Cleveland Rocks? No, we do.

We decided it was time for a Ray's trip. Just Andrew, Greg, and myself. It had been three years since we last went by ourselves. Skatepark! Rock and Roll Hall of fame!


Without further ado, I give you, Cleveland Ohio, NY/Draco style.

Greg and I left Rochester at about 9.30 with coffee in hand.
We got to Buffalo at about 10:45. I think we loaded Andrew's truck by 11.15pm.



^^Company rides.

On the road in Pennsylvania, we decide to calibrate Colo's new tire size.


Somehow we found a great hotel deal on priceline... We miss our exit to downtown, and proceed to self-navigate our way there, based of memories from 3 years ago. It worked out pretty well, so we stopped to ask some people what time the bars close. Unfortunately, everyone we stopped to ask was an asshole and basically told us we were shit out of luck and why did we have bikes?
We got to the hotel garage. Clearance sign says "6'6"" and I ask Colo how tall his truck is. He says 6'11" as we roll in, completely ignoring the sign. I hang out the window and run my hand along the ceiling to make sure we wont hit. There were no issues, but the skickness of the floor made for some spinning tires trying to get around carefully.


We dump the bikes and gear and decide to find a bar. We head down 6th street, full of people, and everyone says the bars are open til 2:30a... but they stop serving at 2am. We are denied everywhere, like 6 bars in a row. Told that 'traffic' might still serve, we walk in. Place is nearly dead. Luckily, our cleaveage augmented bartender says she will still serve us, especially after hearing that we just got in from NY.


We order two shots of Jack each, and a heineken each. Bouncer tells us thats gonna be our only chance, so we order another shot of Jack. This was very similar to our plan in Toronto when I got back from Vegas. Its basically an awesome recipe for debauchery. It is at this point that we notice our bartender is pouring all of these as doubles.. And we are all kinda like, oh fuck... but we man up and decide to go for it. She says we have like two minutes to do it. Without much hesitation, we each tip up one shot, and drink it. Whooo. REpeat for round two. Whooooooooo... sip of beer. Man, this is heavy! So we go for the third shot. Seriously, back to back, all in less than two minutes. Beers are finished, the bouncer is watching us laughing, and the bartender says "You boys are not fucking around..."

Damn straight. Do we ever?


We chat with Don, the bouncer. Greg tries to get us all in a pic with the girl too, but alas. We tell Don about our trip up and our experience with Cleveland locals. His response is that, fridays are quiet, and we should really come back tomorrow for a good time. Duly noted. We thank them, say good bye, and take off.

Back at the hotel, drunk has hit. And it hit good.
Greg gets changed... This is when the camera really busts out.


Obviously the only thing to do at 3am in another city after a bunch of drinks in shitty weather, is to go street ride.


Andrew opens the door, and there are two security guards standing right there, looking at him with a leg over his bike.. "No dice guys."

Buzzkill.

OR NOT?!

Elevator shot. Classic.


We get back to the garage to get some gloves.


There is 585 representin'.


It's slick in there already. Greg ripped a glove.


But we are off. it's like, snowed an inch of snow across everything.


I'm not really sure why he's wearing them either.

We find the cannon, that three years ago, we put a sticker on. Add a sticker, and take pic.


Greg pulls a barspin.


Andrew manuals and the lack of tire track is cool.


I do it too.


Now, a bum hassles us, and I want a picture. He wants a smoke and two bucks. Meet Wilcox West. I resisted the urge to say "Wake up Mr. West...Mr.West...mr.west.."




We move along. I am told to try a sprocket on this ledge. It didn't work.


At this point, a black qx56 with some rims (pronouce: Reeeyyms) pulls up. Driver rolls down the passenger window and calls me over:

"I'll give you $100 if you can hop onto that ledge and ride it."


-Done deal, just back up ten feet.


WRong kid to bet against, Mike.


Ok, well, after the drinking, I mean, I did what I could with an icy ledge at 3am.


Pay up!
"Yo that was sick..."


"... but I saw you dab... I'll give you $50 though."

(Yes I do look deranged)

So with that being said, I mean, what the fuck? Did someone just give me $50? I would have jumped on it regardless.. My first sponsorship, a Cleveland dealer. Awesome. The night just cannot get better.

Or can it? Ps, it's really snowing.


We spend time skidding around.


"Hey let me get a pic!"


"Let me just turn arou-"


We decide to go back to the hotel to warm up for a second.

..and to ride down the stairs. Inside.


He fell down. Loud enough that the security guard came out. His name is Harry! ANd Harry is one of like, 6 awesome people in all of Cleveland. After giving us some shit, he told us to check out the lounge-

"You can make all the noise you want at any hour..."
Dude have you met us? wow. We decide to go for another lap around the block.

We made it to the corner before decided to do a statue pic.



Then we realize its a mall inside! And... the.. dooors.. are open.


Andrew rides down an escalator.

Not shown: I also go to ride down the escalator, unbeknownst to Andrew, who is heading up it... We crash (pronounce, Crayeesh) midway on it and tumble all the way down wet metal and granite to the bottom. Laughing hysterically the whole way.

At this point Andrew decides he MUST manual through this thing downstairs. I think it's a fountain.



Now we head back to the hotel.
How did we score this place?


We found some coffee!


It's decaf, we're going back.





Good times. 3 hours in Cleveland is off to a good start, despite the lame locals.

We woke up. Went to find breakfast. Oh, god... its in that mall..
It WAS a fountain.


We went to Ray's. This is the only still pic of the entire day.

But to summarize, the place is huge, awesome, and will drain you of all energy.

We left there at like 6pm, thinking, foooooooooood.. Get back to the hotel and there is some baller event there... and no parking. We meet the garage guys, who recognize us from the bikes the night before. They let us park right out front in the vip/valet spots for an hour. A quick shower, and we are off to find food.


Finding nothing the digital way, we ask the concierge, who tells us the best burger place is only two blocks away. And he was SO right. We also saw a wedding proposal there!

After that we head out. The camera stays low for a little bit, but here is the lowdown-

Cleveland locals are all assholes. Everything was cold shoulder, no help, mean, rude, etc. We went to a couple bars. One, called Paninnis, had awesome, awesome music. That was cool.

We hit Velvet Dog... Who knew it was bsaically a plus-size bar. Everyone gives me shit, but seriously, it was.

We left in a hurry.

Deciding to try Traffic again, per Don's request, we hit the door. We ask if Don is in, that he told us to find him if we came back down. We are immediately just ushered in, no cover, right past everyone...

We find Don, do a shot with him, and he sends us upstairs to the VIP dancefloor joint.


Now at this point it gets interesting. Greg begins to dance on people, as per usual.
We observe this: (Note gregs face, and the girls hand)


AS if that wasn't hilarious enough on its own, at least from Andrews and my perspective... Greg kissed this girl with a boyfriend... No joke G, it looked enough like it that we panicked... so its fact now! Anyways, after seeing this, and expecting a fight at any moment, we grab Greg and get the hell out of there.

We walk outside and Colo starts to talk to some kid in an Alpinestars jacket. Apparently he races MX and his buddy is a pro fighter.. at least.. as pro as Tap-Out is. His fighter buddy disappears, and he is like, well, I'm gonna check some places out, want to come? And points to a limo bus. I step it up, and I'm like, "Sure, we'd love to...", and we get on.

Turns out this dude is full of shit. Wrong bike names, wrong track names, refuses a last name or a picture. So this was as close we got to capturing "Barto"...


Totally drunk at this point, Greg with the spins, me wondering where the FUCK we are, and Colo wanting to leave this toolbag, we are just like "OK man, cool, catch you later..." and get off.

We wander up to this bar because we hear Fallout Boy playing (you know, at least uncommon for a big bar)... And no one will tell us where we are. However, a guy working there walks out, and we ask, explaining we are from out of town, and he is like, you're here.. get in there, tell them I sent you.
Again, ushered past a huge line and in we are.
Round two of conversational assholism:
Andrew sees a guy wearing a Snap-On jacket, walks up to him, and says "Hey I like your jacket, good tools, nice stuff. You a rep or something?"
...and this guys friend says to colo, cold shouldered, "Wrong guy dude... wrong guy to talk to..." and turns his back. COlo is like, "WTF is wrong with these people?" and we start to leave.

Now, I offer this picture, and don't remember what was going on. Was Greg dancing? Was he striking someone in the face? DId he elbow the guy behind him AND punch someone out? Andrew looks interested.


Anywho, we walk outside. Somehow, after driving in the limo bus the whole time.. we are only a block from where we started. Nice.

We say, fuck this city, we can make it to Buffalo by last call. Alright, true, bad idea. We're hammered. WE head back to the hotel, but not before seeing:
"The Good Twin"


Back at the hotel, its dawning on all of us that tomorrow morning is going to be rough. Luckily, andrew has purchased "Vitamin enhanced water for babies" and I am drinking it.


I pushed andrew off the bed because he was taking up space. I didn't know the 'crevasse' was so tight he could not move.. He could not escape... we had to pull him out.


And thus we called it. Tired, drunk, ridiculous.


We left that morning without breakfast or anything. Soured on all the shitty characters of Cleveland, and knowing that the only part that made it awesome was that it was just the three of us... We got on the road.

I mean, with no drug dealer sponsors or VIP treatment.. Why stay? We upped the ante so hard.

Time for a new city next time.