words and photos by Jonathan Becker

The 5301 CLT crew out of Charlotte, NC, hit up 3 states and four cities on their most recent Southeast trip across the U.S. With a total of 16 skaters hitting Chattanooga, Nashville, Birmingham, and Atlanta, here is what went down…

“We have been doing big trips for years, so I am pretty used to accommodating Airbnb’s for larger groups. The guys say I am basically the TM, so Mike Sinclair better watch his back.” – Isaiah Stines

Just like all TM’s, Stines dealt with the logistics for the trip. He planned three days in Tennessee, two in Birmingham, and another three in Atlanta. Stines started a group chat for the trip, and it got named “5301: 100 Man Tour.”

Tennessee:

I was met by everyone sprawled out around a long, crusty ledge. Some heads were into it, and others kicked it on the sidelines. Unfortunately for the homie Mark, mother nature had other plans. The wind picked up suddenly and blew his perfect ratio of weed to grabba into oblivion. He got pissed and threw his rolling tray on the ground, which shattered everywhere while he started screaming furiously. One of the local tweaks across the street thought it would be a great idea to tell an angry Mark to clean his mess up. One thing led to another, and the tweak pulled a knife out. We bounced to another spot up the road, and P-Ball and Ethan got to work. Hennessy got pulled out, and shots were passed around. Some work needed to be put in on the spot, and the Sawzall made an appearance. No better combo than Henny and a Sawzall. Ethan got his clip, and the homies swarmed him like a pack of hungry dogs to dap him up. We hit the local diner and got the longest table arrangement known to man. “It’s filling me up and it tastes mad good!” said Tiner when asked about his plate of ribs. At the Airbnb, P-Ball challenged anyone to a chess match. I thought for sure I would have the upper hand, but he ended up cooking me twice. We somehow ended up in Nashville and not eating the one thing everyone gets there.

“All these clips and no Nashville Hot Chicken.” – Isaiah Stines

Instead, we went to a food hall. Everyone finished their food dumb quick, and I asked P-Ball to watch my food while I hit the bathroom. I came back no more than two minutes later to find a cleaning lady throwing my plate out right behind him. Don’t ask Ball to watch your plate. We got put on to a rail at an AMC theater nearby, but the homie’s pin was botched. We spent 30 minutes trying to find it, and once we did, a security guard kicked us out for looking at it. Back to Chattanooga we went. Our last day there was pretty chill. Logan dodged a bus at the bottom of a hill bomb, I rolled my ankle, and we had a sanctioned wrestling match between Miguel and Ethan. The match was looking like a fair fight, but after Miguel got a hold of Ethan’s leg and head at the same time, it was clearly game over as they went to the ground. Miguel was victorious, and we kicked it with our local tour guide Herbert Brown before leaving town. Shoutout Herb!

Birmingham:

Our two days in Birmingham felt like a fever dream. The time was starting to fly by, and at this point, Zach had broken at least three of the five boards he brought for the trip. P-Ball had started sack tapping everyone too, and Ethan wasn’t having it. Our only reality check was Tiner and Nose Joint’s feet absolutely cooking up a storm each morning and evening at the Airbnb. Thankfully, our homie Noah had Ozium on deck, which subdued the smell to a tolerable rate. Ethan wanted to skate a rail, and we ended up at an aluminum 10-stair rail. Thankfully enough, it had already been salad grinded. He was forced to do something else and had a full-on sesh on it. The following day, the group decided to hit another manual pad. This time, everyone but Joey, who was filming, decided they wanted to skate it. Nothing like skating a pad for two hours, waiting on a line of 16 people just to fuck up the trick you want to do into your manny. After that, we hit a ditch spot.

“The run-up wiggled you back and forth, and then you launched off a narrow ramp a little bigger than your board. You don’t have that much room to pop off of. I just remember it being big, but the ramp gave you a boost where you cleared it fairly easily. I got it just in time before it got fully dark too, kind of got lucky.” – Dyshon Whidbee

On the way out of town, we hit up Whataburger; none of us had been before. Customer service rated 10/10. I didn’t want to order a burger because I don’t eat meat. I asked the dude at the register for burger buns, all the veggies he has, and a side of fries. The manager pulled up and charged me for toast and fries. Thanks to Dylan, Jerry, and Zach for showing us around too!

Atlanta:

We booked an Airbnb in the hood, but that wasn’t the sketchiest part. The host messaged us saying if we had more than 13 people in the crib we would be escorted off the property by police and be charged an $800 fine. We hit him up trying to be transparent about our group size, but he still wasn’t having it. We had to pay the dude an extra $720 for the additional people and had a couple of homies stay with another friend. By this point, a few of us had also realized Sully had been disappearing for hours at a time in each city we visited.

“I was just going on grocery runs, spot hunting, a sneaky link, the usual.” – Sully

We hit up Krystal Banks, and apparently having 16 dudes in your parking lot for a couple of hours isn’t something fast food managers are stoked on. After a long day of skating, a few of the boys went to the strip club.

“We got rinsed. Heads came back with heavy nuts and no bread. I spent the rest of the money I had for the trip in that damn club.” – Ethan Kaplan

By this point in the trip, a total of four Henny bottles and a bottle of Tequila had been drunk. Sully’s car got ransacked in the middle of the night, and all the stuff he had in it got stolen. His airpods, wallet, bag of clothes, and even his leaf blower are up for sale now on Windsor Street if anyone is looking for a quick deal.

Zach was also down to his last board, and each time he broke one, everyone would just yell out “Dead Broke” because that is the name of the board brand he rides for. We all got some fire Thai food around the corner from the MLK plaza, and the nice employees asked how my pad thai with tofu was. I told them it was banging, and they told me they thought we were bummed because the whole crew looked mad as hell, and we were yelling at each other while they were trying to smile at us during our meal. I linked back up with the homies and asked if they liked the food, and they all said it was beast. Guess there was some miscommunication there as well. We had been on the road stacking clips for a full week straight, and some homies planned on leaving a day early. Before leaving ATL, some of the homies stopped for gas and gave a gas station lurker a buck. He then gave them a nunchuck show. The grand finale to the show was homie hitting his nuts with his nunchucks and keeping it pushing. Everyone managed to make it back to Charlotte that night no later than 1am.

Overall, everyone went home with stories, clips, and dead broke. These cities were located about 2 hours and 15 minutes from each other, which made traveling to and from each of them super convenient. 5301 CLT plans to release another full-length video in the Fall of 2025.