Skate Slate Article (Published)

A recent article by Toronto journalist: Drew Penner has been posted on Skate Slate online magazine:

Longboard Living Launches Ambitious Boards -


by Drew Penner

Though Kevin LeFrank's been skating for eight years -- and just launched a line of longboard decks to be sold at brand spanking new Kensington shop Longboard Living last weekend -- he didn't alway dig oversized boards.

"I always heckled the longboarders as a trick skater, as a joke," says LeFrank, amid the commotion of his April 10 party in the minimal gallery-style shop in the lower level of 74 Oxford.

"It's just something that's frowned upon by trick skaters."

The Barrie-based custom board craftsman whose company Ambitious tends towards functional design, says one day he needed to get across town and decided to give longboarding a go.

It didn't take long for LeFrank to fall in love with a new style of skateboarding.

"It's such a soul thing," he says. "You can go have fun or you can go be serious, but once you get into it, it takes over your life."

His transition parallels the rising tide of interest in all things longboarding over the past several years in mainstream culture. Those who embrace this extreme sport are intensely passionate about it.

LeFrank has pushed from Barrie to Toronto before. His friends are planning to ride all the way from Toronto to New York later this summer.

Sure longboarding is trendy. And hell, it's cool. But most importantly it's a whole barrel of fun: carving up sidewalks, weaving in and out of garbage bags, and narrowly avoiding street vendors. Perhaps most conveniently, it's a lot easier to float across streetcar gutters with giant wheels.

Certainly for participants, the sport is quickly becoming part of what it means to live in the urban sphere.

Franz Lazerte, a 22-year-old Kensington resident, says he's glad Longboard Living opened up in his neighborhood, especially since he's fairly new to this particular form of ripping.

"Originally I got into it because I'm big into board sports in general -- longboarding is a way to apply that in the summer on concrete," he says. "Now I've realized the community here is phenomenal."

After Longboard Living owner Ryan Rubin set up a weekly Wednesday skate session, he's had no problem finding others who share his desire to ride, he says.

"It's a great way to get around and to meet people who have similar interests," he says.

Peter Harrington, an 18-year-old from Mississauga, is another fresh face in the scene. One day his friends headed downtown to pick up a longboard, and he figured he'd build his own.

He picked up the component parts and did his deadliest: fashioning a sturdy, scream of a ride -- shaped like a tombstone.

"There was just nothing really out there that was the same," he says.

In the few short months he's been longboarding, he's started to look at Toronto in a new light.

"When you're walking along the road you just imagine yourself riding down the hill or something," he says, with a characteristic nonchalance. "It changes the way you perceive space -- if you know what I mean."

Vince Gao has been longboarding for more than a year now. The 21-year-old says he picked up the addiction in B.C. where the scene is "a little more raw."

"Here you have to convince people skating is awesome," he says. Luckily Gao doesn't feel the need to apologize for his healthy habit.

He just loves the rush of speed.

"Once you step on a board you're hooked," he says.

Gorini Junior slowly approaches a custom deck with an intricate wood-burnt design, hanging from the wall. It is one of many works of unique skate art on display in the shop today.

The Brazilian grabs the board and carefully inspects it. It's his.

Yes, he thinks, this is the perfect souvenir, and can't wait to ride it along the beach back home.

The image by Champstiles Woodburning depicts iconic scenes from both New York and Toronto, paying homage to the Brooklyn-based Bustin' Boards that inspired Rubin's efforts to popularize longboarding in Toronto.

The city scenes are separated by a fist bump. Below: a New York subway train and the Statue of Liberty loom larger than the heavy skyline presided over by a helicopter. Above: Depicted in front of Nathan Phillips Square, downtown office buildings and even the CN Tower, is the "SkyDome."

An hour later about 20 longboarders are whizzing down the parkade below the Rogers Centre, forming light-speed human chains and practicing board slides.

Having already blasted down Spadina Avenue, like a school of fish never to be hawked by the chinatown fishmongers they pass, it was time to wreck havoc underneath Canada's most famous baseball diamond.

The way they race to the bottom of the garage resembles the whirlpool in a bathtub when the plug is pulled. And when they reach the bottom, they race up.

Some chill on their boards at the lowest level chatting with each other.

Harrington flashes Gao a big grin. Riding his tombstone board, he's a speed demon.

As far as he's concerned, in a modern age where answers aren't always easy to come by, longboarding isn't such a bad one.

"People come from all different perspectives," he says. "It's like everyone is looking for something but they don't know what."

Rubin hopes his easygoing nature and passion for the smooth cruise will help Toronto's pedestrians and motorists to see the city not as a grid defined by rapid transit rails or highway overpasses, but instead as a space of limitless possibilities.

www.longboardliving.ca