The House of Vans

Saturday night, I was lucky enough to attend a sick party at The House of Vans, a private event space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The night started out meeting Michael Cohen at the SHUT Skateboards flagship store on Orchard St. The group jumped a taxi over to Brooklyn for the first event at Vans new creative event space. Amazing, incredible, and brilliant are just a few words to start to describe this venue. If you enjoy skateboarding, great music, nice people and the most authentic shoe and lifestyle company in action sports, then this is the most wonderful place on earth. Our crew took a few pictures in the photo booth, ate some burger sliders and made our way over to watch some skating in the cement bowl. As the place filled up, the entertainment got under way. The warehouse lights went out and the stage lights went on, and who was there? Mos Def! We were on the deck of the bowl for his set with a birds eye view on the crowd dancing and getting down. Next up was Public Enemy! Yeah boy! Chuck D and Flavor Flav with the SW1 filled the stage for an action-packed show. The skating and food didn’t stop all night; they even put out an entire dessert spread. Check out the photos for details. To sum up--great venue, fantastic food, good skating, incredible music and great friends. I can’t wait for a chance to go again.

Recap: Indian Larry block party and Brooklyn Invitational bike show

My girlfriend and I jumped the L train to Brooklyn a couple weekends ago to attend the Indian Larry block party and the Brooklyn Invitational bike show. We got out at the Lorimer stop and followed the sound of rumbling pipes to the Indian Larry block party and got to see some great custom hardtails. Next stop was the Brooklyn Invitational bike show with free Asahi beer flowing, some great bikes on show, and had an art show vibe. Fun events, great custom bikes and a great weekend. 

Here are four of my favorite bikes from the Brooklyn Invitational Bike Show:

And a couple of really nice bikes from the Indian Larry block party:

Intro and Fight Gone Bad

I grew up in Western MA living an outdoor lifestyle from a very young age. I starting skateboarding and skiing at four years old and quickly found out that I loved being outdoors. In my early teens I got into hiking, camping and at fourteen starting snowboarding, listening to punk rock music and going to punk shows. Since nineteen I have lived in VT, CA, OR, UT and landed in Boston when I was twenty-six and now at thirty-one am living in NYC. I'm still very active within action sports and hope to share a few adventures with you. I'll be blogging about my various thoughts, experiences, and interactions with action sports industries, as well as cool things I hunt down, like custom motorcycles, great food, and various other bits of awesome. 

This past weekend was the Fight Gone Bad 5, CrossFit fundraiser event. I have been training at CrossFit NYC and fundraising for the past two months, both went amazing. I started with a goal of raising $200 and ended up raising $680! At the start of my training, I was able to do 184 reps/points for the FGB workout; on the event day, I achieved 229 reps/points, which I am very excited about. The charities that benefited from FBG5 are LIVESTRONG and Wounded Warriors Project, and I feel that both do great work. My girlfriend Kate and her friends Lauren and Allison came to cheer me on, which was much appreciated. I gave it my all and was completely exhausted after the event, so afterwards we went to Hill Country BBQ. They have a great lean brisket!