Time To Go Shredding

Man it's here. We're off to Morzine/Avoriaz today for a week of shredding. We've been pretty lucky because it's snowed quite a bit this week, topping things up real nice. I know what it's gonna be like tonight - the first night in the chalet - like a kid on Christmas Eve. I'll be so excited I won't be able to get to sleep. I've aready annoyed Ciara this morning by getting up too early and then jumping around the place...

I've just had a quick look at the forecast for the next few days and it seems for now, at least, the snow is hanging back. It should make for some great sunny riding days to begin with - but I hope the temperature stays low and we get some fresh snow next week.

The new stick. Well, I'm also really excited as this will be the first time that I've ridden the new board, the T2. I can't wait to see what it's like.

Actaully, I've been pondering the stance options a little this week. You see the (152) Kink's got a wide boy set up, allowing for a 25" stance. I started off using the 25" set and it was nice, much wider than anything I'd tried before, and it had its benefits. But after a while I dropped down to the next inserts which are around 22". The main reason for this was that I found it easier to pop/ollie with a narrower stance...

Now, the T2 looks like its widest set is 23.5" and then 22". This is pretty handy (for all I know this could be standard?) because I've got the option to stay with the same setup. However, that 23.5" is right inbetween, so I'm gonna check it out and see how it feels.

Oh yeah, I've waxed the boards up too. I still don't know whether or not I'm doing a good job with this. It's always in the back of my head that I might be adding a sticky coat that's gonna slow me down, rather than performing a speedy wax! In fact I might do something with this when I get back: show you guys my procedure and hopefully pick up some tips.

Ok, I suppose it's time to go get ready. I wanna give a quick shout out to my (lucky) mate Simon, who's off to Fernie for two weeks. Have a good time mate! I say "lucky", but there're no complaints here... I'm going snowboarding! Sick.

Burton's Movie: For Right Or Wrong

I think I'm a little behind on this one... I only just downloaded and watched Burton's For Right Or Wrong last night.

As this was the first time I've given the movie any thought, my initial impression was that Burton had produced the film to be a free give-away. However I have seen at least one place that is selling it, so I'm not totally sure what the angle was here.

I actually got a nudge to check this out from the Pimpsnow site, which has this extract of Nicolas Muller from the movie:

I've gotta say that after seeing this clip I was pretty excited, so I set the download going...

I really enjoyed it. Of course it is all-burton, it's definitely documentary-style and there is a lot time given to the competitive aspects of snowboarding, which might not appeal to all. But that was OK to me.

Burton attempted to show some of the different view points on snowboarding with the theme being: when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter which one you like, it's about snowboarding being fun to you. I think it's gonna work for some people and not for others. I just like to see snowboarding. I like to see what other people do with snowboarding and how they go about it. So for me the whole thing was interesting. It made me think about those elements of snowboarding that I like best and how I enjoy them. I'll watch it again.

No doubt the bits where people are actually riding are the most fun, and you do get to see some great riding from Nicolas Muller, and Mads Jonsson's action on that hip is awesome.

I've had a look around at some other views on the film, which are mixed... download it and make your own mind up.

Riding Footage From The 2005/2006 Season

OK, so I've finished editting the footage I had from last season (2005/2006). It was definitely fun making this sequence - I just wish I'd done it at the end of last season rather than the beginning of this one. Still, I managed to get it done before the first trip this year, so I suppose it is just about current.

That reminds me actually, I did take some video last summer in Les Deux Alpes, but it was lost. It's a shame because although there wasn't much of it, I was progressing some... it would have been cool to include that.

Anyway, here's my riding from last year. The song I've used is called "Your Heart Is An Empty Room", by Death Cab For Cutie from their album Plans:

Hope you like it...

Snow In Morzine

Oh yeah, it looks like there's snow falling in Morzine and Avoriaz!

I'm not gonna get too carried away, but as the forecast stands now it seems that the temperature is dropping big time, and there's a decent dump on the way, maybe 25cm on Tuesday. Sweet!

Make it so.

Argh - Tricksy Movie Maker

Well I've just spent about an hour fiddling on with Windows Movie Maker, it's frustrating.

I use Movie Maker in the process of getting my video onto YouTube:

• Edit the raw footage in Adobe Premiere Pro
• Save the video sequence as an avi file
• Open the avi file in Windows Movie Maker
• Drop the whole file onto the timeline and save the video using Movie Maker's compression - to a wmv file
• Rename the wmv to an avi
• Upload to YouTube

So why do I do it like this? Well, that's half the point of this post: this information might be useful to some of you, and/or, some of you might know a better way to do things and you can let me know :-)

The reason I do it like this is that I've had very little success with the compression options in Premiere Pro. Most likely due to my own lack of knowledge I ended up with big files that didn't look that great. The Network suggested that I should try using Movie Maker... so I imported the full .avi into Movie Maker and used the compression available there.

In my opinion the options are a lot easier to understand - and I got better results. I ended up with small files that still looked good. The downside of this approach though is that you don't get an .avi out. You get a .wmv file. YouTube only accepts .avi, .mov and .mpg files.

So, we tried simply renaming the file to be an .avi instead of a .wmv and it worked. Well, kinda. The renamed file will play in Media Player and YouTube etc., which is exactly what we needed. But I'm sure this isn't a fool proof method... for example, Premiere Pro won't let me import one of these cobbled .avi files.

Now on to the other point of this post. Movie Maker can have an annoying habbit of dropping the end of the video part of a clip, if it's a picture (I think). I tend to put an image at the beginning and end of my sequences to provide a title and to acknowledge the source of the music.

So Movie Maker was dropping the last (image) clip of the sequence and I couldn't figure out how to stop it happening. Argh. In the end I decided the simplest thing to do was return to Premiere Pro and put two identicle image clips at the end of the sequence. Make the second one really short and let Movie Maker drop that one.

It worked. It was annoying. Exporting files and waiting for compression can take a while... I can't complain though as I ended up with the compression that I wanted. Result.

Make It Cold

So that pre-holidy stoke that I was talking about has the current weather conditions to fight against. I think most people are aware that it's been a slow start to the season in Europe due to the high temperatures - and Morzine currently isn't fairing too well. I'm really hoping it gets colder, fast, so that the snow can start falling.

Here are some images from Snow-Forecast.com, for weather reporting in Morzine.

There has been a fair amount of rain falling on the slopes, but it seems that Morzine is set for some snow - especially higher up. The question is, will the temperature be low enough to stop futher rain and bring more snow? I'll be wathcing the reports closely...

...Whatever happens though, I'm certain we'll make a good trip of it and have fun. Speaking of which (does that make sense?), there's a nice trip report from Morzine/Avoriaz on Hitting Kickers...

Pre Holiday Stoke

Over the last couple of nights I've been putting something together from last season's footage. For a few different reasons - mainly because of losing my video camera - I haven't gotten around to doing this until now. Well, I wanted to get something done before I go away this season so that I can move on to any new footage and put the old stuff away...

My editting setup in the loft...

Man it's been realy fun! Looking back over all the riding we did last season has been cool, there're some great memories. The process has made me really excited about going riding. Last night we slid DC Mountain Lab into the player and the stoke continued further.

It actaully caused me to get the board bag out over a week before we're set to go, and start getting my things ready. That's definitely a first for me.

There are still a few things to finish off with the video - but it just about sums up all the riding I got on film last year...

Les Deux Alpes Summer Park Pictures

Here are some pictures from the summer snowboard park in Les Duex Alpes, taken 2006. They're not the best pictures, in particular they don't always show scale, and they don't show the complete park. They do however give an indication of the size, layout, and makeup of the park. My break-down of beginner, intermediate and pro isn't supposed to be exact, it's just one way of splitting the different hits up. Also, for anyone who hasn't seen it - the pictures also show what summer snow looks like...

Beginner Park Stuff
Here's a picture of the main beginner kicker line, followed by some pictures of a small and a small-medium sized kicker.

Here are some shots of the beginner rail/box area with a drum-jib. To the left there were a few really small table tops. These pictures also show the main t-bar lift that just about services the whole park.

Intermediate Park Stuff
This first picture shows an intermediate kicker line. These were quite nice kickers - shaped better than the beginner kickers. You can also see a down-flat-down rail in the distance.

Showing this photo again (look to the left), there's the intermediate box line consisting of an up-flat-down, a rainbow and flat-curve-up-flat box, a flat-down rail way off to the left and two step-up kickers.

This picture shows a medium-big kicker followed be a slighty smaller kicker. Looking down the park, it was to the left of the advanced/pro kickers. This is the biggest kicker that I've hit to date (just a straight air)...

You can make out some of the intermediate stuff to the right hand side on these two pictures, which were looking up from the chill out area.

Pro Park Stuff
These were the two biggest kickers in the park:

Showing this picture again you can see the two big kickers were followed by two, really wide kickers. One of them was pretty huge. There was also a big 'up-rail'.

Looking up the park, this photo shows the pro-area, with the two big kickers in the middle and a collection of hard rails to the left. The picture doesn't show it clearly, but the rails had big step-ups to get on. There were also two, tall drum jibs, a c-box and the hip in this area. The t-bar in this shot is different to the main park drag.

Halfpipes and Hip
Not great pictures, but here were the two pipes and the hip...

Hungerpain Soundtrack Added

Just a quick note: the soundtrack to Hungerpain (excellent UK snowboarding DVD) has been added to the reference section by popular demand :-)

Update: I've also added the As If Soundtrack and the Lame Soundtrack...

AvaLung

Earlier today a friend sent me a link to AvaLung - the context being off-piste safety.

I don't have much off-piste experience, especially the real, hiking/back-country kind. However, for a variety of reasons including rider profiles, the extras on Absinthe's More, snowboarding insurance and booking a chalet with Snowmotions, I've become more aware of off-piste safety issues.

So I found the AvaLung products pretty interesting. That's some clever thinking there. If you're into riding off-piste it's worth checking out.

Travel/Snowboard Insurance

It's time for me to organise snowboard insurance for this season - a job that I don't particularly like.

The problem with travel/snowboard insurance (or any insurance for that matter) as I see it, is that you don't know how good it is until you have to make a claim. If at that point your policy turns out to be not-that-great, unfortunately it's too late. Travel insurance is suposed to be an option that gives you peace of mind; but I view it as something I need to buy but probably can't rely on. If the chips go down it's probably going to come up short.

At least that's how I did view it; I'm hoping to change that. That view was no doubt tainted by the experience I had with my previous insurers, GoTravel Insurance, which wasn't good. That's why I'm going to take a bit more time to get a better setup. I want that peace of mind...

I'm currently looking at two policies:

Snowcard Travel Insurance
This company came recommended by a friend. Snowcard are setup specifically for winter and mountain sports and it shows. They do a good job of seperating the different levels of cover and provide flexibility allowing you to tailor your policy. For example, you can have injury/liability with cancellation, but not bother with personal effects.

Encouragingly, their Level 4 sports insurance includes off piste, snow-cat skiing, heli boarding, the snowpark and the halifpipe. You can extend to competitions if you need more advanced cover. I also like the way the site is setup, it's real easy to get a quote and you know exactly what you've selected. Their small print section is also very clear.

Here's a quick price guide to a few quotes I tried, all with level 4 cover (park, off piste etc):

• Single week, excluding personal effects: £35
• Single week, full cover: £41
• Two weeks, excluding personal effects: £48
• Two weeks, full cover: £56

Travel Snowboard Insurance by tagconnect
I read about the tagconnect policy in the Snowboard Club UK news letter and was immediately encouraged by the fact that they were endorsing it. As standard in the policy is cover for off-piste, park, indoor and dryslope use.

There's not quite as much information available as there is on the Snowcard site, and to get a quote you need to send an email or make a call, but those points don't make it a bad policy.

Here's a quick price guide:

• 6 - 10 Days: £27
• 11 - 17 Days: £35
• Annual multi trip: £55

Personal Effects
After looking around at a few different policies it seems to me that regular travel insurance isn't enough to cover more expensive items. Most policies seem to have a single item limit of around £300, which in many cases simply isn't enough. I'm gonna enquire with my home insurance to cover my camera etc.

Overall
I think I'm most impressed with the Snowcard insurance: everything is clear. They provide me with the most confidence. However, they are more expensive. When you look at an annual multi trip policy they end up being about twice as much as tagconnect. This makes the decision more difficult...

As a note, Dogtag Travel Insurance were also mentioned to me. I checked out their website but after 10 minutes of looking around I decided that Snowcard were more snowboarding-specific. The quotes from Dogtag also seemed to be more expensive than both of the two above.

Shout Out To Jamie Nicholls

WhiteLines' Friday Fix is pretty cool... each Friday you get a picture sent to your inbox, which is just what you need at the end of the working week to keep the snowboarding buzz going. You also get a run down of things going on in WhiteLines: features, competitions etc.

Today's fix had this picture of Jamie Nicholls riding the halfpipe. Jamie is a regular at Castleford's indoor slope and apart from being insanely talented, he's also a nice lad... I say lad because he's only 13!

I imagine that a lot of riders in the UK are well aware of Jamie's riding ability. But for those who don't live here, this is a heads-up, he's an awesome rider!

It's Snowing In France!

Well, at least it has been.

It's been a slow start to the season in France with not much of the white stuff falling. However it seems that the new year brought some fresh snow, with Morzine and Avoriaz getting a share of the wealth.

The snow is set to continue this week, which should build things up nicely. Another good dump or two before the end of the month would put us in great shape... here's to hoping it keeps snowing!

The iPod Shuffle

I like riding with music playing. Not all the time, but I do like it. Previously I've used my old Rio Karma, which I think is an excellent hard disk MP3 player. It's getting old'ish now, but it still does the trick: good ergonomics, good interface and good quality sound.

Being a hard disk player it does have a tendancy to freeze/skip under certain circumstances - but surprisingly I never had any problems with it while snowboarding. What was less suitable was the size and weight, and I was kinda worried about damaging it...

Enter the iPod Shuffle. When I ride I pretty much listen to one or two playlists - so the 1GB capacity is more than adaquate. I also just put the playlist on random - so the lack of screen and selection methods presents no problems.

But what's really cool is the size. The shuffle is tiny! It's also super light. Solid state, no freezing and you can carry this thing around in your pocket and not even know that it's there. It's excellent.

I'm not totatlly sure about iTunes yet, but one way or another I'll sort that out. I just can't wait to use it on the hill :-)