Nimh Europe Riders @ SlammJamm

Last month the legendary SlammJamm contest was held again. This year Oli Short organized getting the whole UK Nimh Team there as well as Marc Moreno from Spain and our newest Nimh Rider from Salzburg, Austria Gabriel Hyden. Download the PDF to see the photos of what went down and read about this event.

Download the .PDF here

Jon Elliott in Abu Dhabi and Dubai

Jon and Damien Wilson left this past Tuesday for a 22 hour trip to Dubai. From Dubai he would head to the Capital city of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi. A government sponsored extreme sports and graffiti event is happening there this week. I hadn’t heard from Jon in two days and feared the worst, however he checked in today and sent a couple of photos as a teaser to his trip.

Brian Shima’s Nimh East Coast Tour

August 27th: Neglected Truth Thursday night skate with Brian Shima in Philadelphia, PA.

August 29th: Montreal Classic in Montreal, Canada.

September 1st: Shima heads back down to Philly to pickup Jon Jon and
Head up to NYC

September 4th: Autograph signing at NY Flatlines from 6:00pm-8:00pm

September 5th: WRS sanctioned event, Last Man Standing contest

http://www.wheelsinmotionnyc.com

The aNIMHals Europe Tour continued!

Brighton, England

At the beach.

Doing interviews for Kingdom Magazine.

On the Brighton Carousel.

Oli loves carnival rides.

A visit to Loco Skates / Montre’s Birthday

Happy Birthday Montre

Cutting the best cake ever.

Montre hanging out on Oli’s front porch in Brighton.

In front of Loco Skate Shop

Hanging out inside the shop.

A visit to Inercia Skateshop in Barcelona, Spain

A huge stack of the new Oli Short Nimh posters awaited us at the shop.

Sweet Nimh banner at the store.

Shima signing autographs.

A signed magazine.

What up?

Oli takes it back to the old school with his new skates.

Cutting edge skate technology.

We tried out every scooter variation the shop had to offer.

Montre tries out some Xsjados

Shima got a care package containing gold bond to keep our feet fresh.

What a good looking group.

Barcelona, Spain Day 02

Amazing old school skatepark.

Barcelona sleeping quarters.

Mike Salt eating shit!

Shima with a sweet air.

Ah Barcelona!

Photo shoot.

Shima signing autographs.

Oli the strongman.

Oli and the art.

Nimh tag.

Marc and Tony ‘i’ve got the best surname’ Cheetah

Marc signing autographs.

Oli likes to fly.

Oli Short backslide to drop.

Oli was forced to re-learn mistys to retain his place.

Shima with a rocket fishbrain straight outta the 90’s.

Movistar Barcelona Extreme Competition

Entrance to the event.

Shima signing autographs.

Montre on the ramp.

Big bad wolf.

Nap time on the metro.

Nimh inspired art.

aNIMHals Barcelona Nimh Tour Stop from Rat Tail Army on Vimeo.

The aNIMHals Europe Tour

DEPARTURE
Oli Short had come to San Diego for a week to hang out at Rat Tail before the Nimh Europe Tour. We all left the same day for Europe. Brian and Montre flew into Paris, with the prospect of an eight-hour train ride to Montpellier for Fise. Oli on the other hand flew back to London to get a nights rest in his own bed and squeeze in a quick music session with some friends at Under the Bridge Studios before spending another month on the road.

San Diego International Airport

Funny plane crew.

Montre getting Cozy on the Train

At the train station.

Viva La France

Montpellier

Hanging out at the bungalow.

Pastis!

Drinking, food, drinking.

Dinner party.

Nuclear Power Plant

Heading to FISE

FISE
Once arriving at Fise, Brian and Montre checked into the Bungalow they would be living in over the next few days, along with Razors and Remz teams, plus special guest Tom Alqvist.

Ben Schwab

More drinking.

Relaxing at the pad.

Legend.

What you need Willis?

Oli Short with an ao makio

Montre Peace Love

At Fise

Gangsta

Shima with an air at Fise

What up?

The audience.

Fun times.

Hats off to you world!

French food, yum!

Big dog, little kid.

Remy Meister

Oli with a soyale on the beach.

Kato and his tour van.

Nimh Team Poster

F you

Frankie Morales

Tom

Oli forking Adam Kola

Oli bs backslide

Living rough with Oli Short and Ben Schwab.
With the bungalow being situated forty-five minutes from town, Ben and Oli decided to stay where the party was going off and stuck around for a 48 hour party with nothing more than, blades, bank cards, booze and swag! Oli captured the night’s events on his phone.

Oli passed out.

Ben Schwab

This was a nice spot

Right under that ramp we slept.

Sleepy time.
Spot 1) after a long night of, dancing, walking and partying, we found refuge underneath the rafters of the ramps. A large flag made a nice blanket for a few hours, before construction kicked in and forced them to find a new hotel room.

Spot 2) Back to the streets,

Spot 3) Newspaper and cardboard boxes! This was like a 5 star hotel compared to spot 1! It was such a nice spot, but unfortunetly the Police woke us up and sent us on our way.

ROAD TO PARIS
We rented a car and headed to Nimes before making our way back to. After the mammoth 9-hour car journey with a skate shop stop and a park session in between we arrived at Eddy’s place in Paris that we would be calling home for the next few days.

Autographs

Signing posters.

Shima with a backslide

Photo time.

Oli with an air.

Montre negative ao mistrial

Skateshop

Nice.

Montre fakie 720

Oli cooling down.

PARIS
Paris consisted of Montre shaking those dreads and dancing his way through the city. He got the hookup at le Bouclard with some of the latest line of artysm clothes in exchange for some photos. Eddy led the Tour de France from spot to spot. NIMH consistently left the French public with confused expressions at every spot we went to. Paris is great because you are able to take the subway from spot to spot

Swag

Asahi!

at the shop.

Signing some mags.

Shima back at Bercy

Montre is pumped.

Fabrice

Montre with a Savanah

Nimh France Headquarters

Architecture

Oli with a fishbrain

Nimh stencil

Nimh stencil

Sleeping conditions.

What?

Some customizing.

Getting ready for the day.

Exhaustion.

Getting stoked on some music.

Lunch.

Shima and Fabrice’s fixie.

Shima training.

Gangsta son.

Oli getting boozy.

Paris nights.

Oli the night rider.

Mod times.

Watch yourself!

Stylin’

Cosa Nastra Skatepark

Shima with some combo action.
Thanks to: Eddy for hooking us up with a place to crash and fresh croissants every morning, Nomades Skateshop, Tam Tam Skateshop, Cosa Nostra Skatepark and all of the kids that came out to see us.

PARIS TO LONDON
After two hours sleep, 4 trains and a flight we finely made it to Liverpool England.
Shima had a close call at customs, after being held up in an interrogation situation with Avaichi from Israel. It turns out that Avi ended up on the same flight as us but had not managed to fill out any of the landing documents required for UK entry, which almost came back on Brian when they came through customs at the same time.

At the airport

Nimh stencil

Nimh stencil

Oli Short

BONEYARD SKATEPARK
After dropping our stuff at the hotel we headed out to the Boneyard in Chester to skate with UK NIMH rider/ Park manager Mike Salt, along with the rest of the Black Death squad. We were all pretty exhausted after a week of minimal food and makeshift beds, but still came through with the hammers. Montre laced countless look back true spins switch and natural plus talking to every kid in the park in between.

Driving to Boneyard.

Snack stop

Shima pissin’

At the shop.

Hanging

Nimh UK

In the van.

Stylin’

Leon Humphries soul to 360

Mike Salt ao acid to ao topacid

Mike Salt ao acid to ao topacid the other way

CHAZ SANDS
A lot of people have turned out for the Chaz, check out www.chazinvite.com and www.be-mag.com for more info on what went down.

Nimh Europe – 3 Days and 7 Hours in Barcelona

In the not too distant past Oli called me to say that he would be flying to Barcelona for a short but hard hitting trip to skate and film with NIMHs first official EU Am rider, Marc Moreno. Seemingly hours later we were exchanging dates and getting excited about the prospect of some good weather. Whilst fretting over a tiny amount of money in my account I attempted to figure out how I was going to fit in the trip amongst my other normal weekly commitments and also trying to process the fact that if all the arrangements came together we would be leaving less than 2 weeks after we were having these conversations.

DOWNLOAD THE ARTICLE AS PDF RIGHT HERE!

Nimh in Barcelona: Oli Short and Marc Moreno from Rat Tail Army on Vimeo.

Shanghai, China – Day 1 to 3: Asian X-Games

Day 01
Brian Shima and I (Jon Elliott) arrived in Shanghai after a gruelling 17 hour trip. Once we landed it was an hour and half cab ride from the airport to the event. After checking in to the hotel we went and got some lunch. We met up with our friend Jacob, who is living in Shanghai, and ventured out to a bar with Chris Fowler, Mike Wilson and Chris Mitchell.

This is the taxi driver who picked us up from the airport. He tried to kill us with his new found driving skills.

Alan (O22y Skateshop) helping us figure out the Chinese cell phone

The metal detectors to get into the Asian X-Games event. They didn’t even work.

Chinese Walmart Supercenter

Edible Chinese Frogs sold at Walmart for lunchtime consumption.

Walmart in Shanghai selling frogs for food from Jan Welch on Vimeo.

World’s cheapest beer at $1.40 a six-pack.

Richie Eisler cracking a mid-day beer.

Getting lunch with Richie.

Sam Fogarty and Brian Shima at the lunch spot.

Mike Wilson and Chris Fowler not so sober in the back of a taxi.

Goot times in the taxi cab.

Jacob is not looking so fresh.

Chris Mitchell distracting the cock-blocker

Jacob trying to figure out where he is at.

Club in Shanghai China, first night in town from Jan Welch on Vimeo.

Art installment of track bikes welded together in the Bund District.

Day 02
Everyone is getting ready for the event today. Most of the street guys are staying sober, except for Sam Fogarty who decided to venture out with us.

Chris Fowler hard at work.

The vert ramp.

Killer K

Sam Fogarty

Soichiro banging in the 8-ball.

Sam getting a light off another cab driver.

Another suicidal cab driver.

The Felon.

Jacob with his friend.

David Yin and myself.

Chris Fowler and me.

Shanghai club night 2 from Jan Welch on Vimeo.

Day 03
Today was crazy. Haffey was on a mission to take first on the street course, which he did thanks to a disaster 540 Kind Grind. It was raining off and on and the vert finals ended up being canceled. After a long day waiting out the rain I was able to head back to the hotel and take a shower. We then proceeded to venture out once more for our friend David Yin’s birthday celebration. It ended up being one of those black out nights…..I really need to tone down my drinking.

The security troop for Asian X-Games getting their morning briefing.

X-Games security.

Rian Arnold

Chris Haffey

The Anderson Family

Crazy motorcycle dude.

Asian X-Games motorcycle jump from Jan Welch on Vimeo.

Fariq from Malaysia

Worapoj Boonnim

Azikwee and his baby.

Takeshi Yasatoko checking the ramp sticker for moisture.

Leaving for dinner.

The waitress at David Yin’s birthday dinner bringing us delicious beverages.

We had a Sushi and Yakitori feast at a nice Japanese restaurant.

Mike Wilson digging in.

Cheers!

David Yin and Andy Wegener.

Mike + ginger.

Chris Mitchell + Sam Fogarty

Uh oh. Me love you long time.

Hanging out at the couches at Paramount Club.

I swear she is old enough. Jailbait?

Cage dancers.

They couldn’t dance at all.

David Yin with a cocktail and a smile.

Chubby. None of these girls spoke a word of English, not even any Engrish.

She was my favorite.

She was my second favorite.

Happy Birthday David!

Cutting the cake.

I should have brought her home to Jan.

Michael Z gets all the ladies.

The skaters.

Flat bottom girls.

I love China.

3rd night out in shanghai from Jan Welch on Vimeo.

Journey to Moscow, Russia – Day 8-9: The voyage home…

The voyage home
At this point in my trip I am completely exhausted and near death from the worst allergies of my life. I wake up in the morning spitting up a massive amount of green vile and snot. I cleanse out my system, pack my bags and wait for Yriy to pick me up. I ended up wait quite a while because he is stuck in traffic, so I muster up the strength to go to Starbucks and get a snack and a latte. Yriy arrives and drives me to the airport. We get pulled over on the way there to have his documents checked. We make it to the airport and he escorts me to the ticket booth. Thank you Yriy for all your help while in Moscow and getting me to and from the airport, you are a great man!

I waited in line a good half and hour and checked my bags in. I made it to my terminal and charged my computer before boarding the plane and taking a muscle relaxer to help me fall asleep on my flight back. I sleep almost all the way to Washington D.C. We arrive late due to weather and eventually deboard the plane and head to customs. The customs line was insanely long and took almost an hour to get through. This meant I missed my plane to Los Angeles and had to wait for the next flight out of D.C. I end up getting to Los Angeles at 8:30pm an wait at the airport for Chris Peel to pick me up. Once he arrives we head to Union Station so I can take Amtrak to San Diego. We get lost however and by time we make it to the station the last train had just left. We drive back to Long Beach and I spend the night at Chris’s house. In the morning he drops me off at the metro station in Long Beach and I take the metro all the way to Union Station, then catch a train to San Diego and have Cory Casey pick me up when I arrive. All in all this was a real journey.

The inside of my hostel room

The other side, I slept on the bottom one in this picture.

This is where you ate the food you made.

This was a couch that you could hang out by yourself and get online.

This is the plane I am about to get to from Moscow to Washington, D.C.

Mockba aka Moscow

Getting ready to board the plane, my flight seemed to have fair share of seniors and sex tourists.

The metro train from Long Beach station

Union Station Los Angeles

Union Station Los Angeles

The last photo I took before the battery died. Shortly after the train rolled homeward bound to San Diego.

Last Thoughts
Moscow was a very beautiful city mixed with modern buildings and atmosphere combined with lots of history. I really enjoyed walking around this city and seeing the sites. The food I had was all good. And the skaters here have a special place in my heart. When I go to Russia again, however, there are several things I have learned and will do different. First of all I will not go by myself, it is a very hard city to navigate and communicate with people. So it would be nice to have a fellow English speaker. Second, I will get a hair and beard cut. I stuck out like a sore thumb, with people laughing at me because I didn’t look like anyone else. I didn’t like this at all and it took away from a lot potential fun I could have had in Moscow. Third, the pollen and allergies here are insane. I will bring lots of medicine and start taking Claritin before I even get on the flight! Thanks to everyone in Moscow I hung out with for making my trip a success. Especially Yriy for being an amazing host and Boris for taking me to meet some skaters. A shout out to DM for being a funny guy!

Don’t forget to check out my first six days of my trip to Moscow:
Day 01: San Diego to LAX
Day 02: Washington D.C.
Day 03: I’m Here!
Day 04: A Day of Business
Day 05: A Walk Around Town
Day 06: May Day!
Day 07: The Metro

Journey to Moscow, Russia – Day 7: The Metro

The Subway Stations
I went to bed last night with a terrible headache and woke up with it still this morning. It does not seem to be going away. After getting ready I began my day at Rollerclub, where I spent a couple of hours watching Russian skate videos with Igor and waited for Yriy to show up. Due to traffic I Yriy was running late. I decided I would just meet with him later and headed out to take a tour of the metro line. From my first day in Moscow I was really impressed by the Metro system. Opened in 1935, it is well known for the ornate design of many of its stations, which contain outstanding examples of socialist realist art.

Komsomolskaya Metro Station Red Line (1935)
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Journey to Moscow, Russia – Day 6: May Day!

May Day!
My allergies are killing me out here. Every morning my nose is fully clogged and it gets clogged all day. I can’t smell anything and I have the worse sinus pressure point pains. I ended up waking up at 8:30 today and just messed around on the computer for an hour before walking over to the Red Square to see what was going on for May Day. I was early because then myself it was only military and police, hundreds of them, if not near a thousand. I felt a little out of place and decided to walk along the side of the Kremlin to shoot some photos of the fountains and surrounding buildings. I made my way to a point where the road was blocked and they would not let me pass because I parade was coming. Moscow has several different groups marching on May Day, so I decided to see which group was heading my way. To my surprise it was the Communist Party’s March, full of senior citizens trying to relive the glory days and young confused conservatives wanting something they don’t understand. It was a pretty cool thing to witness I stood there for about an hour and then made my way back to my hostel to take a rest before going skating.

Stalin Skyscraper near my hostel
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