Recently in Skate Tour Category

At about 9am I get a call, "Hey, this is Philipp Shuster, I am in Los Angeles." he pronounces with a very strong Austrian accent.

"Uhhh, thats nice, sound cool." I reply still kinda waking up in bed.

"Can you come get me?" He asks.

Red Bull Rider Philipp Schuster, has never been to the West Coast before. I think he has done a couple layovers at LAX, but never really BEEN or SKATED here.. With hopes to broaden his horizons, he booked his flight to the lovely land of California, where the woman are tan, the skating is plentiful and the police don't like you ever.

As I swing around to LAX, I told him, I wasn't prepared to handle his stay, I was planning on heading up to San Francisco in a couple days.. Then it spawned on me.. "Hey, dude you should come!"

A couple quick calls and we found out that things would be fine, and later on that night we had two tickets to SF courtesy of Red Bull Skateboarding, (thankyou)

- crooks to fakie in San Francisco -

Landing in town, we are picked up by transplant local homie Lee Yankou, who is letting us crash at his place with his misses.

I mean, Phil has never been to the west coast, much less San Francisco, so he is just in a fit, looking around and shooting photos of the city.

With all the city and bridges that surround us, its hard to sometimes concentrate. Zip forward to a local place the 900 bar which was the hangout for most. Couple drinks and we were tickled wandering around the streets looking for San Francisco's "It's-It" icecream bar. (i think that was mainly me, ha)

To be honest nothing overly exicitng happened, we just skated daily, shot some really cool stuff, ate some awesome food, walked around the city and enjoyed what SF had to offer.

I dont wanna bore you with skating details, the photos really tell the story, but if you ever get a chance to head up to Northern California, and want to enjoy yourself, head to San Francisco, and bring your jacket, cause its usually windy.

For photos of our trip tap below:

To download the exclusive Philipp Schuster Desktop, tap below:

Red Bull Skateboarding went on a trip to Hawaii around the same time last year during our HELD UP IN HAWAII tour.

This year was no different, tons of skating, tons of good times and just plain ole' Hawaii, everyone needs some of that.

Check out the random posts from our trip, sorry it's not more extensive, but hey.. we were having a good time.

This is how most of the mornings started:

Then quickly following with this wonderful drink;

Matt Fink handles this bank to ledge with properness.

Other tricks happen!  The shredding has officially started !

We have come to a final post, and this is where we just let it all hang out. This was a great trip, and I have learned alot about Aussies.

Andrew Mapstone had a next level pushup he was doing.

All quite Aussy, aint they?

Shane Azar miscalculated some stuff.

The proof is all there.

This is the second installment of our trip to the bay area with Volcom and Red Bull crew.

It will be quick and brief, but I think you will grasp the trip nicely.

Some sessions were craze, some weren't.

What you don't see is underneath all that ice, is a Party Pack go to the first post and read what a party pack was!

Necessities for any session. They called sunglasses = "Sunnies" - That's goofy.

If you didn't know, Australians drive on the other side of the road there.. so the parking was always perfect, if you couldn't tell by the photo below.

Shane did everything. Skate, film, fill up the gas, he team managed a bunch, even finished my beer, if wasn't able to.

READ MORE!

Last week Volcom and a couple Red Bull Australians Kieran Rielly, Jake Duncombe, Joe Pease, Jack Fardell and Shane Azar plus Andrew Mapstone behind the lens have been been in the states on a summer vacation. They have decided to take a 10 day trip up to San Jose, Sacramento and San Francisco. Party on!

Not knowing too many American words, or spots, they have reqrutied me to show them around, blog their lurkings and give the American meanings to their wierd Aussy demeaner.

This is the typical blog post, tons of photos with little quirky captions.. I mean, what does do you want.

Do you wanna know the top three things they said.
1. "Next try for a Party Pack" (the Smirnoff Ice Party 12 pack of booze)
2. "You Dog!" (their version of pointing someone out, like "It was you!")
3. "Ohh geeze, who was it!" (when someone farted)

For the Volcom posts to the trip, click here. Otherwise we will start fresh..

We make a must stop at In and Out.. The decisions people have to make sometimes:

IF you didnt know, this is Andrew Mapstone, probably the most healthiest photographer in the skateboarding world.. So he naps frequently, and eats the same.

See, we have decisions almost hourly. Azar in full thought.

Ryan Decenzo and I are on this road trip to San Jose, CA this last weekend.. and let the party times roll! We conveniently were able to bring along a couple buddies. Let me take you through this maximum blogging hype tour, and you can see the wonderful adventures we went through! PHOTO BLOG COMMENCE!

1. So I go to pick up Ryan at his house, and the first thing I see is a massive amount of random boards, for various cruising capabilities.

2. So we will skip the boring drive pictures, cause most of them are in the dark and everyone is pretty much sleeping. Now were at the hotel. Looks nice eh!

3. This is the next morning, where I detail you on all the campadres who are on this trip. This is Ryan's brother Scott from his Plan B Fame and now C1rca Fame and also I will just call him Scooter. Because thats what I like to call him. (ps: He really isnt that much of a fatboy in real life, just looks that way)

4. Find out also who came out, by clicking this wonderful link!

5. Ricky Webb also came, and was kinda hurt, but seemed to make the trip nicely. Here is his blog! (ps: He isnt really this dark in real life, it just looks that way.)

6. So we were skating this under the bridge spot in SJ, and Ryan is throwing in some swcrooks variation, pretty hot i'd say. Tilt Mode Premiere at 7pm!

CLICK READ MORE BELOW.. WELL.. TO READ MORE~ HHHAHA..

Ok, I am writing this realizing that obviously film is dead for most people. But for a photo novice like me, I still wanna experience what guys i looked up to did when they shot 35mm film. When it happened to me today.. I AM UNDERSTANDING IT, NOW!

The story is, I shot a bunch of film on our Red Bull Nevermind the Bullocks trip to London, and I guess I had lost a roll of film, or left it in my camera. Eitherway, I just recently got developed and it was like a tour back through time to that tour. It highlighted a lot of the people on our trip, and the places we visited. I know I am getting kinda emo/artsy fartsy, but you get the point right? I guess, that it never happens to me much, so might as well write about my bit of excitement. Is that so bad?

Well to really push the point, I posted a bunch of the photos here for you to view.
Plus I saved one for a later TARP post.

1. This was Kris Vile, in our typical travel mode... London Taxi's. How many quid?

2. One of the best views in the world. You really feel like your in a movie or something.

3. Obviously being Red Bull, we have tons of great hats to wear, and this was one that once Joey got his hands on it.. He wore it the entire time, even in bed.

4. Jereme was skating in front of our super nice hotel, so I guess our own hotel called the cops. This was the horse cop, giving us crap.. british style!

The final day of our travels, we attempted to try and get something going for the last and final day. Started off tho at this wonder place named Dukes, who was one of the first surfers in Hawaii, and now owns a chain of restaurants not only in Hawaii but across the US. We ate and were merry, things were looking up. Sun was out and we jumped in the car to get things going. First spot BOOM! Rain pouring down, no luck, no love nothing.

At this point, I am feeling a bit sad. Hawaii's weather is very fickle, and I don't know my thoughts on it fully. When I first arrived, I thought it was gonna be like in the movies, where Hawaii girls came up to you in the airport and offered you a lei, maybe more. My imagination was filled with hours and hours of beach times, beer time, all while wearing boardshorts and having a flock of woman behind me. (ok that last part was a little overboard..) It was obviously not this way.

But the day had just dusked, and tho the night had just begun. The Wing Girls had some hookups with a Bad Brains concert at what looked like the only venue in all of Hawaii (I say that because I believe everyone from Oahu was in inside). As we kept the week consistent with more drinking, we enjoyed entertainment from Bad Brains. Not a bad way to finish off the night and tour.

Waking up late from a snoring overly drunk guy in the next bed (ahem Nuts), we all left to the airport. As we dropped everyone off at the airport, "Good bye everyone, hope you have a great flight, travel safe" I would say. "Lets do this again!" I would chant.

Cleverly as I watched everyone on the tour take off to their respective cities, my eyes shifted to another plane land and watched my lady friend whom I imported from Los Angeles walk directly off the plane and into my arms.

As you can already guess, I extended my flight, to have a little vacation of my own. My official vacation. You wanna know what's funny? It was sunny the entire time she was here and we sat on the beach with beers for hours and hours. Ahhh the irony.

Also if you haven't already ready DAY 1 / The Tour Explodes or DAY 2 / Paradise in Paradise or DAY 3 / Seriously we didnt do anything or DAY 4 / The North Shore Game

The next day was a bit of a pickle of a day. Now those who have never been to Hawaii, its quite rainy, and can rain at the drop of a dime, yet also dry just as fast as it rains. This throws a cog in any skateboarders plan. Imagine you are out and about, then pouring rain, so you go inside, it dries up, then you go back outside, then boom, rain again.. Very frustrating, really. Its like watching that movie Groundhogs Day, it just keeps repeating. But as my friend from Hawaii once told me, "Its in the middle of the ocean, the rain clouds will dump rain, and just pass right by." Pretty spot on.

We headed over to the collage for this impromptu demo, which consisted of just skating around the campus, getting kicked out, then skating through class rooms. Kinda different, but I believe it worked, I guess within 15 mins of us leaving their was already a post about our visit on the campus website. Then we skated the rest of the day at just local spots around the island, and of course finished off the night with some drinks and more drinks. Knowing that Steven Webb is only 19, not sure how he was able to get into every single bar, but he was there.. Right with us! I asked Steven about what he thought, "Man, I am just hyped to be on this trip." True that Steven, true that.

Are you familiar with girls who drive around in those Red Bull Coopers with the Red Bull Can on the back, and pass out drinks at events and parties? Those are called Wing Girls and we have a crew in every city in every country.

The best part, is we stayed at the Hawaiian Red Bull Wing Girls house, which was fully stocked with beers, Red Bull's and a huge freezer of frozen pizza and the wing girls right up stairs. Plus the Red Bull Wing Girls went out for nights on the town (considering they knew everyone and every party) brought their girlfriends and we just joined along. Quite nice really, all the work was done for us. No calling out to girls, no going out to get beers, I would say that it made our rainy days, not so gloomy and rather pleasant. Props to those girls, THANK YOU! Simply, it was paradise in paradise!

Click here to view Day 1 of Held Hostage in Hawaii
Click here to view Day 3 of Held Hostage in Hawaii

View photos from Day 2:

Watch the entire video here: