Leslie Sparkes

November 1st, 2009 | Interviews

Rails are sweet. Your the new 09 Rail champ, how does it feel?

To tell you the truth it feels weird. I’m super stoked though cause it’s the first time I have ever taken first.

Canadian girls kick ass on rails. How cool was it to have a legit amount of competitors in the rail contest?

It was awesome; the girls are really pushing it. Especially on the rails, the Quebec girls are kicking butt! Have you ever seem Marie-Line Ouellet or Laurence Daoust ride the system 2? They are amazing!

You ride at Basecamp which has a pretty sweet slider lake. Can you tell us a bit about it and how it has had such a big impact on your rail riding?

Oh my gosh, I love my home! I’m so lucky to get to have a private slider lake in my backyard. We have tons of great rails, always glass calm water and sweet vibes. Plus my boyfriend only likes to ride in the slider lake so it forced me to ride in there a lot! He pushed me to try a lot of new stuff, which pushed my rail riding this year.

Do you have any big plans for next year in the rail park?

We hope to get more pros out to see how sick it is, a 75’ flat bar would be sick and sysitec would be epic.

What are some of your riding goals on rails for next season?

This year I worked on riding harder rails, so next year I want to improve on my style and switch 270`s stuff like that. Erika Langman has really great rail style; I’d like to ride more like that.

What are some things you do during the winter that help make you stronger for the up and coming season?

Last year I started riding a lot in the snowboard parks, the first year that my knee would allow me to, I fell in love! I also go to Florida so that is always good.

If you could build the perfect rail what would it be?

Honestly, I would build a complete replica of the mini relentless rail they used to have at the Projects. I loved that rail, when I lived there they re-built it for toe jam and I was devastated. Either that rail or I would just steal the rails in the Derome sysitec lake and put them in the Basecamp slider lake.

What’s your favourite trick on rails?

Hot Stinky GARBAGE!!!!!!!

Shout Outs?

Defiantly the gang at Billabong and VZ, Catherine and Meg, as well as Papa Duke and the basecamp bro`s, Addison for the endless pulls and mustache, Ally and Erika for this site, my parents and DALBO!!

Author: Erika

Erika is a regular contributor to TID and ONWAKE, she is currently teaching several TID All Girls Clinics in the province of Ontario! She is very involved in the competitive wakeboard scene and is currently Wakestock Pro Champion.