In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier is mostly on the run, with his desk in his backpack, looking for fascinating topics and people. In this city chronicle he speaks to everyone and is interested in all areas of life.
It may seem like an unlikely fad, but it’s a phenomenon that’s growing in popularity: adults are enamored with miniature skateboards that they operate with their fingers, requiring impressive dexterity. They even meet in Montreal’s public square to enjoy it.
Imagine a classic roll-and-roll, shrink it down until the index and middle fingers can replace the legs, and try to perform the same acrobatic tricks.
To pursue their outdoor pastime, these enthusiasts of this game, commonly referred to as “fingerboard”, are growing fields, apparently miniature fields, something several Montrealers have already noticed.
Digiboarders compete for skill by using their fingers to recreate the figures of skateboard acrobats. Louis Philippe Messier
Have you ever seen one of these mini skateboards?
Swimming pools, valleys, rails, ramps, pipes: the same obstacles that represent life-size courses are recreated.
Since we are in Montreal, of course there is graffiti.
Miniature skateboard parks reproduce the obstacles typical of full-size tracks. Louis Philippe Messier
Miniature graffiti
Fun detail: graffiti artists respect these Lilliputian skateboard parks by labeling works and tags to scale… which adds to their realism.
“We don’t know the graffiti artists, they come here and do whatever they want, but they understand what we do and they adapt to the format, that’s really cool!” comments Philippe Bourguignon, 35 years old, Fingerboard -Enthusiast and manufacturer of miniature boards with his company Kamelpro Fingerboards.
The graffiti artists respected the format of the places by leaving… miniature graffiti! Louis Philippe Messier
I meet Mr. Bourguignon near the Carrières multi-use trail, near a loop of Rue Masson east of the railway, where he has helped build a pretty impressive mini-skateboard park.
It is autumn. It is cold. But nimble fingers on the boards don’t seem to be affected too much.
“It is certain that the outdoor season will soon end and we will train on indoor tracks,” says Renaud Béland, a 20-year-old “digiboarder” who blows on his hands to warm them up.
Mr. Bourguignon uses a piece of artificial turf as a broom to remove the dead leaves, which are conspicuous in this environment due to their gigantic size.
Philippe Bourguignon sweeps the leaves of the miniature planchodrime with a piece of artificial turf. Louis Philippe Messier
When I stand up at the skateboard park to take a photo of it, I feel like Godzilla.
“I have at home a full-scale replica of the Place de la Paix, the park on Saint-Laurent in front of the Monument-National, which I designed myself and which is very popular and popular with skaters,” he claims.
Any public place popular with life-size board enthusiasts is likely to become a miniature model for fingerboarding.
The epicenter of the miniature roll-on trend seems to be in Europe, more specifically Germany, and TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are teeming with videos.
potholes
There are two mini skateboarding parks on the edge of the Carrières slope, the largest being the one near Masson.
Built on concrete blocks at just the right height, it is at least four meters long and has around twenty obstacles.
It’s hard not to see it when passing by on foot or by bike.
In the summer there are sometimes a dozen of these digisurfers comparing tricks and chatting.
Even Google Maps allows you to find this very unofficial playground under the name Track Side DIY.
It is a collective voluntary effort that created and maintains this skateboard park.
“There was a hype during the pandemic, and I could absolutely make a living and pay my bills by making miniboards,” recalls Mr. Bourguignon.
He still makes them and sells them for about fifty dollars.
“I paid about $150 for mine, it was made in Germany,” Mr. Béland told me.
Like everywhere else in Quebec, the harsh winters plague this structure, whose potholes need to be repaired every spring.
Once spring returns, we’ll see digiboarders equipped with trowels to spruce up their playground.
Like everywhere else in Montreal, there is always work going on here.
This winter-damaged miniature skateboard park needs a spring spruce-up, particularly to remove the mini potholes. Louis Philippe Messier