OJ Bound And Down – OJ Wheels IN the UK Article & Video

Words by: Jono Coote

Photography by: Joseph Piggott

It was summer’s end and I was slumped dejectedly by the Cumberland Basin, eating citrus fruit for the vitamin content and sipping on a can of Tennent’s as the Avon raged past me in rain-induced torment, taking with it the last of the summer and the end of regular outdoor skateboarding opportunities. The drink, not widely available this far south of the border, had been handed to me none other than Shiner’s Alan Glass. He asked me what I thought of the bevvie before telling me that he had been hired by a shady father/son duo, who bet him that he couldn’t bring a truckload of crates of the stuff down from Scotland; where, at the recent War of the Thistles weekender, thirsty skateboarders had cleared the shelves nationwide and a clear business opportunity south of the border had presented itself; particularly in Bristol, where the hallowed ground of Dean Lane seemed like the perfect launching pad. 

There was something shifty about his tale, but it shook me from my orange peeling reverie. The drink, once given the epithet ‘a madman’s dream’ by the Glaswegian press, was a Scottish institution with a clear audience in this part of the world. If he was successful, untold riches could well await. Failure, however, would see him fall foul of the strict rules laid down by the Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme; a government department known for their rabid adherence to the letter of the law. Still, I was tempted to risk it. I asked him if he needed a buddy, someone to run interference in case he caught the unwanted attention of the authorities, but he said it was sound, Ginge and his dog would be driving in convoy with him, Ginge taking the truck whilst he drew attention in his souped-up Vauxhall Astra with gold alloys. Another geggsman riding shotgun would only arouse suspicion amongst the clearsighted, 20/20 vision-sporting AWRS men. Taking pity on me, he left me a scuffed backpack full of yellow cans of madman’s dream and fucked off sharpish before anyone else could clock him.

Grateful for the free booze, I sat for a while by the river and let the squawk of herring gulls lull me into a deep meditation. It felt, however, like my eyes had hardly shut before they were wrenched rudely open by shouting, the echo of urethane on wood and a lilting Scottish accent asking me what the fuck I was doing on the floor of a skatepark. I staggered groggily to my feet, waiting for my brain to catch up. I sensed something hurtling towards me, just managing to dive out the way before Baz Dan executed a perfect backside boneless on the quarterpipe I’d apparently been napping on. A pair of hands pulled me roughly to the side and I found myself face to face with Alan, now with his face framed resplendently by a mane-like, English Stag Do-standard tam o’shanter with wig, once again.

“No time to explain fully, but we picked up the OJ Wheels team at Glasgow airport and it turns out they were about to strike a distribution deal by the AWRS. Now they’re hot on our tail, but we still need to make these demos on our way south. The money can go into the team’s pockets rather than those government geeks, but they won’t like it.” 

This journey, he told me between scoffing mouthfuls of deep fried haggis pakora, was the result of a bet with a wealthy father and son from somewhere near Normanton. He was wary, but the dynasty, with a kind of comedy pomp about them, had somehow convinced him. With the South Gloucestershire and North Somerset police forces not having jurisdiction within the Bristol city limits, the money was as good as theirs. Something about his tale struck me as false – maybe it was the twinge of familiarity as he told it, maybe it was the amount of haggis crumbs adhering to his ‘tache or the tag around his left ankle that kept beeping or the fact that his cans were held in a large, tatty backpack rather than a truck –  but, as he was offering, I smiled, nodded and took a can from a nicotine-stained hand to wash down my out of season fruit.

Despite the need for haste, room still had to be made for getting footage and photos. The group had snuck into Kingston DIY, in the hope that no one would think to look for a group of tourists south of the Clyde, and in that they had been right; skating without hindrance until the rain had begun to creep under the bridge, sending them into a risky flight back north to try their luck at The Loading Bay, Glasgow’s premiere rain-avoidance facility. 

All of a sudden, as if by design, the sound of water bouncing from the roof ceased. In the silence that followed, I looked towards Alan and felt a momentary pang of fear at the insolent glint in his eye. “Maybe,” he said, the beginnings of a smile causing his moustache to ruck upwards towards his nose, “we should be hiding in plain sight.” I knew then that there was no point in raising any of the concerns I might have had. Alan, crazed with adrenalin and drunk on deep fried fusion cuisine, was on a gonzo collision course with shadowy forces, and I was in the van; whether I liked it or not.

And so we headed north of the river, where the open space outside the Transport Museum had me constantly scanning our surroundings for the descent of besuited agents, a base from which we then headed out to roam the streets flagrantly, as if taunting those who were looking to catch them. Eventually, with common sense starting to impinge on his consciousness, we hunkered down at the hidden-from-prying-eyes Arches DIY to figure out a route to Birmingham; where Bournbrook DIY awaited, and where we were due to check in with the aforementioned father and son duo who, despite not giving their names, were recognisable by their baby blue suits and white stetson hats. As we reached the border, Alan started scheming with Ginge via their strangely outdated CB radio set up; they would check in at Birmingham as expected, post a flyer about a demo at Kings Norton, then head for Bournbrook to give the skaters of Brum the show they expected before ghosting in advance of the fed’s arrival. A pit stop at Charnock Richard Services saw us nearly pick up a runaway bride, but the collective scent emanating from our footwear – a nostril-singing combination of trenchfoot and stale Chesterfields – made her think twice, and we carried on as we were.

In fact it was the communal stench from our shoes that almost got us caught, the waft reaching Kings Norton and leading the AWRS almost to our demo until we realised what was happening and hotfooted it for the Big Smoke in the hope that the pollution would to some extent mask our scent. We stopped in Milton Keynes to show the visiting Yanks how good roundabouts were, at which point certain group members’ shoes started making their presence felt more than others. This was perhaps in part due to the adoption of ‘gonster’ as a tour drink. For some, this meant a combination of Guinness and a certain toxic-hued energy drink. For others – those with more grit and vision, it could be argued – this portmanteau was arrived upon by buying a premixed can of supermarket mojito, which was then strained through a Ginsters steak slice for the purposes of increased iron consumption. These were the skaters who lasted longest on the trip, but the innovative cocktail had the unexpected side effect of making the drinkers’ feet smell like a combination of eggy boffs and foot and mouth disease. Even one well-timed pickup line about the speaker’s ability to drive a forklift, or in fact any other vehicles in the vicinity, couldn’t distract potential suitors from the ground-level emanations which took over (and quickly cleared) any venue we happened to enter.

We left the Buszy a gift with a nasal signature not dissimilar to durian, strong cheese and decomposing squirrel combined, and finally headed for London; our last stop before the safety afforded by the liver-cell Bermuda Triangle commonly known as Dean Lane. Thinking that the Winstanley Estate would be fairly quiet, we headed for a South London classic; but, with the arrival of the rain coinciding with the insistent buzz of a helicopter that may or may not have been hunting for Tennents-smugglers, we headed into the city and the underground labyrinth created by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon deep under the Barbican. Hidden from security and from our pursuers, we chucked a few more tricks into the unfeeling skate media void and necked a few more DIY Bovril cocktails for fortitude. The trip was coming to an end, in a whirlwind of petrol and Chesterfield fumes, and we were still a good few miles from the safe haven of Bristol. I could feel my pupils dilating, my pores clogging with beef and rum sweats, the jagged adrenaline rush of a man on the run. The walls of the underground car park began to shift, turn into a strange uphill u-pipe rushing towards me and retreating in sync with my increasing heart rate. I started jabbering, accusing the entire team of dragging me into something I wanted no part of; how had I ended up in this mess? The more upset I got, the more my vision began to blur. Why… what… you fucker… pass me a ciggie and a can and I’ll be reet…

I awoke to find myself at Dean Lane, with Alan and Ginge looking concernedly down at me. Alan pulled a crumpled Tennents can from my hand; “Stay away from this shit mate, it’ll send you loopy.” Seeing I was okay, they wandered off, and I swear as they headed for Budget Booze I heard them whispering to each other; “That’s a big 10-4 good buddy.”