Relived Day 9. '24 USA Trip. Straight outta Compton! By BdJ

Feb 09, 2024

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 1709 times

Day 9. The usual morning rituals but this one included getting gas at Arco. Gas is cheaper when you pay cash. Never heard of that one before. 0.89c per gallon in 1990. Now $4bucks. Still half the price of what we pay in Europe so just fill 'er up! We'd been walking in and out companies hoping for the best. Philip had spotted Gunther Werks Porsche in HB so we passed by there. The sign said, no visitors/tours so we drove on.

Then just around the corner we spotted an ASV van. The driver looked like Bob Morales. I asked Philip to see where ASV is and it was just a few minutes away. Bob had his hands in, or was the starter of, many early BMX Freestyle projects. He toured with Bob Haro, started MF (Morales-Fiola), Dyno, the American Freestyle Association (AFA), Kore products and later on Morales flatland bikes. We had never met in person. Bob is running ASV inventions, a big player in the motocross world. Bob made time for us which was cool as it happened unexpectedly. We had just met one of the pioneers of BMX Freestyle by accident.

After their GT days Bob Hadley and Billy Griggs had moved over to Razor where the both of them had been working on cool toys. Billy's latest project is the fun Stage2 e-dirt bike. We were lucky to catch Billy in the office as he had planned to have a test riding session with Barry Nobles that day.

Again, rain in SoCal makes things complicated so also this session had to be postponed until the hills dried up some more. Billy's workshop at Razor is nice. He also had the old rigs that he used to build custom frames for Thomas Allier, Robert de Wilde, Danny Nelson and many more. He figures he still has tubing to build a couple of BMX frames. It was cool to see Billy in his comfortable environment at work. Bob Hadley has moved and is living a (semi-)retirement life. Good for him, he's a good man.

We decided to skip an Odyssey visit as Nuno is based somewhere else and we didn't really have a contact there. We drove to LA instead to tick off some more things that were on the list, like the Fucking Awesome store on Hollywood Blvd. That cop car upside down on the ceiling is something else, or as you can say, that's fucking awesome! We peeked in at Beyond The Streets art gallery. Last time a Beastie Boys expo was on display. This time paintbrush art covered the walls. That same street has some cool stores such as the Carhartt place, and the Arc'teryx shop. Those parking meters don't really work so we took a bit of a risk there. All good. Philip had picked up on Gallery Dept. on Beverly Blvd. so we parked the car to go see the store. On arrival the doorman asked if we had an appointment. Uh, no, we don't. An appointment to go buy stuff? The bouncer checked inside if we could come in and we were allowed!! Haha. No big deal if we had not gotten access but now we saw what Gallery Dept is about.

It was 16:30hr so instead of being stuck in traffic we drove over to Venice Beach to see the sunset and the skatepark. The place has so much history. It was good to see it in its current state with the park being used with tons of skaters. When it gets dark in Venice it's time to get out of there. Traffic wasn't gone, but Google Maps found ways around it. It led through the empty streets of Inglewood and Compton but it made for better time. And yes, we decided to keep driving...to get to Newport Beach in one piece.

BdJ

The days.....
FAT USA Trip Day 9
FAT USA Trip Day 8
FAT USA Trip Day 7
FAT USA Trip Day 6
FAT USA Trip Day 5
FAT USA Trip Day 4
FAT USA Trip Day 3
FAT USA Trip Day 2
FAT USA Trip Day 1