Plywood and Water Don't Mix

The past two weeks have been filled with more rain than the entire summer, it's insane! Houses around here didn't have power for a few days and I was beginning to wonder whether this was going to be another summer black-out marathon. Aside from that, all this rain makes skateboarding no easy task. The weather man is not as accurate as he should be and this creates a lot of improvising in terms of skate trips or a regular day out. Flash rain storms are even more common than these huge thunderstorms. Super wet and windy one moment and blazing hot within the same hour, nobody knows for sure what's going on up there. A good example is this, when I started typing this up it was pouring rain, thundering and my lights were flickering, now this crappy piece is done (as well as an episode of Family Guy) and the sun is already shining. There is hope for us skateboarders!

Without further a due, I bring you all the dudes skating between those sun breaks and huge thunderstorms.


Aaron pulling out a wallie
backside 180 and quite possibly
getting the last trick at this spot.


Isaac, backside flip.


Isaac, frontside noseslide drop
in.


Joel, wallie wallride at a gritty Uptown spot.


Joel, front board pop out.

As of Late

I've been working what seems like everyday and shooting almost not at all, I think I'm in a slump. Over the past few weeks these are some of the best flicks of the bunch that I've shot. One more week of work and I've got two weeks off in which time I'll be heading down to Detroit to shoot with some rippers down there, stoked!

Josh poppin' an ollie at city
hall. Flannel in 30 degree
weather? Sure why not.


Aaron Wynia coming through with a
winner for the first time in about
15 minutes.


On a totally separate day, Isaac
trying something new with a
wallride nosegrab out.


New dude in town, Ryan. Came from Orangeville
and we took him here, almost came through
with this kickflip before he got a full on
ass-ripping when he slammed.


Erik and I took full advantage
of golden hour with this hippie
jump. Erik contemplated
sending this photo in to get hooked
up by this store.


Byron busting through one hell
of a gritty backside noseblunt.

When things don't go according to plan

Every skateboarder has their good days and their bad ones and they also know that some tricks just work better than others. Too many little things can happen within a session that hinder or completely stop the skater from getting their trick. Angry pedestrians taking the law upon themselves, cracks in the ground, soggy boards, rough ground or bad vibes all around, sometimes you just can't help these types of things from happening. If you can't tell by now then you can welcome yourself to the very first bail post on this site!

Surfs up on the axel nuts, brah.


The not-so-purposeful manual tricks



Ah yes, when something just doesn't feel right
you've gotta kick away the board.


Boards and lenses don't mix.


Tuck and roll


Young ones have ankles of
rubber, what's the deal?


Shoes and lenses don't mix
either.


"Just abouts" tricks


Wheels apparently don't roll
on grass...


or through cracks


Feet are a love hate relationship in
skateboarding. Yeah, they do pop that board
but that sticky rubber on the bottom is perfect
for gripping on to the ledge when you're only
trying to move forward in life.


Ah, round ledges.


The "what the hell?!" look. Most
commonly performed when the
trick just barely gets away from
the feet.



You didn't think all the tricks on here were first try or something like that, right?

In the event of me not updating...

I know I have done a serious update since the Detroit dudes came to town and started shredding shit but this is good enough! I did not shoot this but still thought it was rulin'

Behold, Peter Stankiewicz getting GNARLY!


This as well...


still pushing the Helvetica style more than ever, for sure.

Coming Together

You've heard the horror stories of people "meeting" eachother online and then deciding to meet in person and things go totally wrong. People go missing, end up dead, yada yada, the regular "internet horror story." This was something totally different though, that's for sure.

I am a regular lurker on the Slap messageboard and had happened to come across a post from a dude looking for directions to spots in Toronto. Initially I just wanted to see what was up but when this guy from Detroit had also mentioned passing through Waterloo I had to throw up the invite and show him and his friends around, I had no idea what to expect. Eventually Justin(our internet skate friend) told me that he just wanted to come skate London, Toronto and whatever else was around for the weekend, showed me some clips of his (really dope) friends and him and I told them I would gladly show them around for the day.

Saturday came around and we made the meet up point the Kitchener park. After warming up for a few we headed downtown. Turns out they decided to really kill it at all the spots we went to. I'm talking in the first 15-20 minutes just start throwing out bangers on the ghetto grays, gap to manny pad, etc. I was stoked! We went to all the regular spots that everyone in the city was over by now and like they say, one man's trash is another's treasure. Tricks everywhere! On top of the dope tricks they were the nicest people too. Good thing, I didn't want to end up with internet kooks for the day.

We skated long into the night, ending our skate date at city hall where we got a really nice cool-off session in, bust free! Like any other visitors, Justin, Daryl and Garza all got the classic downtown Kitchener treatment. Front row seats to a gang fight, the fine downtown lady meat, super drunk people and other fucked up people all the while taking it in stride and just trying to land some tricks. Mid-way into the night I was getting calls and text messages from people super worried because they had heard "some Detroit dudes" dumped me in Cambridge, beat me to hell and robbed me of all my camera gear, thanks Josh.

Big ups to Justin, Daryl and Garza! I was stoked to show you guys around and hopefully I can make it down there before the summer is finished.

Justin, first spot of the day and
having no mercy with this super
poked back smith.


Daryl, switch back tail, first try.
Yes.


I was super impressed, Daryl put this down in
about 15 minutes. According to Justin and Garza,
"it's normal."
Kickflip gap to nosemanual nollie flip out, chea!


Garza, backlip to the end.


Garza's kit. He might never do back lips on
ledges again.


A taste of downtown! From left to right:
Justin, Garza, Daryl and Downtowner. Dude
was going off drunk out of his mind about his
son being in jail for crack.


Keep in touch!

Funzone

The day started off in a pretty weak way for me: waiting at the park for an hour and nobody who said they would show up, did. I was over that quick! Plan B: Text message from Joel saying they were Uptown skating around so I went in that direction. I got there and Cameron was already hucking himself over a rail while Ryan film and Aaron took on position of man-cheer leader. Things weren't working out for Cameron and he decided enough was enough after slamming too many times. After we decided to head over to this little bump to manual spot where we met up with Matt and Dwight, another camera man on the scene. We dorked around at this spot still trying to warm up and decided it was time to move on, get some food and go to a "real" spot. Beh0ld, the ever so secret(not anymore) barrier spot! Some serious brooming was needed while all of us camera dudes set up. It was super hot that day so we all got drinks before we decided to really throw down. Joel had a great time trying to skate the spot, and by great I mean horrible time. Our friend Aaron on the other hand got a nice trick and had a somewhat easy time doing so. In the end Joel got his trick too but was disgusted with the spot and how hard it was to skate.

Dwight in full lurk effect and
fully unsure of me taking pictures.


Ryan Alexander: Next level
video camera shit. Ty Evans
watch your back.


"I get brain freeze so easy!"
Aaron proves his word is
always true.


If there were awards at spots for
the most improved skater, Joel
would have won this time. Just
playing!


A victim of peer pressure, Cameron ass-focussed
his board.