Just YES. Sweatstances don’t get better than no-soulplate-all-cohones Dan Lefebre Sweatstances.

Having never been to visit, when I think of Simcoe I imagine a small town crammed full of death rails, corn fields, bar fights and Mike David. It turns out that the reality isn’t too far from my vision, but with better stuff to skate. Mike David has been putting in quality time behind the wheel recently visiting Toronto four or five times in the last month so we felt it was only fair that we took a drive to his (red?) neck of the woods to see what Simcoe has to offer.

We decided to meet Mike halfway at a very creative ledge park in Brantford. Brantford is a hole… a cess pit of humanity and just one of those towns you need to get the heck out of at the first opportunity. Massive unemployment and cereal-box level IQ equals dumb ass teenage skateboarders who rely on burly security guards having their back to talk shit to people ten years older than them. I haven’t been called a fruitbooter in nearly three years, in some ways I’ve kind of missed it. All I will say is that I wished to god Dan had been given the opportunity to take that kid apart. With a bad taste in our mouths we proceeded to get the heck out of Dodge.

Simcoe! Land of corn, apples and Walmart. Our first stop took us to Mike’s house where got a clue that this wouldn’t be a typical downtown skate- brooms, boards and a box full of books that Voltron together to make an improvised launch ramp.

We warmed up at a flat rail where everyone got some tricks in but no photos were taken, then moved onto a long, low and mellow rail for some serious business. Dan set up his camera and people started throwing down! In all honesty, I think we’ve missed skating rails and its changed us as rollerbladers. Without that element of danger, rollerblading parks only has become as tame as bowling, golfing or cycling… physical exercise with very little chance of physical pain. As a group we surprised ourselves and each other with how much we enjoyed rails- just in time for five months of snow.

Owie.

Mike with a boned over True Mizou.

Dwight Acid Soul.

Dan retires behind the lens.

Taylor wallrides to 360 out.

After everyone was done throwing themselves at the rail (Dan taking a brutal fall on his awesome sweatstance) we moved to a high white ledge in a parking lot. Dwight killed the most perfect sweatstance three attempts in a row and Taylor back royaled one block before transferring to true soul on another block.

Daylight was beginning to bleed from the sky (and Taylor from the shin) as we moved to the final spot- fittingly the death rail Mike had packed the books for. Just looking at the rail had us laughing in disbelief; we knew Mike was fond of super hammer tricks, but a chest-high rail with a 10ft drop at the end? No thank you.

The sheer craziness of the spot was compounded by the sight of Mike trawling trash bins looking for scraps to build a launch with, only to resort to a laundry basket full of worn old books with a board up to it. The lip was first smoothed with the ‘S’ from the Arby’s restaurant next door then with an old car park sign and the ramp was complete. Just looking at it reminded me of the gut-dropping fear of waiting in line to ride a rickety old wooden rollercoaster, but at least I didn’t have to skate it.

After a couple of warmups and a goochslap, Mike stuck a perfect fishbrain clean off the end to fakie.

Thanks gents for a great daytrip!

This entry was written by Guy, posted on September 22, 2009 at 1:19 pm, filed under Session and tagged Simcoe. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.