On a steep Quebec road that most people in the skating world had written off as too eroded and too dangerous to ride, a skateboarder hit 151 km/h and shattered a world record that had stood for nine years. The moment was years in the making, built from countless nights on Google Maps, failed attempts on roads across multiple countries, a wind tunnel session normally reserved for Formula 1 teams, and a quiet tribute to a friend who never got his shot. This is the story of how the fastest speed ever recorded on a skateboard happened on a road nobody thought could be ridden.
The road that everyone called unskateable
The previous record, 146.73 km/h, was set by Pete Connelly on a road in Quebec, Canada, nine years ago. That road had since eroded badly enough that the consensus in the skating community was simple: it could not be done there again. The skater behind this attempt spent years looking for an alternative, including a promising road in the Austrian mountains with a 23% grade divided into four sections: a drop with a corner, a chicane stretch, a top-speed zone, and a final gauntlet of cracks and bumps. Austria delivered a personal-best 140 km/h and proved the gear concept worked, but the road topped out at 129 km/h during the formal runs. With no other road in the world matching what was needed, there was only one option left.
Arriving in Quebec, the team found the road in worse shape than expected. The first run reached only 132 km/h, still 14 km/h short of the record. A run in the aero suit brought wobbles so severe he drifted toward the edge of the road. ‘If I have to do what I am doing now at 135, but at 150, like it is going to be insane,’ he said after the near-miss. ‘I do not have the words.’
A Formula 1 wind tunnel and a board he calls the Formula One of skateboards
With the road confirmed as rideable but the gap to the record stubbornly wide, the team traveled to a wind tunnel facility normally used by Formula 1 and MotoGP programs. Four pieces of equipment went under scrutiny: the helmet, the suit, the shoes, and the board itself. The new helmet was shaped to create a cocoon of clean airflow around the body. The suit used a special fabric designed to trip the air, and a spoiler mounted on the back hid his hands and produced a clean separation behind him. New shoes with thinner soles lowered his center of gravity and cleaned the airflow around his lower body. A carbon frame was added around his short board, which he described as ‘the Formula One of skateboards’ for the way it combined agility with wobble-resistance at extreme speed. Back on the Quebec road with the dialed-in equipment, the only variable left was the wind.
Wind management consumed the final day. A speed trap was set at the point of the road where top speed would peak, immediately before a corner he could not slow down for. For hours, the wind arrived from the side, the worst possible direction, pulling his arms and destabilizing his line. Then the conditions shifted. Up to 17 km/h of tailwind ran the full length of the road.
The moment the record broke
He dropped. The speed trap captured the number. His filmer Greg, an experienced skater himself who had driven close behind on every run to capture the line, waited with the rest of the crew at the bottom.
‘Tell me, tell me, tell me. I do not want to wait.’
The number came back: 151 km/h.
The run was also a tribute. Pete Connelly, the friend who set the original record and who believed 150 km/h was possible, had passed away before he could attempt it himself. The 151 km/h mark landed exactly where Connelly had always pointed.
Greg, one step behind at 150 km/h
Greg drove close enough behind on every run to film the line precisely, close enough to see the board moving where it wanted on the rough asphalt, close enough to watch the wobble on the aero-suit run pull toward the edge. He never appears in the speed figures, but the record was captured through his windshield.
On a road Quebec winter had spent nine years trying to reclaim, the number finally moved: 151 km/h, fastest on a skateboard, anywhere, ever.
