On one particular walk up next to Jflo we heard the hum of many wheels gripping road and looked up to see our blonde Christ leading two more long haired goons through the straight away. They were fast. Jflo made mention that they looked like the guys from Metalocalypse and started calling them Norwegians. The name stuck and soon everyone was calling them by that and I even overheard a grom telling another grom at the top by the kickers that somebody was here from Norway. But they weren’t from Norway. They were from Indiana and the first pack of the day belonged to them…the Tired GanG.
Tired GanG is a crew of skaters from Indiana that is stretching into Illinois, Wisconsin and across the Midwest. They are the friendliest dudes I can think of and know what they are doing on a board. Austin Cochran has unreal style and kills the freeride game all four ways and also leads the charge into downhill runs, usually opting to squat any lefties rather than touch his glove. Right up his ass on any run come Ian Trent, Austin Harris, and Jordan Read, who hadn’t made the trip to the
Mounds but still shreds just as hard. Ian is fast as fu@# and has the ballsack and potential to take his skating to another level. Harris is a quiet guy with a kind soul who shreds it as hard as anyone you can think. Jordan I do not know well but I do know that for the few hours I met him on their hills he was friendly and fast. That’s how I would describe this whole crew, friendly and fast. With home hills that go high speeds on tight roads they’ve developed a pack style all their own that rivals the closeness seen in the finals of big races.
So what is Tired GanG? Just a group of friends who ride and have a facebook page? Is it a way to get recognition in the downhill scene? I talked with Austin Cochran of Tired GanG to try to get a better understanding of Norwegian culture.
According to Austin Cochran, “Tired GanG,to me,is something that developed naturally and after we took notice of the effects, became an official skate team.” They didn’t cop someone else’s style and try to make their own version of it; They were just doing their own thing entirely and a natural curiosity and interest from certain parts of the community started turning Tired GanG into less of “a joke between villains” and more of a presence in the local scene. Having skated with plenty of people from the Midwest it became apparent that they could definitely shred anything anyone brought them.
Regardless of the name or the whole crew connotation, these fellas are a down to earth bunch who shred hard as hell and are welcoming so long as you don’t blow their spots. The most important thing I can take away from my experiences with the Tired GanG can be summed up in the final statement of my interview with Austin, “We like to skateboard down hills so I would say, if you like that kind of thing you oughta come out and skate with us, or watch our videos, or just spread truth we like that too.”