 | Click here to see the GT, Schwinn, and Mogoose team road trip video. Scroll down to get to the photos of Dave Dillewaard, Steve McCann, Simon Tabron, Cam White, TJ Lavin, Greg Ingersoll, and Skier J. |
The GT, Mongoose, and Schwinn all have one very important thing in common: team manager Chuck Fallon. Chuck is one of the most fun and laid-back people you will ever meet, and he came up with a great idea to get all of his riders together for a road trip. Since everyone was headed to Salt Lake City for the Dew Tour, it made perfect sense to fly in a few days early and cruise around hitting some of Utah’s best skateparks. Chuck also lives in Salt Lake City, so he took care of all the details, and then Vital BMX showed up to document all the action.
TJ Lavin, Cam White, Steve McCann, Simon Tabron, and Dave Dillewaard all arrived the night before the trip began. Simon had been using Chuck’s house as home base during an extended US visit, so it felt like home for him. Chuck had rented a cool RV for the trip, and Dillewaard claimed that as his home every night while McCann, Lavin, and Cam all crashed at a nearby hotel. On the first night everyone chilled out for a good night’s rest, but Dillewaard was wide awake in the RV in front of Chuck’s house roaching a wireless Internet signal to play online poker all night. This turned out to be his routine for the entire trip. Rip all day, gamble all night. In fact, there was tons of poker on the entire trip, and I’m pretty sure TJ came out on top when it was all said and done.
The bulk of this trip was based around cement skateparks, which you can find everywhere in Utah. We met up with Greg Ingersoll and Skier J at one park downtown the first morning, and they hung with us for the rest of the trip. During the first session you could tell this was going to be a fun trip. Both Skier and Greg had plenty of lines wired, McCann was connecting hard tricks together with ease, TJ and Cam were rocking airs, and Simon was blasting and making everyone laugh nonstop. We sessioned the park for a while and then packed up and moved on.
It gets hard to remember which park is which in Utah, because they are all cement and all dialed. Dillewaard grew up riding parks in Australia and he was boosting everywhere we went. The guy is seriously amazing. Simon was a breath of fresh air, too. You may think of him as “that vert rider spinning perfect 900s.” but now we think of him as “that hilarious guy who is down to ride anything and everything.” There was a nonstop train hitting a hip at the Sandy park, and Simon was coming through with turndowns, can-can-x-ups, and he even went for a nothing. He jammed his finger pretty bad on the nothing, which made him lay low for a little bit, but the bowl at the Layton park was so good that he couldn’t stop riding even though he was hurt.
Every rider on the trip ripped. McCann has been blowing up at the contests this year, but he’s a lot more than just a contest guy. He ripped all of the parks, and had a blast at the Tanner trails, which can only be described as amazing. Cam flowed with true park skills, too, and Lavin was not afraid to get inverted over every hip we found. Skier and Greg were the perfect hometown hosts, taking us to great spots and killing it, too.
All of the spots we hit were fun, but looking back, the most fun sessions came from the Tanner trails and the Park City skatepark. The trails were the perfect late afternoon session with everyone having a blast and a little barbecue action at the end. The Park City skatepark doesn’t exactly allow bikes, but we got a good two-hour session with some of the best scenery in the world at every angle. A lot of other riders were in town for the Dew Tour as well, so the trails and Park City session also included guys like Mike Aitken, Corey Bohan, Rob Wise, Heath Pinter, Matt Beringer, and many more. We also made a stop by 50/50 so the team could do some radio interviews and sign autographs for the fans.
When the trip ended, everyone headed to downtown Salt Lake City for the Dew Tour and then went their separate ways. The trip was a blast, and we’d like to thank Chuck Fallon, GT, Mongoose, and Schwinn for making this happen. Make sure to watch the video and check out all of the photos from the trip, you won’t be disappointed.
