"Noboarding" Hits the Snowboard Scene
Based in Canada, NoBoard Sport, Inc. has been around for four years, but it wasn't until the company partnered with industry leader Burton Snowboards for the upcoming 2008/2009 season that they began to attract serious attention. According to the company's website, noboarding was developed after a day when "the snow was so deep we couldn't even find our binding straps, so [we] decided to get rid of them. That was 1998 and we haven't used bindings since."
After several years of building prototypes in a garage, the company decided to partner with Burton Snowboards. For the 08/09 season, Burton is offering two NoBoardTM products: the No Fish, which is based off the popular Fish powder board, and the NoBoard kit, which acts as an adapter to turn any snowboard into a Noboard. Check out NoBoard Sport, Inc. online to see if this new take on an existing sport is for you!
Olympic Training for the Average Snowboarder
Lake Placid Freestyle Aerials Center.
Photo courtesy ORDA.org
Click on image for larger view
Watching the gymnasts and divers flip, spin and hurl themselves through the air in Beijing got me thinking about their training regimens and how they apply to snowboarding. Just like a snowboarder should never try their first run-through of a difficult trick on snow, gymnasts and divers rarely attempt new tricks on their respective competition equipment, either. A quick Google search reminded me about the Olympic Freestyle Aerials Center in Lake Placid, New York. This facility has several water ramps that allow skiers and snowboarders to safely practice new tricks without worrying about landing on the wrong body parts - i.e., their heads. Aeration machines in the pool further soften the blow, ensuring a soft landing no matter how badly the trick turns out.
Members of both PSIA and AASI can sign up to attend an aerial clinic at this facility. The clinic is being held September 15 & 16, 2008. Interested members should contact Melissa Skinner in Albany, NY at 518-452-6095 x107, or check out the respective websites for more information.
If you're unable to participate in the PSIA/AASI clinic, you can still gain some of the benefits of water ramp training in your own pool. DON'T try jumping off the diving board while strapped to your snowboard! Simply practice spins and flips off the diving board while focusing on where your body is in the air. Experiment with speeding-up or slowing down your spins by opening your arms or by pulling them closer to your body. Air awareness is a skill that can only be learned through experience, so the more time you spend spinning and flipping, the better you'll be equipped to try new maneuvers on the snow!
No Good at Getting On & Off the Chairlift? No Problem!
A little personal insight: I've been skiing and riding at Okemo for nearly 20 years, so I'm intimately familiar with the lift system. The South Ridge Quads (there are two) serve to funnel well over two-thirds of the resorts guests to mid-mountain, where they either board another lift to get to the upper mountain areas, or they ride the lower mountain terrain, all of which is rated for beginners. Because a significant percentage of beginner skiers and riders are using the same two lifts as more experienced guests, the lifts tend to stop frequently, which leads to long ride times and even longer lift-lines. I've never seen one of these newfangled carpet loading/unloading systems before, but I do have high hopes for it. If nothing else, the system will likely segregate the two base quads, with beginners opting for the quad with the system while more experienced guests ride the other quad.
Think Tank Films Presents "Stack Footy"
Another sure sign of the approaching snowboard season arrived in my email box recently in the form of an announcement touting the release of "Stack Footy," the new film by the guys at Think Tank. Check out the trailer online at the Ally Video Store.
Featuring Gus Engle, Nick Visconti, Mark Thompson, Jesse Burtner, Sean Genovese, Scott Stevens, Chris Beresford, Andre Spinelli, Chris Larson, Johnny Miller, Pat Milbery, Bryce Lowell, Jed Hoffman, Ben Bogart, Matt Edgers, and Austin Hironaka, the video doesn't deviate much from the standard snowboard-flick script, which is to say there's enough big airs, sick rail work, and epic crashes to keep even the most jaded rippers entertained from now until the snow flies.
The 08/09 Burton Catalog Has Arrived!
Often referred to simply as "The Bible" by riders everywhere, the annual Burton catalog has arrived. Mine came in the mail today - 257 pages of information, much of it irreverent, most of it bearing a TM, ®, or © symbol - a sure sign of the marketers influence. Nevertheless, the arrival of the 08/09 Burton catalog signifies the end is near. The end of the snowless months, that is.
Absorbing 257 pages of anything takes some time, so I'll be posting early next week with my initial thoughts on Burton's lineup for the upcoming season. For now, all I have to say is this: Naked Ladies exist. Don't believe me? Check back on Monday for the (PG-13, I promise) lowdown!
Has Shaun White Sold Out?
Selling out has long been a contentious issue within the sport of snowboarding, but there was always an explanation for an athlete being sponsored by this company or that company. Deals with beverage companies, credit card companies, electronics makers, and car manufacturers don't cut into the money being made by regular people. Selling clothing at Target does. Instead of that money ending up in the cash registers at local snowboard and skateboard shops, it's going into the pockets of Target's shareholders. To me, that's crossing the line. THAT constitutes selling out.
Shaun White's deal with the devil, er, I mean "Targhay," irked me enough to write a more in-depth piece today. Check out Shaun White Sells Out in Time for Summer X-Games in the Professional Snowboarders section of this website to find out just how fired up this has me.
Do you agree Shaun White's Target clothing line is going too far?
Summer Projects for Snowboarders
Natural Rainbow Rail, Vail, Colorado.
Photo by Tyler Phelps
Click on image for larger view
Any snowboarder that's been lucky enough to be invited into a "locals stash" while on the mountain knows those glades don't just magically appear. If you're a snowboarder that's never been lucky enough to be invited into a "locals stash," listen up: When fresh powder is scarce, you want to be in-the-know as far as local stashes go. Because only a small portion of the riders know about them, they hold snow longer than anything else on the mountain. Summertime is prime time for cutting - the weather is good, the mountain is accessible, and the hunters have yet to appear in the woods.
Before you break out the chainsaw, make sure you're not breaking any laws - local, state or Federal. Cutting down anything on Federal lands is a crime that can result in severe penalties, as two geniuses found out after cutting down 873 trees near Jay Peak, VT, an incident now infamously referred to as "The Cut." Assuming you're good to go legally, take it easy, and make sure to adhere to the code of the trees: Only remove small trees, always obscure the entrance (lest the general public start wandering in and plundering your powder), and above all else, don't tell the entire world what you've done. That last one particularly applies to the Facebook fiends out there...nothing ruins a great secret stash like an announcement that goes out to the entire student body.
Once you've got your stash locked down, it's time to build some toys. Natural rails, log jibs, and anything else you can imagine can be built using forest materials. When building natural rails, keep in mind they're meant to be ridden with snow on the ground, which means building them higher than would be otherwise needed. One of the most challenging (and therefore, most fun) natural jibs is the natural rainbow. These are built by staking the top of a young tree to the ground, then allowing it to grow. Just do yourself a favor, folks - make sure the landing is clear!
For more ideas and further reading, check out Future Snowboarding's take on "Do It Yourself Logging" this month. Happy cutting!
FREE Stoke Courtesy of iTunes
I was killing time the other day by perusing the skiing and snowboard related content available from Apple's iTunes store when I came across a great snowboarding video podcast (vodcast?) called shralp! A weekly snowboard news show shralp! is described in the intro caption (itself a review of sorts from Wired Magazine) as, "Reporting from slopes across Europe, Asia and North America, shralp!'s anonymous German-accented narrator combines fanboy enthusiasm and button-down polish. Snowboarding competitions, pointers, instructional camps, snow-jump engineering, camera techniques, even new technology for clocking hang time - it's all here, along with trailers for the latest boarding flicks."
For those that don't know, the word shralp is bro-speak for "shred" or "rip." Those of you that are sitting there shaking your heads at the utter foreign feel of that word (or all bro-speak, for that matter) should definitely check out my Snowboarding Glossary. The glossary itself is a work in progress - if there's a term you'd like to see defined there, don't hesitate to drop me a line.
As for the actual podcast, the production quality is high, although unlike the music used in the soundtrack, the creator doesn't seem to give attribution for the video footage. Sitting in Connecticut in the middle of July, however, that's not exactly a deal-breaker for me. Then again, he's not snaking my footy...if he were, I'd likely take a different stance. With all that said, the podcast/vodcast itself is FREE, which is another positive. shralp! also publishes a weekly surfing edition along the same lines, so if you're into both boardsports, check out the surfcast as well.
Snowboarding Tops Injury List
According to a study recently released in the Journal of Wilderness and Evironmental Medicine, snowboarding tops the list when it comes to outdoor recreational injuries, accounting for nearly 25% of all non-fatal injuries annually, followed by sledding (11 percent); hiking (6 percent); mountain biking, personal watercraft, water skiing or tubing (4 percent); fishing (3 percent) and swimming (2 percent).
The researchers looked at data on nonfatal injuries from outdoor activities treated at 63 hospitals in 2004 and 2005. They calculated that almost 213,000 people annually were treated for such injuries nationwide. About half of those injured are young, between ages 10 and 24 and half of the injuries are caused by falls. The most common problems were broken bones and sprains, accounting for half of all cases. About 7 percent of ER visits were for concussions or other brain injuries. Males are injured at twice the rate of females, which shouldn't surprise anyone that's grown up with a brother or three in the house.
Although this study has received a fair amount of attention from the ski industry (it was featured in the Vail newspaper "The Vail Daily," as well as the homepage of Future Snowboarding, the study itself requires some careful reading to properly understand the findings. Because of anomalies in the data, skiing related injuries were lumped into the "other" category alongside surfing, horseback riding, mountain climbing, scuba diving and snowmobiling. Further investigation reveals that skiing, not sledding, actually has the second highest rate of injury. The total injuries from the snowboarding sample numbered 1,457; total skiing injuries came in right behind at 1,234.
No matter how the data is viewed, the fact remains that skiing and snowboarding are dangerous sports. The best way to stay in one piece during the winter is through a combination of proper instruction, fitness, and safety equipment.
The 60 Foot Quarterpipe Hit
Photo by Garth Milan/Red Bull Photofiles
Click on image for larger view
In case you didn't get the memo - the whole skier vs. snowboarder thing was unceremoniously put to rest sometime back in the late '90s, which was great timing, because the late '90s were also when the action sports scene made its way into the mainstream consciousness, thanks in large part to ESPN's X-Games. Ever since then, skiers have been supporting snowboarders, snowboarders have been supporting skaters, skaters have been supporting bmx riders, and on and on it goes. These days, whenever someone in the action sports world does something big, the whole industry stops to watch and give props.
Enter Ronnie Renner, freestyle motorcross rider and apparent all-around nut. On his sixth jump Friday night, Renner threw down a jaw-dropping hit of 59 feet, 2 inches. On a motorcycle. The hit is believed to be a world record, and has been submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records for verification. There's not much to get stoked on in the snowboarding world in the middle of July, or at least there isn't unless you're living Down Under, so you might as well watch the video of Renner's feat and give the man his due respect - use it as motivation to nail a new trick on snow next season, or to shred that one trail you've always wanted to ride but never had the confidence to attempt.