Jason Spivey with a front rock in Baltimore. Photo: D. Stuck

Opposite: Connor Ose dangles his board over the water with his pivot fakie.Photo: Mike McDonald

Skate Shops are vital to local skate scenes. They provide a place for you to lurk, build relationships with companies, and a chance to skate with likeminded individuals. This Baltimore’s 3 Ride Shop.

I like beer, Chirs likes beer, we all like beer. Chris like big rails and getting gnarly. As long as he’s not bummed he wont be bummed.

A great place to visit, well if you’re into that sort of thing. This particular instance involves a two day trip with 10 kids, a van that hadn’t seen a good day, ever, and a lot of green crack.

...............................Drop In

.................Spring New Year ..........................Mike McDonald

..............................Chris Dziema

I must have had a smile on my face one bright and sunny morning. My usual routine led me to buy a cup of coffee and the café Barista remarked, "You look like you're in a good mood today." I was not sure if I usually look like I am in a bad mood. Mornings have never been my best time of day. I responded, "I guess spring is here and I am finally warm again." Later on that same day, one of my friends mentioned that the first day of spring should be celebrated as the begin-ning of a new year. I began thinking about this idea and wondered why we celebrate a new year in the middle of winter? In the winter not much seems to change like the

spring. in fact a new year.

All days appear so similar that on occasion, the only clue is a date on the calendar. I began to question why a winter date determines the shift into a new year? In my mind it was starting to seem more logical that spring is in fact a new year. We all notice the beginning of a seasonal cycle in the spring. After feel-ing stiff and dormant throughout the win-ter season, the warmth of spring and the feeling of new life produce wonder along with it. This is change happening in the form of rebirth and we are all a part of it. We get together and remark about how people are smiling and spending time outdoors. New ideas seem to magically appear along with the motivation to follow through. We all hear or see the birds bus-ily foraging and singing songs. Laziness seems like yesterdays problem as mobil-

ity occurs without difficulty. without dif-

So what are we to do? Set up a new board, break out some new shoes, a new tee, and hit up some spots. Add a new layer of wax to a ledge or wood to a ramp and get busy. Pour out some new cement. Go get some photos or footy. Throw a party with a cookout. The bees know what's up. The flowers have bloomed and opened up. The bees are the first to busily pave a road for the new cycle of seasons and life. It seems obvious that change and new life is happening in the spring. Forget the calendar, spring is truly a sign of the new year.

Words:: Greg LangSivan Dor:: Late Night OlliePhotography:: Bill Tomlin

Josh Wilson Boneless

Josh Wilson Alley-Oop Wallride

Located in the lovely Hillburn, NY, which I have never had the privilege of exploring, I did however get the worst McChicken at a service station a few exits north. Accessable through rt. 87, 287, and 17 makes this park a go to spot for people from NYC, Upstate, and NJ in the winter time. Despite how cold it can get inside the diverse terrain and wide open space makes it worth the longer warm up time. Peace of mind knowing that there will be no close calls with annoying bikers(unless its a sunday from 6-9pm) or scooters, and no one even rollerblades. If you want to chance cracking your skull and you’re over 18 you can totally go for it, but according to the website groms have to sport full padery. Rather than wasting time playing volleyball with some loser camp counselors, your kid can skate all summer with some loser camp counselor. Seri-ously though, the June through July summer camp provided is a really great program and helps kids skate while mom and dad are at work or whatever they are doing during the day..Definitely check this place out if you haven’t yet. I had the opportunity to shoot some photos after hours with the Stimulus team, most of which skate the park on the regular, so we got to work. Based out of NJ with a tight crew of skaters, everyone one on the team with a unique style. Hit them up at Stimu-lusskateboards.com and show some support.

words and photography:: Bill Tomlin

Josh Wilson Alley-Oop Wallride Eric Dermond Backside Hurricane Alex Duke Backside Tailslide

Tony Cocchi Pivot Fakie

Photography:: David Stuck

It has been a couple years now since I have gotten on 3 Ride, oh and how the times have changed. Naturally, we are now much larger and more diverse, have great influence on the next genera-tion of full-blown rippers. In 2008, with the release of our first video, “3 is the Magic Number,” the skate scene has grown dramatically, and kids all over the area are now making videos they will always remember. These kids are creating their own “3 is the Magic Number” as we speak, skating day in and day out, documenting the trials and tribulations of a kid with full reign of his or her city. It is this that keeps me moving forward though always keeping my

Baltimore skating. Though I wasn’t a city kid growing up, and am not much of one to this day, I love skateboarding in Baltimore and its surrounding areas. As a little long-haired skate rat I spent many of nights in a city just east of downtown Baltimore we call Towson. Towson is the hub of my greatest memories both on and off the board and will always be a place holding great sentimental value. Mason Jennings once brilliantly stated, “dreams are made of memories,” and he cannot be any more right. Without my memories of the shops, spots, and the nomadic life-style I would not have this opportunity I do today.

fFront Blunt Gap Over

Riding for 3 really made me realize how little I knew about skating in Baltimore and the true potential of this city. So it’s safe to say that I owe the team for turning me on to a majority of the spots around B-more city. Though exploring the streets of B-more can be a hassle, it can pay off if you’re willing to skate around until you find a spot without security or some other form of skate-proof obstacle. For instance, I had heard about this spot, an abandoned foundation called New Ridge (where the photo was taken), for a long time before I got to skate it. Jason Spivey (fellow 3 rider) was having no problem with

with the bank wall but I was surprisingly humbled over how difficult it was to skate. I poked around different sections of this abandoned foundation until I found this tree. After a little dirt brooming and shrub grooming I was excited to try this new feature. I love skating with the team because we all have such different ideas of how to skate a spot. So I guess it is the diversity that attracted me to 3 and that’s why I’ve stayed with them. That and genuinely nice guys like Car-rington and Jay are hard to come by these days and I appreciate them having my back.

Kickflip

Frontside 270

The Baltimore skate scene is okay, it seems to be getting better ev-eryday since more people are out skating. Skating in Baltimore is always challenging, the spots are so crusty, but something about that makes it extra rewarding to me when I land the trick. My favorite spots are definitely ones that most people don't try to skate because of how terrible they actually are. These spots look amazing on film, but can be a skaters worst nightmare. I end up skating a lot of hood spots and bank spots that are all throughout the city. The hoods here are no joke, but if you go with a crew of people you'll be okay. You won't get kicked out of most of these places, which is a big plus compared to downtown, where almost everything is a bust. I really like the spot where this photo was taken at, it's one of those spots that has always been there, but I've never seen any footage of it which intrigued me to skate it. I've been on 3Ride for about 2 years now, I really like riding for them because we're just a big family of homies that skate together all the time.

Born and raised In Baltimore, Maryland . If you have ever seen an episode of the HBO series "The Wire" you will know why this isn’t the best environment to grow up in. For some reason, as long as I can remember, there has always been this dark cloud residing over the skate scene. I think the sun is finally starting to shine through. We have put in so much work to improve the skate scene over the years, now the industry is taking notice, there are decent shops, and a big group of individuals that really represent

Baltimore to the fullest. Most of us are always on a mission to get footage, photos, and still have fun at the same time. I spent the majority of my teenage years skating "The Lyric", which is where my photo for this article was taken. This is one of the only downtown spots that is generally not a bust. We also meet up at an abandoned lumber yard called Ridge. We basically turned it into our own little training facility.

Switch Frontside Flip

Chris, It's fucking snowing out, how did NJ treat you this winter, and how psyched are you for spring? NJ dumped on us this winter but it's no surprise being on the east. I'm lucky to have an old vans indoor park right up the road to get my skate fix. I'm looking forward to being back on the streets for spring.

What are you going to do with the stack of clips waiting for you in the warm weather? Video part in the works? Hopefully all of us piles on Keystone can get a video together. I could see that happening.

Are you obsessed with Satan? When I first moved into my house there was penta-grams in the basement and footprints on the ceiling. Maybe I'm possessed.

Some people I skate with on the daily insist that skat-ing is better than pussy, what is your stance on that? I can't handle this question...pussy while skating.

Do you have any stories about a gnarly injury? The most recent one I was cruising around the park doing a frontside grind off a quarter. My wheel ripped off and I ate shit to flat. I started spitting out blood and wheezing and spent two days in the hospital to monitor my lung. Don't pop your shields off. I still do though.

What spot do you hate more than anything but end up going to everyday anyways? The Diamond.

If you had to drink one beer for the rest of your life, what would it be? Fuck! Budweiser.

What's the longest you've gone without sleeping? I pass out on like five minute car rides.

Biggest influence on your skating? Beers.

Ollie Over 50-50

Frontside Noseblunt

Ollie Over 50-50

What bums you out? Being bummed.

I heard from Mike that you had a good time when you were in Kensington.. Yeah skating a church. A buncha little fools just got off school and someone snuck me in the back of the head for fun. Everyone ran except Gilbert who got stomped on the balls so hard piss came out. I was running through a crowd taking blows to the head. Lost my keys and my board. Beat day.

Keystone is tight, I love all you guys. How did you get hooked up, and how do they treat you? I've always been skating around with Ronnie and Gilbert and Ronnie gave me the opportunity to tag along at a few demos. Things went well, Dan gave the ok, and then I filmed that welcome video. Dan does a great job running shit and has a great team under him.

You get to do a bit of traveling with the team right? Yeah Dans always hooking it up with random demos. In the next couple months we'll be traveling to Connecticut, North Carolina, and Michigan.

What was the craziest thing that has happened to you on the road besides climbing in the crab dumpster after your coozie? Being surveillanced by a Baltimore police helicopter and Ronnie landing his trick while having its spotlight shined on him. Then trying to leave and get-ting pulled over by three cops only to be let go after showing them the footage. I guess having a white unmarked van with a bunch of scum bags in beanies behind a warehouse does look kinda sketch.

Yo Baltimore sucks. kidding. Haha I got love for B'more.

Any last words? Yeah I'm blowin it. Thank you Bill for the in-terview, Dan Scott and Ronnie at Keystone, Diamond Dan and Edmund at the park, Joe Feoli, Supdudelater, my girlfriend and my family, all my homies. Thanks.

Backside Feeble

The trip started the way that every trip should(not) start, late. I arrived in Brooklyn at approximately 8:30pm to a group of nine overly excited kids eating in a chinese resteraunt, they ended up making such a rukus at the fact that I had arrived that the owner straight up told us to get out, even though they had just dropped mad money in chink food. As this was happening BD was on the phone with the greatest news of the night. We had a place to stay!

words and photography:: Bill Tomlin

As we walked out of the dingy façade of hunan chinese we entered our vessel for the weekend’s festivities, a 1991 Dodge caravan, complete with oil leak and no fourth gear, lovingly nick named the poop deck. The only thing running through my mind was, ‘let’s just make it there and back in one piece. Minus the fact that I technically had no license(for reasons that we won’t get into) I was really skeptical that this car would 1. Actually fit the crew and cargo 2. Not explode.

Packed and 10 deep, we hit the road. The drive took about two hours than it theoretically should have, mainly due to Google maps on iPhones and my delayed reaction, I missed a lot of turns. Our first run in with the police was while I was making sure the poop deck was lubed up. Apparently 10 kids jumping out of a sketchy ass van to go look at some stairs is a bit conspicuous, who would have thought? Either way we high tailed it out of that town right into the biggest traffic jam of the century. From the looks of things people were not hyped on NY in Philly, we could tell because we were getting the grill of a lifetime from every car. Some bitches tried to holler and possibly smash but alas they were fat and ugly. When we came to the point of turning in for the night after only accomplishing arriving in a general vicinity or trying to get some clips/photos, a look at the clock suggested that we turn in. One problem, Griffin(who had offered up his place for us to stay) hadn’t answered any phone calls since that initial 8:30 something conversation with BD. The Griffin residence, an upscale multi-level home in the quaint suburb of Haddonfield was, predictably pitch black. It was Harry’s job to man up and knock on the door, hoping that someone would answer and let ten loud as hell skaters in to sleep. We were greeted by a very angry by an angry mother who let us know that we would be out on the street if we made any noise. Oh the floor, with no pillow how I loathe you. The only thing that I could dream about that night was driving and being stressed. The best part of waking up was waking up to rain, which needless to say had me doubting very seriously why I had signed up for this. On the way back from our first visit to Wawa the weather took a turn for the better. We out to Philly!

We stopped at Nocturnal to set up boards and ask some questions about the area. Who shows up? Jamal Smith, how fitting for a trip full of Zoo kids to have a tour guide such as Jamal. It turned out that he knew almost as little about getting around Philly in a car. Jamal got us to the Egypt gap after getting partially lost, due to the completely random manner that the streets run in Philly. Of course my flash triggers started to malfunction at the first chance I had to shoot a photo(which is all that I wanted to do). On my way to get batteries I missed all of the lands and bought the wrong type, win-win. Driving away from the spot it became apparent that someone hadn’t closed the trunk properly, sice my camera back, tripods and a few boards were strewn across the two lane road. I’m very surprised Ray and all of the stuff made it back across the street in one piece. 3 block. Ray is amazing, that really all that you have to know. No other spots that we hit were really worth mentioning, so it was a chill/eat/Extremely Sorry premiere sesh at Jamal’s before we hit downtown, sans car.Bob Burnquist probably got the most ayys and ohhs that night, which is weird considering vert is lame, although he part is undeniably amazing. Downtown is sick, the skate there was through the smallest busiest five or six blocks that was home to a plethora of hood

Backside Boardslide Pop to Feeble

Backside Smith

ass gay dudes, a phenomenon that I was not aware of. Another thing, Philly what is up with all of the women in ball gowns and high heels? Are you aware that this is 2009? Love was the highlight for me, just to see it and skate around was enough for me. As we started stacking some clips/shots, locals started to crowd under the assumption that we were the Zoo am team, which I found hilarious. Although Love was the most productive part of that night it was still fun to see what the city had to offer. Jamal, graciously let us crash at his place for the night and it was out to Wawa before a long night with no blanket. Waking up the next morning cold and relieved to not be sleeping(poorly) anymore, the plan was FDR. After parting with Jamal we obviously started the day off right with Wawa. We all definitely noticed one thing about Philly on the way to FDR park, mad niggas love The Eagles. They love the Eagles to the point where trailers had the logo painted on it and people were tailgating miles away from the stadium and didn’t even care if they saw the game. They were just down to get fucked up over a bunch of dudes chasing around a ball. FDR was fun, not too fun, but it was cool to see it. BD called up Mazur from Focus and he ended up showing us around a bit more. Some of the spots that we went to were a bit out of these kids leagues but the rail against the wall hit the spot. BD got a photo with him, which is what Seamus wanted for him. As we drove away from the rail and entered hoodsville we were out to more spots. Mazur had to do some shit but he dropped us off at the Temple college area that was filled with spots. Then we hit up genos for cheese steak and left.

Backside Smith

Age: 21Hometown: Currently Parsippany NJ Sponsors: NJ Skateshop, Sureshot Skateboards, Glamour Kills Clothing.

Something that bums you out: Getting old faster then you think. Got to trick: Noseblunts Thanks: Chris and Steve at NJ, Everyone at Glamour Kills for being so awesome and motivated, and cant forget the man Ryan with Sureshot boards. Thanks to all.

“In life it’s important to take notice of people that are more talented than yourself and give credit where credit is due, rather than hating out of jealousy. When it comes to writing i always say, “Dave Carnie is the best writer skateboard-ing ever had.” When it comes to skateshops me and my partner Steve Lenardo always tip our hats to guys like Tim and Malcom at Pit Crew, Aaron at Krudco, the S.P.O.T. crew and so many others who are doing great things for far longer than us at NJ Skateshop. A few years ago the NJ team attended a con-test at Shields, a local indoor park, in Jersey. Our guys cleaned up. I think they took 2nd through 7th or something. Steve and I don’t put a lot of stock in contests or their placings but that day we took notice of the one guy that beat our dudes: Chris Dziema. He was destroying everything (tranny, rails, pyramids, etc) at top speed looking like he was Tony Trujillo (one of our favorites). We asked him, “What shop do you ride for?” “None,” was his response. “You do now,” was ours. He’s been down with us ever since.Dziema is the sickest. Doesn’t matter the ter-rain. And if i were you i wouldn’t invite him to your mini ramp contest if there’s money on the line...it’s like leaving a dude alone with your girl-friend and a 12-pack.” -Chris Neiratko Co-Owner, NJ Skate Shop

Photo:: Andy Enos

Backside Feeble