Stranded... Skate Relief

I've been stranded for a week - in New Milton.

Slight exaggeration. I've actually been away with work for a week. Tight deadline, long hours and working through the weekend. Hotel to work; then back to hotel again. And it rained the whole time I was there - almost.

As it happens, the whole experience was OK. The work was important which made it kind of fun; motivating in the least. We also stayed in two pretty decent hotels, eating good food and resting easy, which made the stay comfortable and at times relaxing.

What's more, I had some time to tinker on with the video footage from last season, which is now finished. So I'll post that shortly.

The weather was bad luck though. To begin with, I was hoping to have a go at surfing. There was the possibility that we'd have a little spare time and there is decent surf not too far from New Milton. It seemed like a good opportunity to try it out.

But it just rained the whole time. To make it worse, I spotted the sweetest little skate park, just sitting in the middle of some field. Too wet though.

It did eventually dry out for one evening, so I made the most of it and went for a skate. By time we got there it was already starting to get dark, but as luck would have it, the park was flood-lit. Genius.

This is probably only the second or third time that I've been on my skateboard this year, which made it all the better. There are a few little clips - pretty much me trying (and failing) to get a proper stall on the coping. I just can't seem to get my weight over my heels...

Unfortunately the flood-lighting didn't last all night. It didn't last much past 10pm. But it was enough. 45 minutes of skating. I was well happy.

Note: I know that parts of the country suffered pretty badly with the rain during this time. Naturally the 'bad luck' that I mentioned above is nothing in comparison. -Gavin

Halifax Session 4

We got a crew of seven together at the weekend to go and ride at Halifax. With the trip down to Halifax being quite far the session usually ends up being an all-day-thing, so it's a lot better when there's a group.

The night before that, I re-laced my 32s with the spare set of laces that you get with the boots. Although the boots are looking a little tired, it's only really the laces that have worn (one was ready to snap), the other wear is mainly superficial. With the new laces on, they felt new again...

Onto the riding. Well, I'd been keeping an eye on the weather forecasts because it rained all of last week so I was hoping there'd still be some rain left for Saturday. The forecast backed this up, but by time we got there the slope was already starting to dry out.

Bring out the washing-up liquid.

It did turn a little overcast in the middle, and we actually got a small amount of rain which made it better to ride on for a short period. Overall it was still a fairly dry session, but I reckon the slope was marginally faster than the previous times I've ridden there. I wish the sprinkler setup worked properly...

There were two things that I wanted to try this time around: backside 3s and a mini barrel roll backflip. Both were kind of successful.

More pleasing than both the bs 3 and the barrel roll though, I learned something important about the way that I have been, or not been as the point goes, spinning.

I was watching Mike doing some backside rotations and I realised that as he left the kicker his head was turned way more than mine. It made me think that I haven't been using my head half as much as I should have been doing.

I tried a few things out and all of a sudden I could spin a backside 3: but it was fairly smooth, not like before. Excellent. Turning my head more confidently also helped with frontside rotations, which in the past, have always been a little under-cooked. I need to practice some more to (a) get the timing of the head turn with takeoff from the kicker dialed, and (b) stop putting too much weight on my heals when spinning a fs 3 on the snowflex, which is still bugging me; but in general, this felt like a big step forward.

Grant took some video on his camera which includes a couple of shots of the first few backside 3s that I attempted on the kicker. Actually, the first attemp with me slamming big style wasn't on film; shame. I'll post this when I get a hold of it.

In the mean time, here's the short sequence of my first snowflex-mini-barrel-rolls...

P3: Pipes, Park, and Powder - Review

I've read this book twice now, and enjoyed it just as much the second time through. Todd Richards is a champion snowboarder who's played a role in how the sport has developed. With Todd having been in snowboarding since just about the beginning, this book gives you a kind of hands-on history of snowboarding, as well as a great insight his life. The book has an easy style, it's funny, enjoyable; it's great.

P3 shows us a good view of the early snowboarding scene: the first brands, what the boards were like, the early riders, the (crappy) half-pipes, those who brought the skateboarding influence to snowboarding and how sponsorship worked when the sport was young. All through the eyes of an aspiring and influenceable teenager.

Todd Richards develops as snowboarding develops - and there are lots of fun and interesting stories along the way, as well as some great pictures. There's a really funny snippet telling how Todd helped one of his friends (who couldn't really ride) to blag a sponsorship deal, and then how long it took the sponsor to figure the joke out.

Todd discusses the jibb movement and the progression to shorter, freestyle boards, better for spinning. Enter snowboard parks. Enter slopestyle contests. Adapting from pipe to park. How much can a rider make from a pro-model?

Then there's the arrival of the XGames and the impact it had on snowboarding. Followed by the first Olympics including snowboarding as an event. Each time, Todd talks about his involvement, his views and how it effected him.

It's all there.

But what makes it a good book is finding out what it all meant to Todd Richards. How he got into snowboarding. His dedication to progession. How he both struggled and excelled with the pressure of competition. His matching up against Terje. His life outside of snowboarding. His personality.

If you don't know who Todd Richards is, you should read this book just to find out: snowboarding's really important to him, and he's been important for snowboarding. There is of course the chance that you'll bump into him on a hill someday and you might say hello; but you'd still need to have read the book to know why that would be funny!

Read it on your next snowboard trip, you'll enjoy it.

Kicking Horse Video: From Treepilot.ca

Someone in my previous post pointed out a video showing some riding at Kicking Horse. I checked it out and thought it was worth re-posting here - it looks pretty sweet.

So the video is from Wade who runs an online photo journal (treepilot.ca). I've enjoyed looking through the most recent entries there, it's definitely worth checking it out. Some awesome backcountry terrain and riding. The personal riding goals are really impressive too.

Kicking Horse?

Simon and I have talked about Kicking Horse a few times, but I haven't really looked into it that much. To be honest, I was kinda put off by the "freestylers might be a little bored here" (edit) comment in the World Snowboard Guide, so I didn't give it too much thought, especially as there're a lot of other resorts to consider...

Simon's suggestion is to visit Kicking Horse for a day or two, rather than spend a full two weeks there, which is an option if we go to Banff. And so it was that this link made me think about it again today. Lots of snow.

In fact, it was apparently named in the top 10 hot powder spots worldwide, back in 2004, sweet. There's a useful review of Kicking Horse on the wsg website along with some other details. Although I they hold back some of the resort info back for the guide itself, the wsg website still has a lot of good stuff to look at.

Kicking Horse could make for a great day riding powder and challanging terrain...

Fernie Trail Map & Terrain

I've been looking at various trail maps for resorts in Canada and I thought I'd start with the map for Fernie. [If you click on the picture below, it will take you to an image that you can actually see - at www.skifernie.com]

It's an interesting terrain map: lots of bowls, lots of tress and well spread out.

To be honest, I'm not sure if there's some special significance to a bowl? I've always just assumed that a bowl formation of terrain is good for powder conditions, supported by the term powder bowls. Whether or not that's even close to the mark, Fernie has a fair number of them, and is renowned as having loads of deep, fresh powder; the annual snowfall is close to 9m. Sick.

What Fernie isn't renowned for is it's park. It's for this reason that I was surprised when I looked at the pictures of last season's setup.

Maybe I'm naive as to how good some of the other parks are in Canada? I'm not saying that the Telus park in Fernie is amazing, but it does look good. It looks like you could have a lot of fun there.

It also seems that Fernie's a good place to get some cat boarding in, which is definitely something I'd like to do...

Wsg: Fernie

Summer Riding

A few of us rode at Halifax on Saturday and it really did feel like summer. Although it doesn't look like it in the photo, is was touching 28 degrees. So hot to ride in.

It was a good day, but to be honest my riding was tailing off towards the end, which was frustrating. I'm working towards pulling a backside 3 on that kicker - and I probably should have just tried a few. I suppose there's always next time.

Before that though, I was at least getting more familiar with the backside 1s - a simple trick that I should have sorted out well before now. A little change to where I was looking and it stopped me from landing with my weight off-centered towards the tail, which was causing me to sit down on landings.

So I was riding them out more consistently and also improved the style a little - mainly less arm movement. I was looking to bone out an indy on the way round, but it didn't happen. I still need more time to get better with grabbing it - something like a nose grab would be sick - and also to go bigger.

We filmed some stuff and took a few photos, but it turns out there was a problem with the tape. We ended up loosing some of the stuff we took at the last SNO!Storm session and a lot of the new stuff too... I need to check this out 'cos I've only spent 5 minutes looking at it.

Notch up another fun day on the plastic stuff and I'm looking forward to the next one.