Shred America

Holy crap, guys. Holy crap. No way.

This is New York, let's call a taxicab.

Yeah.

- Welcome to New York! - Welcome to New York!

There you go.

- Where are you from? - I'm from Chicago.

Why did you skate all the way here?

- That's a "Forrest Gump" attitude. - - Really cool.

Marker.

Hell yeah, dude.

The first time I heard about Shred America was through Mike and Arthur from the skate park.

And Arthur had approached me asking if I wanted to partake on his journey.

So, I was like, yeah, why not?

I got nothing to lose.

It's an on the road, Jack Kerouac type thing, we just go.

I'm gonna put it on my collar, I'm gonna put it up here.

Okay, how's this, can you hear anything?

I first heard of Shred America

in the cafeteria of the community college that I used to attend.

It was just, go on bike with Tony and make a documentary.

I was like, okay, I didn't know what to expect.

This is so fucked up, bro.

- It's so bright, man. - Yeah.

Was that pretty good acting, Mike?

It was good, just try it one more time without.

Okay.

Mike and I weren't afraid of just sort of having an idea

and potentially failing.

It was sort of just like, let's hop on our boards, let's go,

and let's figure it out on the way.

Skateboarding is just a beautiful thing.

It's just-- it's very close to my heart.

That's kinda how I met Mike, actually, is through skateboarding.

We are.

We just wanted to do something crazy, something adventurous, something wild.

Being 20 years old, you know, you're not gonna take no for an answer.

This is how you party shred style.

Next question.

Let's see if I can answer this one sober.

When I first got on there-- I didn't really know anything about it

besides going from point A to point B, which was Chicago to New York City.

I didn't really know if we had an actual route planned or anything like that.

I kind of had assumed that it was going to be easy until I saw the carts.

They were heavy as hell.

I mean, they were super heavy.

The carts were our best attempt at transporting all the gear that we had.

And at every moment, it found a way to screw us.

As far as planning the trip out, we didn't really plan too much.

When you take off and do this, are you guys out there on your own, that's it?

You got a GPS and you're gone, or-- or do you have a car following you?

You know, right now we Google Mapped it,

but we are hoping to get a GPS by that time so we don't get horribly lost.

The only thing that we really planned

was how to get media attention, those, kind of things.

Last month we've been just publicizing, sending out emails and it's paying off.

- Um... - - I don't want you to be nervous

because you're gonna have about a million people listening to you.

Is it a million?

People started taking us seriously once they started reading these articles,

and seeing us in the news stories.

"Hey, these guys are actually doing it."

I thought that Arthur and Mike know what they're doing, but maybe they don't.

After one half mile, turn left, then turn left.

How long will it take you to get from Chicago to New York

on a skateboard?

One month.

- One month? - We're guessing one month.

You know it's dumb, right?

Everyone says it's dumb and stupid, but we're like, "You know what? No, it's not."

It's really not.

No, because you're gonna get, you're doing something

that's you're gonna shake your brains up.

You're gonna shake yourself up.

It's like, I'm gonna go to my job, then I'm gonna get a wife,

then I'm gonna get married, then I'm gonna make some money,

then I'm gonna retire. To hell with that.

- Yeah, exactly. - Life sucks, forget about that,

get out there and get hit by a truck. That's what I always say.

Okay, so we didn't really establish though the path that you're gonna take,

the route that you might take.

- Right. - If you leave the Bean in Millennium Park today at 8 AM,

- this sort of... - Yeah.

- Kind of a math quiz. - Yeah.

All right, what path do you follow?

Because you could be killed by the Dan Ryan.

- You know what I mean? - Right.

- Exactly. - You may be dead already by the time you get out there.

We're gonna head towards the lake and we're gonna take the bike path east...

All right.

Towards Indiana and we're gonna go on the bike path as far as we can.

And we'll see what's going on after that.

We'll have to find out.

There you go. You're gonna find out.

All right, Mike and Arthur leaving Chicago to New York City about 850 miles.

They're gonna videotape the trip.

Gentlemen, you leave about 8 o'clock this morning

from the Bean at Millenium Park?

Yeah, 8 or 9.

Good luck, we're all counting on you.

I thought Mike and Arthur had the idea and had the plan.

That it was gonna be easy

and that everything was going to go by like a formula. And it didn't.

Man, we fucked up. That was like a fucking mile, man.

We need to go that way but there's a lake right here.

We're not allowed to take there?

And we just biked about a mile so.

Not good planning.

No, not at all.

This is why you plan routes.

To know that the road you're on actually takes you to where you wanna go.

Aw, dude.

You want to avoid toll roads?

We've been skateboarding for about?

I have no idea.

We have no idea, really, cause...

Because we're lost.

We weren't paying attention to the signs.

For the most part, I think we did have the route planned,

at least we knew the direction that we were going.

Originally, when we started the trip,

when we left Chicago, there's a city that borders Chicago called Gary, Indiana.

And we were gonna go to Gary, Indiana.

By about the third driver that told us we shouldn't go to Gary, Indiana,

we decided to reroute.

We don't want to go to this like place that would be, you know, potentially dangerous for us.

And I think that's when we started to really get lost

because it, sort of, flipped everything over on its head.

Okay, so what are we doing then? What's the plan?

This is-- 12 goes straight...

Taking 20 to 12, right?

No, we're taking 12 through...

No, we're taking 20 to 30-- 41 to 30. This guy said we're on 41.

Here's Fort Wayne.

Out of desperation we bought a roadmap.

And the funny thing with the roadmap was we didn't know how to read a roadmap.

What's that town right there, Joliet? That's Joliet Street.

It was kinda like, embarrassing for me.

That's bad, man, even the birds aren't eating it. Look at how, like, bad, nasty that is.

It smells like shit too, man.

That's why I wanna get out of here,

I've been going fast cause this place smells.

Like, it's affecting the way I breathe.

So we're getting out of here.

Yeah.

You're just hoping that you don't die on this trip.

James and I, we're about five miles

from our final destination.

Mike and Tony,

they are ahead of us and they've already got us the hotel.

We will be reaching Schererville, Indiana, or Schererville, Indiana

in about maybe the next hour or so.

And hopefully, there near the intersection of 41 and Route 30,

we will find gold.

And by gold, I mean, a hotel

because I'm fucking tired and we're all really tired.

Almost 40 miles today, not bad.

Hi, just a little sports update.

A couple of nuts from right here in Chicago are skateboarding--

pay attention now, skateboarding to New York City.

That's right, to New York City.

We didn't think they were gonna make it out of the parking lot

based on what they said yesterday.

Mike and Arthur are on an excellent adventure.

All Right, Mike, you left 10:30, is that correct?

Yeah, we left at 10:30 yesterday.

We were about an hour and a half behind schedule,

but we have made it to Schererville, Indiana.

Schererville, Indiana.

Schererville, Indiana, wait a minute, how far is that from Chicago?

It's about 40 miles away, 45.

When are you taking off now? It's four minutes before eight.

We're probably gonna leave around 10 or 11.

- If it dries up... - Three hours from now, do you wanna get to New York or not?

- If-- we actually... - What are you guys gonna do, have a big brunch? Get going!

No, the thing is, it actually rained and we see some rain drops on the window, so...

We see raindrops on the window...

That sucks.

That's what pioneers said, when they were trying to discover the world.

They set out and said, Lewis and Clark, I believe,

"But now we can't get going down this river, I think there are raindrops coming in."

What is wrong with you?

How many minutes do you think you actually skateboarded yesterday?

We-- like nine hours.

I'll tell you one thing, you gotta get out of Indiana, Mike.

These guys ain't doing nothing, man.

I should still wait until 11 o'clock to leave.

These guys, they don't sound like skateboarders.

Skating from Chicago to New York takes time.

You only made it Schererville, Indiana yesterday.

I think you're just doubting us, Johnny.

No, no, I'm not doubting you...

I think you are, man. He's using a lot of words that seem like he's doubting us.

I believe you can do it, but you have got to have more, I don't know what it is, passion for it.

Fucking asshole.

Man, you gotta keep your cool.

- Doesn't matter. - Be light-hearted.

No, dude, they're like ragging on us, and it's like, they don't even know...

They gotta understand we're filming a documentary. We're not just going.

Probably saying everything we're doing to people.

Saying we're staying at a hotel, or we're going to Walmart.