out and shredding.
 
After that hard day of riding and frustration it was time for some
feel good. And what better way to feel good than to cook out. Joey
muscled up some burgers while Zach and I opted for some Veggie
options. Danny’s family really hooked us up. They had such a sweet
pad.
 
After refueling the crew we opted for a spot that cop #1 told us we
could ride. He probably didn’t expect us to haul a generator and
lights out there though. But, that’s what we did. And for a good 2
hours we had an awesome rail session in a park. Nick, Eric and Zach
were the stunt masters for this scenario. They came with a tricklist
and then they left me with a memory card full of sweet clips. 2 hours
of standing beside a cold river kind of sucks, but Joey and I pulled
through like the equestrian and garden snake that we were. Now back to
sleep and thaw out.
  
Day 3 was aimed at getting back to the places we got kicked out of on
days 1 and 2. First stop out the door that morning was back to Nick’s
spot from the previous day. We all roll up, not a soul in sight.
Everyone piled out of our vehicles, Joey and I set up our camera gear
while Nick played around on some curbs. “You ready?” Nick asked, “yup,
lets do this” I replied. And then we did, first try, out the gate. Off
to the next spot. We decided to head back to Dharma/Big Lots for
Seamus’ nose manual. Unfortunately Seamus didn’t have it out the gate,
but being the committed bobcat he is, pulled it clean as a whistle a
couple tries in. After that we went to a couple of other spots to get
a few more clips in before heading back out. I think the crew was
pretty much exhausted by that time. I don’t blame them. Both Joey and
I were fairly done for ourselves. So after a quick stop back at the
Siden residence we assembled our gear, annihilated the rest of our
food and hit the road.
 
One new addition on this trip was my new camera, a Nikon D90. A new
breed of camera’s recently released. Its a digital SLR camera that has
a video function. All the photos for this article were taken with said
camera and the included video clip was as well.
 
We would also like to thank the Siden family for their kindness of
letting a bunch of dudes crash their house for a weekend, hopefully we
didn’t leave the place in shambles. I tried to make them behave... And
thanks to Danny and Colin for showing us how to shred a city proper!


-Mike McQueen