Road side

KING OF THE ROAD IS ON! WHEN YOU READ THIS IT WILL be over, but at the time of writing, everyone's assuming their positions, packing their bags, and getting ready to get weird. Zero has a definite home-court advantage after magically winning San Diego as their starting city, and, although Jon Allie bailed out due to a tragic case of wisdom tooth swelling, he was quickly replaced by Garrett "Nine Inch Nails" Hill, who went on the trip last year, though not as an active KOTR team member.

James Brockraan is also sitting this one out to prepare for the September release of his Zero pro model, but John Rattray gladly flew all the way from his new home in Aberdeen, Scotland to man up and support the squad. One can only imagine the War Room-like atmosphere over at Black Box right now as The Chief and Team Manager Chris "Bama" Bodiford pour over the spread sheets and graphs to maximize their team's West Coast trick haul.

For the Flip team, fellow SOTY Arto Saari replaced shoe-in Mark Appleyard on the KOTR roster, after Apples broke his arm slamming backwards into the iron fence at that waves spot in Barcelona. Apples is going to come on the trip anyway, to play cheerleader and get weird behind the lens of his beloved Hasselblad X-Pan. Another unexpected, although more positive, development for the Flip squad is the inclusion of Blitz heavy Luke McKirdy in the TM slot. McKirdy, who many will recognize as the most physically fit man in the industry, has a fist that can stop traffic and a switch flip that can melt hearts. And after taking it easy at the X-Games (Bastien got eighth and Geoff didn't even take his runs), those two are fully rested and ready to rip, too. And then there's Chalmers. Holy shit, they're gonna be tough to beat. They better be. According to filmer Ewan Bowman, they've been advised by Flip owner Jeremy Fox to "not even bother coming home" if they don't beat Zero.

Element has two big advantages in the event, for one, they've got an tiber-squad including talents as huge and varied as Mike V, J Wray and Tosh, and second, they've got our guy P-Stone as their filmer. That means all types of terrain as well as all leftovers are covered! Element starts from SE where they'll also benefit from the street knowledge of Bay Area hunk Colt Cannon and City Boy photog Luke Ogden. Did we mention that Mike V, always serious and down to deliver, has been issuing weekly team emails detailing his intention to not only drive the entire time (of course!) but also to win at all costs? It should be interesting.

Habitat Team Manager Tony Heitz actually had to drive the team van all of the way from Xenia, Ohio, so you just know he's not about to let the squad go home empty handed. After bailing out the delicate Alien team (who could not even get past the recruiting stage for the event), Habitat is now looking gnar with this squad: Danny Garcia, Stefan Janoski, Silas Baxter-Neal, Kerry Getz, and big Freddy Gall flying the sectarian flag. Dirty Dawes is handling photo duties on this one, and it is rumored he and Freddy are taking it straight-edge (read: slamming O'Douls) to maximize the production. They start from Portland, Oregon, which means Burnside will definitely be a stop for these titans of tech.