Protest Jib Vid

Tignes hosted the Protest Jib Vid Team Challange during the second week of our stay. The Jib Vid competition is an event where teams of three people are challanged to make a 90 second DVD. The teams have 1 day to do the filming and then 1 day to do the editing. At the end of it, all of the videos are shown and judged in a bar.

I thought the competition was well cool - although I must say that there's as much effort spent on the theme/story/film side of things as there is on the riding... but then again I suppose that's what the competition is about - that's what makes it different.

I spent a lot of the filming day in the park/pipe so I got to see a lot of the action first hand. The organisers did a really good job of setting the park up nicely for the event (I should have took some photos - but you can see most of the stuff in the videos).

We all went along to the party to watch the videos, which turned out to be pretty tough becuase it was rammed with really tall people. You kinda had to resort to climbing into the best position possible...

Luckily though, all of the videos are available on the Jib Vid site. After playing all of the videos once, the judges picked out the top 5 and played those ones again. My favourite video was "Het Family", I think they had the best style. I was also pretty shocked that "Whatever" didn't make it into the top 5...

You'll Find Me Riding The Halfpipe...

...on bad weather days.

Towards the start of the second week we had a few bad weather days. It was a big change after the first week was filled with perfect sunshine (sweet) - we couldn't really see much up on the mountain.

I've done a little halfpipe riding in the past so decided that I would try to improve things a little while the weather was bad. It was hard to see the walls clearly and the park maintainers didn't put any paint (or whatever it is) along the coping... however the bad weather brought snow as well as poor visibility and that made the pipe softer than usual. Actually, as well as being softer the halfpipe was also slower - I think these two things combined gave me a little more confidence and helped me to build some consistency up around the coping level.

It was well cool, I had this huge, well shaped, halpipe, pretty much to myself. I spent two afternoons taking laps of the pipe, using this sketchy little rope tow. I ended up riding with a guy from Germany who was around the same level as me and I think that made me push myself more.

I was waiting for the weather to get better because I was thinking "man, when I can actually see the walls I'm sure I can clear the top of the coping". When the weather did brighten up Wilka volunteered to take some snaps of me... he got two really good ones (above and below). I got some video as well. I was so pleased!

So - how high do you think I was going?

Who Took It?

First things first, I've got to get this off my chest... Just before I went on holiday I started to think that I should get some web space sorted out so that I can add things around the blog. Anyway, I checked out the various afterbang domain names, .com, .net, .co.uk etc. and I was pleasently surprised to find that both afterbang.com and afterbang.co.uk were available.

I procrastinated and didn't buy the domain name; I couldn't decide whether I wanted .com or .co.uk. I figured I would think about it while I was away...

To my horror, when I went to sort it out last night I found that afterbang.com has been taken! Who took it? Of course, as soon as the .com was not available I wanted .com - it's loads better than afterbang.co.uk.

It's my own fault. At least it simplfied the decision.

Rant aside - I do now own afterbang.co.uk, so I intend to start developing a site around this stuff.

On a similar note, while I was looking I noticed that www.afterbang.de is being developed. I'm gonna keep an eye on it, it may be really cool...

I'm Back

Hey, I'm back from the Tignes trip, and I must say that it was a great holiday. It had a little bit of everything, I had great fun with my mates and I ended up learning some new stuff.

I changed a few things in my setup while I was out there, I tried out some new kit, I learned things about Tignes and tried a few new things with my riding... so there's gonna be a heap of interesting stuff to put up on here. Keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks - there should be a pretty constant stream of new thoughts, reviews, pictures, video etc.

If anyone is about to go to Tignes let me know asap and I'll put Tignes specific reviews up first...

PS:

Damn, I forgot to mention that I probably won't be adding anything over the next couple of weeks. I have no idea at the moment how many people read this blog so I don't know how much that matters... I do at least know that there are a couple of people who check in here (Ross, we haven't met yet but "Hello", and "thanks for lending those DVDs to Ciara").

See you all later!

PPS:
Hopefully I'll get some decent footage of some riding that I'll put up here when I get back.

PPPS:
Hmm, I didn't get a chance to do that review of the Meribel Accommodation... I'll do that when I get back, and add a review of the place we're staying in Tignes.

Waxed Up And Good To Go

Well, we're off to Tignes at the weekend for a couple of weeks. We actually leave on Friday night 'cos we're driving again. I like the drive - kinda like a big road trip - but like most things it has its ups and downs.

So - the boards are all waxed up and ready to go. I got the job of servicing Ciara's (girlfriend) and Arran's (brother) boards as well as my own; strange because I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to waxing, filling and edging. I've read a few things and asked a few questions - but I'm still not entirely sure that I'm doing a decent job (or a half decent job for that matter).

Hmm, I think I should document one of my attempted services on here sometime. That way if there is anyone reading that knows how to do it properly they can tell me what I'm doing wrong; and those who know even less than me might learn something :-)

So the snow seems really sick at the moment in Tignes. On Monday there was 60cm! Sweet. Basically I can't wait to get there...

YouTube - Getting Some Video Sorted

My friend Mal has pointed me in the direction of YouTube, a website offering a similar service to flickr, only for video instead of photos. If you don't already know what it's all about you should take a look, it seems pretty cool.

This means that there is no reason stopping me from getting some snowboarding and skating footage up for peeps to look at. So watch this space. I may not get anything done this coming week before Tignes, but when I get back I'll have more time on my hands.

It's Dumping In Tignes!

Man - Tignes is only a week away and it looks like there's loads of the white stuff! There's sure to be a great base by time we get there - I just hope there is still fresh snow falling as well.

I've had zero powder days this year (out of 14 days riding). It would be typical that now I've sold (or 'about to sell' at the time of writing this) the longer Anthem, my next holiday will be full of fresh snow...

Still, I'm sure that my 152 Kink will do me good.

Speaking of equipment, I've just traded my Burton Cartel bindings for some new Drake Mikey leBlancs. I wanna try riding with some no-nonsense bindings - I just hope I don't miss the toe strap too much. Here's my current setup:

• Ride Kink 152
• Mikey leBlanc bindings
• Lashed Thirty Two boots

[And some pretty decent outwear :-) Well, I like it anyway]

I plan on doing a review of the accommodation in Tigens when I get back. I'll try to do a quick one this week before I go of the apartment we stayed in during January in Meribel; otherwise I'll never get around to it.