I got to Ithaca at half past midnight on Friday morning and was asleep by three A.M. We left for Montreal around 9pm the next day and arrived at 3:30am. We were told that we had to go skating right then no matter what because it was going to rain all day. I wasn’t going to argue with that. We skated some legendary runs that I’d only heard of and seen on the graphics of each Kebbek board. At 8am, the sun had been up for a few hours and we decided to get some breakfast and go to bed. From then on the rest of the weekend was kind of off from lack of sleep. After waking up after few hours of sleep we took a while to come out of our groggy state and wait out the rain before heading north to skate some more epic Quebec hills. The plan was to go to Tremblant and skate the alpine luge track, which I remember well from seeing JimZ ripping it in old downhill videos. We only got one run on it because of rain and tourists. We sessioned another hill for a little bit on the other side of the resort to wait it out but the weather wasn’t on our side. When we got back into Montreal we enjoyed some poutine and a beer in a cool little hipster bar before retiring to our floor space for a little more sleep.

Sunday was the St. Sauveur Gravity Fest, which was about an hour north of Montreal and is part of the Street Missile Northeastern Downhill Series. It’s by far the gnarliest and most technical course in the series, although a very short run. All Street Missile events attempt to be beginner friendly and as inclusive as possible but to make it down the track with any speed much skill was definitely required. We had checked out the course a little the night before when it was raining and it looked like a lot of fun. It’s a very steep run with a grade of 11 or 12%, a right hairpin and a left 90 that most people had a hand down for and were scrubbing through. It’s set on the grounds of a public works facility and there are huge mounds of gravel and stone lining a portion of the course. It is an odd industrial type setting for a downhill race. Our wonderful guide also explained that there would be a launch ramp or two on the course for the slope style competition, which was a very exciting prospect to me.

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