Skating with ease: Sudbury entrepreneur's skating aid heads to market.

• Author: Myers, Ella
• Position: SUDBURY

This winter, Northern Ontario kids can learn to skate with a little more ease.

Ellen Simon will be receiving 500 of her Ezeryder skate training devices for distribution, just in time for the winter sports season.

The device looks like a bike with its seat and handles, but has four legs instead of wheels and ski-like appendages on the bottom. The child sits on the seat and propels themselves by pushing their skates against the ice.

The outdoorsy mother of two from Markstay-Warren, just east of Sudbury, first thought of the product when her 16-year-old son Hunter, then two, loved driving around the house on his toy truck, but was too young to skate on his own.

"I was thinking, you know that little truck he has at home, he speeds around on it. Maybe we could use something like that to help him skate," said Simon. "My mother and I built something similar out of PVC pipe, and it wasn't about skating. It was his new truck. He stayed out on the ice the whole day."

"The Ezeryder was my idea but it was my mother Valerie Simon's building skills that helped bring my idea to life," said Simon.

The homemade device stayed below the radar for years until Simon had her second son, Ryder, for whom the product is named. Now six, Ryder started using the device at two like his brother, and other parents started to notice.

"Now, 10 years later with Ryder people would ask, 'Where did you get this thing?'" said Simon. "So we started making some in the basement at my mom's, but it was really expensive because of all the little pieces."

She estimates the homemade versions cost around $70 each, just in terms of materials, but they became so popular, Simon and her mother started to think more along the lines of making it a commercial product.

She's made at least 30 basement versions and donated several to an arena in her community.

With momentum building and costs rising, Simon approached Skater's Edge in Sudbury to see if there was interest in the product. Owners Norm Bouffard, Matt Zawierzeniec, and Sean Venedam jumped at the opportunity and encouraged Simon to pursue commercialization.

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