Last gasp of summer

Good god, did we finish with summer already? The NHL is fast approaching, the leaves are turning and it rained on our skate today. We need more summer! We’re just getting back into rails again and another month would be just fantastic, thanks.

Mike David is a beast. His is the kind of rollerblading we all wish we were capable of; ballsy, confident hammers without hesitation and with style for miles. When he was in town a fortnight ago, Mike got a particular trick into his head so naturally he just went and did it.

Mike has been filming hard and busted out a trick so good that we decided to save the photo and keep it exclusive for the video… OK, you got me- my camera was off and I missed the shot! I’m really sorry… no, don’t cry, ah look, now you’ve set me off too! I’ll learn how to take a good photo eventually- honest. Look for the footage soon, I promise you its worth the wait.

It began to rain, so after huddling in Starbucks like tramps under a bridge we headed to Bickfords at Christie Pits to have a wander around. Have you noticed how rails seem tiny when you revisit them five years later? Mike and I set about the kink rail with reluctance at first- it was wet and the rail was as quick as a greased ferret. After I tested the waters with some warmup topsouls, Mike landed an X grind to royale and for the first time in my life I fishbrained a kink rail. That’s right- I got a photo!

Yep, that’s rain you see in the shot. To conclude, I think I like rails again? After that the rain was just too much to carry on, so we followed up with Sushi on Bloor.

How was everyone else’s weekend?

This entry was written by Guy, posted on September 27, 2009 at 10:59 am, filed under Session. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Wednesday Night Skate

How many of you have skated recreational skates this summer? Personally, I haven’t been on a pair in over ten years. Yesterday Dave got a set of the new Rollerblade ‘crossover’ skates (the X5s) from Leon at Shop Task along with some RB aggressive frames and the new soulkits.

He showed off his new setup in style last night and I have to say they really suit him and like all RB skates are solid, comfortable and well made. As an added bonus he’d brought along the recreational aluminium frames with 80mm wheels, and seeing as I was desperate to skate them, he let me ride around with them on my skates for a while. They’re not quite the perfect solution I’d expected -switching to them from Fiziks is a lot of work- as you have to take a wheel off of each end to get to the UFS bolts, but ten minutes of work later my Carbons were in their true spiritual home- on top of some badass wheels!

We had a fun skate of the downtown core last night cruising around buzzing security guards and making them earn their paychecks, followed by beers and curb sausage. Downtown Toronto is so pretty at night, its a shame that the spots can be a bust.

This entry was written by Guy, posted on September 24, 2009 at 9:19 am, filed under Session. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Daytrip to Simcoe

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.

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This entry was written by Guy, posted on September 22, 2009 at 1:19 pm, filed under Session and tagged Simcoe. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.