Article by Chris Chitaroni.
                   Photos by Chris Chitaroni.

                   

            There is a short list of places I cannot die without seeing. The Great Pyramids are on there, the giant heads on Easter      Island are a must as well, the Mayan ruins and the Great Wall of China would also be stellar but number one on that list has always been Stonehenge. I blame Leonard Nimoy for this. My earliest memory of Stonehenge has to be seeing it on that weird cult 70s show “In Search Of…” Anyone old enough to remember the show will definitely remember the creepy assed theme song and the way Leonard Nimoy could make a McDonalds parking lot seem like the creepiest place on earth just by talking about it. Either way, I just got home from London, England and while visiting had the chance to take Stonehenge off of my must see list.

 

            This is the second European voyage I’ve been fortunate enough to go on this year, and much like with the Swedish expedition in May I’ve come home a richer person. Sure I’ve spent a lot of money and one could argue that I’ve come home a MUCH poorer person, the experience and memories you gain on trips like these is immeasurable. What made this trip so exciting was how unprepared we were for it. We didn’t have a guide, we had never seen the place we were staying and we were pretty much only bringing what we could carry on our backs and straddle between our legs. And the best part about it is that it worked out perfectly.

 

            A week before Jorden Guth, Kyle Lafleur and myself departed, I received a call from Chris Silva in Toronto asking a myriad of questions regarding my trip plans. After a short discussion he decided; he was in. A day later I found out that he and his friend Jamie Burke had both booked tickets to London as well, and would actually be meeting us in Philadelphia where we would all be catching our connecting flight to London Gatwick Airport. To make things even more exciting, I was then contacted by Ottawa local Andrew Grant, who is currently going to school in Belgium, and informed that he had just bought a train ticket and would be meeting us at our hostel when we arrived. This was epic, to have 6 guys dedicated enough to meet halfway across the globe to ride little bikes is insane.
         Our flight there was flawless, everything was perfectly on time. Upon arrival in London we had to navigate the intricate UK train infrastructure to find a way to our hostel. We showed up expecting the worst, thinking it was going to be a sleazy roach motel but were fairly impressed once we got in. The bunk beds were a little shady, Jorden was the only one we really trusted the beds to support (he’s lost 5 pounds somehow lately). There was free toast + jam breakfasts every morning, the hostel had a bar that sold 4$ beers and the girls behind the desk actually turned out to be drug dealers… one stop shopping.


   
               We also learned on the first day that there were 2 concrete skateparks right down the street from our hostel. We thought that was pretty keen… until on our way down that street we found at least 3 spots that rivaled the fun levels of the parks. Silva had a nose for spots, and led us around as if he were a local. That guy can smell riding potential, its some sort of 6th sense. The style of street obstacles we found while over there would be completely unheard of here. The playgrounds there are essentially skateparks, there are bank to rails everywhere, and nobody ever gives you the boot. We didn’t find any good handrails at all while we were there, but found so many bank to sub rails that eventually we got picky and didn’t even stop for some of them.



            I’m not going to go into a whole hell of a lot of detail as to what we rode and what went down, because you’ll be able to see it all in the photos as well as in Rich’s upcoming video. Kyle and Jorden were on a serious filming mission the whole trip. I think between the two of them they did more barspins than bunnyhops over the course of the trip, although nobody had the consistency of the (now) legendary G-rant. While the rest of us ride all day and maybe get a banger clip or two in the process, Andrew seriously only did 6 or 7 tricks the whole trip and every one of them were epic bangers. He rides like a panther; he stalks his tricks like prey and then pounces without warning. Wait until you see the video. You’ll understand.


            Stonehenge was not the only megalith we visited either. We saw another, almost equally mystical stone giant in the east of London; the legendary ROM skatepark. I’m sure you’ve seen this park in the pages of RIDE UK at some point; it has a snake run, a 10 foot concrete half pipe, a real 11 foot deep pool, and a wild mogul bowl. The concrete at this park was not typical either, it wasn’t smooth. It had the consistency of rough sand paper, so you knew if you went down you were finished. This didn’t faze Jorden what-so-ever. The ROM had as much flow as most trails, I could ride that place forever.



            On our last night there, we went to visit an old friend of mine from University who is currently going to school in London. She’s a waitress at Planet Hollywood in Piccadilly Circus (right downtown London). So Jorden, Kyle and I show up at around 8:30 pm and two security dorks stop us before we can walk in. Guy asks me where we’re going, and tries to tell us that they’re only allowing couples inside because it’s really busy. I called his bullshit, told him we knew Leslie and they backed off. We got upstairs and there were even empty tables, dude probably just thought we were punk kids. I hate bouncers. When we sat down, we requested the coloring place mats (because we’re adult like that) and then we see a table fill up with cute young girls all dressed up for a night on the town. Jorden coloured himself a great yellow duck, and we eventually coerced him into giving it to the girls at the other table. They loved it. We had a bit of a back and forth exchange between tables, creating quite the commotion with the staff as we used them to facilitate the delivery of each of the messages. Eventually the girls agreed to go out for drinks so long as we paid, and being the cheap bastards we are, we declined.

                For those of you who are considering traveling, do it. BMX is a great excuse to get out and see the world. You’re going to see far more riding around a foreign city on 2 wheels than you ever could in a car, taxi or train. And every day you wait makes it more unlikely that you'll actually do it.