The WKND Dudes in Connecticut + Albany

Ollie in front of Supreme by Max Wheeler. No, a different Supreme. Photo by Bobby Murphy.

The scope of skateboard travel got way smaller this past year-and-a-half. Connecticut — that lil’ big state that is basically just outside The Bronx — posed an interesting case study. Following the thaw-out from the most depressing winter of our lifetimes, our first trip out of New York was to CT. We came armed with inspiration from “Your Big Cheesecake,” a March 2021 Connecticut video that was blurbed about on here in the winter, and originally found on Skate Jawn. In it, you find a vast network of cutty, underseen spots sitting in small cities that are all a shorter drive away than Philadelphia. It wasn’t until just recently that our brains were forced to understand that maybe there was some skateboard escape nearby that wasn’t one we have been to dozens of times before. The rewatchability of “Your Big Cheesecake” definitely helped hammer that point home.

Albany has also been in the throes of its own renaissance, seeing as how — depending who you ask — it is currently home to the northeast’s second best plaza spot. Oh, it’s always been there, and that decrease in bust showed up a bit before the pandemic, but it has even drawn crews who are visiting New York City to take that three-hour drive north. And like anything in skateboarding that felt like you were gifted with a cheat code this past year, it’s only a go until it’s not. When that is …is anyone’s guess ;) We went to midtown last Sunday and that shit is nowhere near is fun as it was a year ago ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway! The WKND dudes celebrated their acquisition of Tanner Burzinski by taking the team on the road to these very fun-to-skate places, and came back with this ten-minute video that includes a Tommy Cuilan cameo. Video by Grant Yansura.