"Chasing the Dream" has one particular connotation with a group of my friends here in Montreal but right now I kinda want to talk about another meaning it can have.  As everyone knows, sometimes it's easy to get pretty bored with your local "known" spots and it's usually fun to get off the beaten path and go exploring new areas and places that you've never hit.   Most of the time it shakes everyone out of their comfort zone and gets people hyped to come up with new tricks to do.

JS Lapierre knocks the cobwebs off this rarely hit spot with a proper Ollie.

This was our first time back at this loading dock spot this year and Charles Rivard gets things started with a Switch Inward Heelflip

Sometimes though, you get the occasional time when you go off with rough directions on how to get to  the "best spot ever" only to find out that it's not quite as amazing as everyone hyped it up to be.   The other day a group of us went out on a mission to try and find this spot that none of us had ever seen before but was supposed to be super sick.  We got "directions" on how to find it and then headed out across the city taking a metro and a bus and then skating for several blocks all the while searching for the spot. At one point we even asked a work crew who was planting trees if they "knew where an abandoned hotel was in the area?".  They didn't seem very impressed and looked at our crew like we were out of our minds and on drugs.  We continued searching and finally came across what had to be the spot. 

Walking across the field to the spot we were all pretty excited. It seem like this could be an amazing discovery.

Unfortunately,  when we got up close things were a little less appealing.  Despite even Josh Clark's best efforts at spot repair (which are pretty considerable let me tell you) we all eventually came to the conclusion that the spot was pretty much a waste of time.  So like most skaters who have just realized that they just wasted an entire nice sunny day searching out a spot we decided to spend the rest of our time goofing off.  While I wasn't able to document his makeshift bazooka canon and skit (something that I'll  have to live out the rest of my days regretting) I did manage to snap a flick of Charles Rivard praising Satan for blessing us with such a crappy day.

One thing that you can always take solace in after a failed mission is that there will almost always still be a fun session waiting for you back at the local meet up spot when you get back.  These days Parc Lafontaine has been a pretty much the meetup spot of choice for everyone in Montreal and there's usually some pretty good antics going on. The shot below is completely bizarre.  This random guy drove up and parked beside the park and then started blaring his music and dancing around while everyone was skating.  He then started spazzing around on the ground trying to get people to do tricks over him.  It pretty much had everyone in the place in stitches.

Crazy Dave BS 180's while Adam Green provides some refreshment

So while it definitely wasn't the most productive day and we were all a little bummed out that our day long mission didn't result in much skating everyone still managed to keep a pretty positive take on things.  I think Chuck said it best.... "It's been one of the best, shittiest days ever!"

This past weekend started out like most others.  Our friend, and intrepid filmer Brian Shannon aka B-shans made the move Montreal from his hometown of Burlington on Thursday, so we decided to gather a few skaters together and hit some new spots.  Brian had his car in town and we had heard that there were a few good spots in this town just north of Montreal so we decided to drive up and check it out.  Looking back it maybe would've been better to see a few pictures of these spots first before committing to going there.  After getting stuck in traffic for several hours we arrived at the town to find out that the spots we had heard were really amazing actually weren't terribly photo or footage worthy.  Undaunted,  Josh Clark and JS Lapierre skated around a little bit at least and had a bit of fun before we got back in the car to head back to Montreal.

Bshans

JS flies down the massive grass gap with a Nosegrab and a smile

While Josh pulls out an Early Grab

Slightly bummed out from our "not so productive" day, we decided it would be good to shake things up a little bit and go visit some friends in Ottawa for a few days to see some old friends and get a taste of some new spots.  The next morning,  Josh, JS, Chris St-Cyr and I all hitched a ride up to Ottawa with Sam from Mehrathon Trading.

Shortly after our arrival we met up with our buddy Mitch Barrette who would be showing us around town for the weekend.  No time was wasted and we started cruising the city checking out possible spots.  Coming from Montreal, I'm always surprised by the number of quality spots that Ottawa has to offer, especially considering that its a bit of a smaller city.  Mitch took us to one particular gem that used to be hit pretty frequently a few years ago.  The city tried to skate proof the spot by adding in metal railings but in doing so, they created a new spot by leaving a bit of a gap at one point.

Mitch perfects his close filming technique while Josh threads the needle with a Crook to fakie.

Another amazing spot we came across was this bump to barrier located in the parking lot of a mall. This spot was pretty crazy!  To skate it you had to be towed by a car across the parking lot and then hit a super skinny concrete patch job at full speed, then go up a steep bank, and then fly over a huge concrete barrier.  Definitely an intimidating spot.

Josh flies up and over with a frontside 180

We finished up our weekend in Ottawa at another spot that used to be fairly prolific and has now seen a new resurgence in skate activity thanks to a recent de-kinking.  The Geurtin 12 is a pretty beefy rail and is definitely no joke.

JS warms up with a Frontside Lip.

Tired and sore from a good weekend we packed up all our stuff into Mitch's car and headed back to Montreal.  On a pitstop along the way JS decided to pay tribute on a wall to our gracious host Mitch.

Thanks Mbou bou!

Well the weather is officially taken a trip to bizaro-ville in Montreal.  Two weeks ago it was snowing and for the last few days we've been dealing with this....

Unfortunately this was also the weather that my young buddy Andrew Wenkstern had to deal with when he came down to the city from St. Catherines, On. to skate around and check things out.  I met Andrew this past winter when he was visiting San Francisco with a group of friends.  They happened to be staying in the same hostel as the crew that I was with so we were able to roll around for a couple of days.  One day, we were at a double-set in Berkley and Andrew laid a beating on it with a few tricks including this solid bs heelflip.

When Andrew arrived in Montreal, we rolled back to drop his stuff off at my place and i realized how easy it is to travel to places and stay at skate houses, partly because they all seem to share a lot of the same, sometimes quirky traits.  I noticed that my place has a few skate house giveaways for sure.

Piles of skateshoes by the frontdoor.  This is a small pile.  The big pile is actually outside the front door in the hallway.

Stacks of Skate Magazines.

And the ultimate skate touch.... Wheelmarks on all the walls.

Anyways,  despite the scorching temperatures we still decided to go out and try to get some tricks especially since Mitch Barrett and his friend Sam Lind were also in town to go on a few missions.  One day we were all at handrail when JS Lapierre and Andrew tried to see if they could pull off back to back front feebles.

JS ripped his off

An then cheers in the background when andrew lands his next try

JS was so hyped that at the next spot he actually spent $5 on a soft serve ice cream cone.  I thought he got totally ripped off and made fun of him a little bit but he assured me that it was amazing.  Well apparently JS got the last laugh on that one.  As I'm typing this with my laptop melting through the top of my legs, I'm pretty sure I'd murder someone for an ice cream cone right now. 

Mike Vince,  one of my all time favourite people, has recently moved to Montreal for the summer and we've been hanging out and skating lots since he's been here.  Mike's not one to mince words or shy away from voicing his opinion on things and recently we've been talking about the word Poser.  It had been a little while since I've heard the word and after hearing Mike use it the other day I'm hooked.  When I was a wee little guy growing up skating it seemed as if it was a lot more common for people to get called out by their peers, especially older skaters, about questionable behavior and being called a poser cut pretty deep.  Basically, it was the last thing in the world you wanted to be called.  Anyways,  without getting into specifics, it seems pretty appropriate to start bringing Poser back and I'm hyped that Vince re-introduced it into my vocabulary.

I'm pretty sure that Mike Vince would agree that this switch 50-50 180 out is a Poser move

Andrew McGraw didn't even flip into this Frontside Feeble grind.....Poser

Apparently Jay Brown didn't realize that only Posers do combo grinds

Joey Larock could probably tell me the best way to say Poser in french. Fs 180 switch manual revert

Oh.....  The Fedex delivery guy came by my house yesterday with a box full of issues of the new SBC Skateboard. The cover shot is bonkers!!!  It was a warm night so we invited a few posers to swing by and check it out. [check the site Monday for a full preview of the new issue -ed]

Posers

Gordon Ball Posing

more posers

This is only the first installment of SBC Senior Photographer Geoff Clifford's weekly photo blog, so be sure to check back every Wednesday to see something new from behind the lens of Clifford Cam.

You can tell that a new skate season is starting to enter full swing when visitors from out of town start arriving. This weekend, Rob from Blue Tile Lounge Skateshop in Newmarket, Ontario, decided to bring his skate squad down to take full advantage of the amazing terrain that the city of Montreal has to offer.  Riders Jay Brown and Terence Goddard would be staying Chez Moi while the rest of the crew would post up in a nearby hotel.  Everyone arrived late on Friday with the hopes of having a full weekend to skate. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans, and instead of skate-friendly weather we were given rain and freezing cold temperatures.

This pretty much sums up the bulk of what occurred this weekend:

Not to be completely discouraged however, we all decided to get up off of our asses and go to South Parc skatepark for an evening schralp on Saturday.  We actually ended up having a super fun session and the Blue tile guys were ripping.... So much so that I decided to take out my camera and take a few snaps for posterity.

Jay Brown has one mean Tuck-Knee Indy

Morgan Smith gets busy on the big Euro-gap with a 360 Flip

Darrell Smith joined in on the session and threw down a clean FS Lipslide

And Jay Brown backed him up with a proper FS Halfcab Flip

Mortal threw down a high speed BS 180 Late Shuv

Morgan finished off his euro gap sesh with a Bigspin Flip

Sunday greeted us again with freezing cold temperatures and even a few snowflakes thrown in for good measure so it was another down day for the crew.  Luckily though,  Monday morning broke with sunny skies so everyone got up super early to take advantage of the last day in town.  It was decided that the first destination of the day would be the Belvedere on the top of Mount Royal.  The Belvedere is nice open plaza with a great view that is perfect for warming up and filming a few lines....which is exactly what we did.

After the Belvedere,  I took the guys to a few more up-and-coming skate spots and after a busy tour of the island we finished up at the Museum Gap at Pointe a Calliere where Morgan easily threw down this switch bs 180 for onlooking tourists, moments before we were politely asked to leave by Montreal's Finest.

While it didn't turn out exactly as expected,  I definitely had a fun weekend skating and meeting new friends. Hopefully everyone can make it back to Montreal another time when the weather is a little more accommodating!  As I left Rob and the rest of the guy,  I gave them directions to the infamous Montreal eatery "La Belle Province"  where Rob was itching to sample some poutine.  Hopefully it was a successful mission!