Toronto

We have just had an amazing few days in Toronto. On Wednesday we Spent the day at Joyride 150, its a sick indoor park with everything from North Shore, Jump boxes, Park, Resie and foam, and even an indoor XC loop. After a good days riding there and after cleaning up at the hotel we drove into Downtown Toronto and got the bikes out to and had a look about. We randomly bumped into some street riders there who showed us a few cool spots and gave us the intersections to put into the GPS to find all the good parks.

So on Thursday (Lex's Bday) we started at Markham's outdoor concrete park on the outskirts of Toronto.







We then moved on to Vanderhoof which is an old concrete bowl with a massive cradle! the coping was huge on the bowel which made it quite hard to ride so we didn't stay too long.






Having looked online we had seen that there was quite a popular backpackers hostel in the Entertainment district in Downtown Toronto. This turned out to be about the same price as the hotel we had been in further out in Markham so we booked in for 2 nights.



After checking in we went to find a wooden skatepark that the street riders the night before had told us was quite ghetto. This turned out to be 1 of the best parks I have ever riden! yes the ramps were fairly haggered, but the angles on all the quarters, spines, volcano's, jump box, etc were perfect!












The locals there are amazing riders and really sound people too. We met a Plain Lazy team rider called Lee from Camborne, Cornwall (small world), and a local called Ian who was going super massive on everything. They told us about 2 more parks worth visiting just outside Toronto on our way back to the US.

We found somewhere to buy beer (everywhere is the equivalent to £1.50 a can here!) and headed back to the hostel where we met a few people from different places. The Hostel had a night out planned to the club where we had guestlist for Lex's bday anyway so we went along with them. It was a rubbish club so we left after 1 drink and wandered around a few bars with a couple of Canadian girls we met. Most places wouldn't let us in because we wernt wearing shirt and shoes (on a Thursday night :s). We ended up in a Chinese Restaurant at 3:30 in the morning eating the worst sweet n sour chicken balls ever, before heading back to the hostel.

On Friday (feeling quite hungover) we wandered down to the CN tower and lake Ontario then back into town.





In the afternoon we went for another sesh at the wooden park and then went to some local street spots with Ian.
Friday night ended up being quite a laugh. we started off drinking at the hostel again with Jesse, a guy from Jersey City, and a German, Sebastian. We headed out to a bar with them where an Australian girl came up to us before we had a chance to get a drink n told us we should go to a bar called Madison with them, so we all jumped in taxis and went. Everyone got very drunk and had a good night.

Saturday We hit 2 more parks on our way back to the US.
The first was Icelands, a 10 year old concrete park with a lovely flowey street section and nice bowel with perfect quarters and a cool hip.












The second park is called Shell Park. Its a very old park with some amazing lines, but having just had lunch we were both feeling too full and hungover to do much there and didn't get any photos.

The drive back to Cleveland took about 5 hours with having to go through boarder control, but we eventually made it back, and went to Paninis bar for some food which was quite entertaining as the waitress struggled to understand us.

I will put up more Photos and all the riding photos in an album (probably a publicly viewable one on facebook) at some point!

Going to ride some street in Akron today then Ray's bike park for the next few days!