My new boards from Rayne are here! My 2009 Foam-core Hellcat with "W" concave, and an ultra light super flexy demonseed to use as a distance race board! I've set up the hellcat and it rides perfectly I'm totally blown away! Its so light and the W locks my feet in so solid! The most advanced board I have ever seen and the best board for speedchecks i've ever used!

I have been featured in the Spacecraft Blog. They refer to me as being a "Marathon Astronaut". I need that printed on some buisniess cards. I met with Spacecraft at their mission control HQ when I was in Seattle. They are one of the neatest clothing brands I have ever seen and they are all awesome people. Go check out the blog and their line of stuff!

The first part of 2 articles on my skate across South America with Adam and Aaron is out in Concrete Wave Magazine! It's a great article I think it really portrays how the trip went as best as an article could. Also keep an eye out for the next issue and I also wrote part of the editorial for the previous issue of concrete wave. You can get the issues here or ask for it at your local shop!

Sunday July 6th, Royal held a large shoe sale with their skate team. They got one hundred pairs of shoes which they were selling for 50-67% off the regular MSRP. I was there to help out!

Vox shoes also sponsored each Royal team member 2 pairs! I got two pairs of MayDay Vulcanized and I have a set of Eman Spice. The shoes are comfy and stylish and they have a great board feel underfoot.
The Maydays have a huge pouch in the tongue. I'll probably use mine to store homemade energy gels.

I made it to Seattle and I participated in the 7th Ultra Skate, skateboarding ultra-marathon. I've always been attracted to the notion of trying to skate for a full 24 hours.

I stuck to my vegan diet, I had a great pace plan, a great support team (Rachael and James) and most important of all, I was REALLY stubborn! It rained a ton all day. At 13 hours into the event I was still holding a 22kph pace with about 10 minutes per hour at 19kph. That's when I tripped on a pine-cone and injured my knee. Subsequently, this caused considerable strain to my Achilles tendon due to my inability to bend my opposing knee. My speed was cut in half at best. I still managed to push myself to go 403 2ilometers in 23:13 hours before calling it quits due to my injuries. A new record for distance traveled via skateboard in 24 hours. And I pushed the whole way. Expect to see me breaking my own record in the near future. I'll be watching for pine-cones!

The rest of my time in Seattle was spent trying to coax my body to move about, purging my kidneys of blood, and meeting up with the folks at Space Craft. I got to see lots of neat stuff. Next we were off to get a Jones soda and then catch our flight back to Canada.

Big thanks to my wife Rachael, Rayne Longboards, RoyalBoard Shop, Seismic Skates, the Seattle LDP gang, Wil, Space Craft and James Peters of pavedwave for holding the event.

On our way to seattle our flight was cancelled while were at the gate minutes from our boarding time. The next flight isn't for 6 hours. We now have very little time to prep for the Ultra skate.
Some good news, I got my new wheels (and single truck} from Seismic I had them sent to James Peters' house in Seattle
For the race I'll be using 73mm speedvents in 84a and 80a wheels for the record, I got some new avilas for LDP in 75mm with a shore value of 81a and 70a. I also have one siesmic stable turn truck in 155mm with green springs.

Here is a recipe I made up for the up coming ultra skate.
Take 6 parts creamed coconut,
2 Parts fresh Medjool dates,
The contents of a salt pill (to taste, I used one pill for 10 balls)
1 part agave syrup,
Mash it all together, roll into balls, let it sit for about 30 minutes, then coat with some melted fancy pants gourmet organic dark chocolate.
On its own Its not really ideal for super long term energy but it's a quick boost of glucose, quickly used fats or MCT's, and a huge boost in morale! These will be used when I need a quick perk in conjuction with my beverage which contains palm nectar for a lower glycemic index. 9O% raw food, only the chocolate isn't raw.

I've won my second distance event of the year. The Egmont grind is a distance race fashioned by some of the craziest speedboarders on the West coast. It's short - only 8km - and the course is a mix of moderate climbs and some fast decesnts. The end of the race features a crazy steep decent, a tight kink onto a boat dock 30 feet above the Pacific Ocean and you launch off a ramp. The finish line is the water. You hit hard! The second place competitor was knocked unconcious when he hit the Ocean.

This was by far the loopiest event I've ever been to. It's not highly publicized as the organizer Bricin Lyons wants to keep the event small due to the inherent risk of racing such a dangerous course.

The Egmont Grind is one of the competitions associated with Danger Bay. Danger Bay is the worlds largest Longboard festival and its held on the Sun Shine Coast of BC.

The rest of Danger Bay was a blast. I got to meet lots of my friends and It was great to hang out with the guys from Rayne again. My wife Rachael raced the speedboard event this year while I watched our daughter. I accidentally slept through the Downhill freestyle event which was a tad dissapointing; but overall I'm happy, I did well at Egmont and got to help out at the Rayne booth!

During the trip I stopped off at Rayne headquarters to say hi and grab some new decks. My new Catalyst is awesome, 1/3rd less weight and deeper pockets make it way better than any board on the market for downhill freestyle. And I got a custom double nose Pug that will serve as my next flatland freestyle board. I also got a few sets of Orangatangs new freeride wheels from Loaded which I have used on my pug. They are now one of my two favorite general purpose and freeride wheels on the market.