Words by Will Bruce, photos by Jon Capozzi, video edit by Pete Kearney.
Over the past couple years, a group of riders from upstate New York have assembled to travel southward to break up the monotonous northeastern winter. In previous years we would stay outside of Orlando and ride Casselberry. This year, we traveled to the BMX mecca of Austin, Texas. The crew included Devon Swahlan, Toby Pettinelli, Brien Kielb, Jon Capozzi, and myself, Will Bruce.
Brien rented a 15 passenger cargo van with no back seats and limited windows. We decided buying lawn chairs from Walmart, duck tapping them to the van floor, and returning them at the end of the week would work best for the given situation. Only one chair got wrecked via being stabbed by a peg, but the duck tape just ended up spelling out words on the outside of the van. There was always a 30 rack of Lone Star in the back of the van with the occasional 2-liter of rum and Dr. Pepper as well.
Due to the recent rain, most trails in the area weren’t running. We ended up riding six concrete parks within 30 minutes of our Super 8 motel, fueled by booze and tacos. There were also seemingly endless amounts of ditches begging to be ridden. Other highlights of the trip include stops at Torchy’s, Shakespeares, the flea market, and seeing Django at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.
Check out the photos and edit below. #5guys1van was used throughout the trip to organize our numerous Instagrams too. Most of the riding photos were shot by Jon Capozzi.
We all hit the liquor on the plane; Toby even got cut off from more by a flight attendant.
Capozzi at San Marcos
‘Prove that this is a beer’
Brien laying one flat at San Marcos
Flea Market life
Will tabling a hip at Round Rock
Toby doing a 180 t-bog between beers.
This was the prequel to seeing Django; Toby trying to keep it together.
