Skate Documentary Comes Through Wrentham

If you happened to see some skaters going down Route 1A on August 1 and 2, chances are that it was Zach Walker and Adam Adada on their way to New York City. The two friends and skateboards have taken on the task of skating from Boston to NYC as part of their documentary Backstreet Atlas, the result of a desire to skate a long distant and tell the tale.

“It built over time. Zach kind of had the idea initially to skate from Boston to New York because he was living in Boston at the time but we both wanted to sake a long distance just for fun,” Abada said.

To get to NYC, Abada and Walker made a route featuring places they wanted to go with directions from Google Map’s walking direction feature. Despite trying to get walking friendly directions, it still wasn’t easy getting through Route 1A which Walker admitted that “at points isn’t that walking friendly.”

Part of that journey was stopping by Wrentham for the evening before heading out the next day for some more skating.

A project like this requires a good group of friends along the way to provide a place to sleep and recover after a long day of skating. Luckily, both Walker and Abada have plenty of help on their trip.

“We hit up a network of friends and we have friends in half the places we’re going. The other half we either have acquaintances or people we’ve hit up like skate shops, ect,” Abada said.

They also have a tent in the event they need to camp out, but that was not required at least during their time in Wrentham. While in town, the boys stayed with David Black who is the father of one of their college friends. When talking about hosting the duo for the evening, Black said,  “I am honored to host such wonderful men who promote making life more interesting.”

To help fund the film, Adam and Zach set up a page on Kickstarter to allow fans to donate money to the project. With a goal of $4,200, Adam and Zach would only receive the funding if they could reach their goal by August 1. As the deadline passed, 112 donors had given $5,280 to help the documentary.

“It’s pretty unbelievable. It feels good to have your idea backed by support but I can’t thank everyone I know and everyone who helped us enough. I’m blown away,” Abada said.

Previously, the most either had ever skated was in the 10 - 20 mile range. Adam and Zach hope to average 30 -35 miles a day and estimate that their journey to New York will end between August 11-13.

Fans can follow the journey to New York City at the documentary's official website.