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T'was a good one for sure!









Lines suck. We seriously need Splits. Like Yesterday.


Snowboarders are laem:


Published On: 11/19/2009
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Snowboard tech, it draws excitement for the season and like a new supercar, everyone wants the newest developments. The reality is most of us have limited funds so buying a snowboard is a big deal because dropping $300, $500, even $1000 on a deck is a something we have so save extra cash for. We all want the board that makes us honestly say "This is the best snowboard I've ever owned" Here is what the guys at Prospect have concocted and where their board construction fits into a long line of snowboards.

Reverse Camber "Tangent Tech" and Concave Base

Reverse camber has been established as boards that are great for park riding, powder riding, and great beginner boards. Although, just because beginners will like reverse camber it doesn't mean a hardcore thrasher won't like the same board. Prospect's "Tangent Tech" is a park and powder friendly board. The main factor is the camber height. Prospect's Tangent tech is designed for an optimal ride with the nose and tail raised by 5 millimeters. Boards with more reverse camber are great in powder, but unstable with any other riding. Less reverse camber improves riding stability, but reduces float in the powder and doesn't have that catch free ride.


Prospect's Concave base construction takes reverse camber to the next level. The base on the Tangent Tech lies deeper down the middle for the length of the board. With the edges sitting slightly higher it offers a catch free ride in the park. This means you won't stick to rails or catch a random edge. The goal of Tangent Tech is to offer a mellow reverse camber that performs well in both powder and park. Tangent Tech and concave base construction make Prospect's boards appealing to an audience that wants a "go to board" for all parts of the mountain.

 

 

Bamboo Sidewalls and Longer Effective Edges


All Prospect Snowboards offer bamboo sidewalls and longer effective edges for better overall control. The Bamboo sidewalls offer multiple benefits. Specifically it is lighter, stronger, and adds stability to the overall ride. Without getting too technical, bamboo is 25% lighter and its tensile "burst" strength is 2 times as strong as regular core material meaning more pop. Being set at the sidewall, the stiffer bamboo offers torsional stiffness and natural vibration dampening, leading to a faster, more stable platform. Bamboo is being used more in snowboarding not only because it of its high strength to weight ratio but it also lasts because it is continuously strong even when temperature drops. Neil Henderson, the owner of Prospect snowboards says "My goal was to make the fastest, hardest carving true twin snowboard available".

To accompany the benefits of bamboo sidewalls, Prospect's geometry stretches out the effective edge, aka contact points as far as it can go. This adds to the ride stability andactually provides the performance of a longer board. According to Neil, "It's like adding 2 to 4 cm of length without having to ride a heavier, longer board." The longer effective edge puts the contact points closer to the tip of the board giving your edges more surface contact to grip in turns. This means less washing out of hard carves and smooth, stable turns for maximum control. Together, bamboo sidewalls and the longer effective edge Prospect's boards offer harder carves and a ride smoother than other freestyle decks. Neil believes this sidewall and effective edge combination are the most underrated manufacturing techniques that contribute to his goal of making the fastest and hardest carving true twin available.

 


Rubber Dampeners and Strategic Carbon beams

Also underrated in the design of snowboards is rubber dampening, carbon fiber beams, and even more so their placement inside the construction of the board.


Prospect uses rubber in sandwich/sidewall snowboard design to reduce shock and vibration in turns and while landing big hits. According to Neil, rubber stripping is placed around the outside of the board and in the middle sections to act like a shock absorber. He says “Rubber placement is key to a boards ride because it turns the overbearing rigidity into smooth fluid movements.” His smooth ride philosophy on rubber dampening also contributes their boards lasting ride and overall durability. The way snowboards are ridden they are continuously flexed over and over again. Without sufficient rubber dampening the epoxy bonds break down leading to a lifeless board with no pop and it will eventually break. The rubber Prospect places inside the board allows small amounts of flex between the layers reducing wear on the epoxy bonds.


The Carbon laminates Neil puts in Prospect’s boards are common among most snowboards, but he believes his carbon “X-beams” also add to the boards ride. “Our X-beams are placed from the feet to the contact point at the edge. This allows Prospect to have lighter cores with added spring back. The carbon placement also contributes to their tensional stiffness, adding to the overall stability at high speed. Neil’s take on carbon fiber is: “We tried different carbon patterns, stringers, an “A” pattern on each end, Inverted “A’s”; the X pattern is the only thing that directly transfers power from your feet to the edge. There is a small sacrifice in low speed carving, but who rides slow?”

Seamless Edges, great construction, and great warranties

Also on the top of Prospect’s priority list is making bombproof boards. While no one should condone using a snowboard as a bomb shield, the fact is Prospect has developed 2 more ways to ensure Prospect is known as a brand that makes premium snowboards that perform and last. Neil’s philosophy is “I’m a product guy. I believe that the best products are better than the best marketing. Prospect isn’t a statement in style as much as it is a statement in quality.”

There is a few steps Prospect has taken to assure they achieve that quality. First, the Premier Special Edition Models have “Seamless edges”. Their edges are high carbon, hardened steel with no cut seam; a real 360 degree edge. This was developed to reduce edge failures from hard hits against rocks, trees, and rails. Second, the Two-part flexible epoxy serves as a dampening system, increases flexibility, and prevents delaminating. Neil’s take on Prospect’s epoxy system: “Our epoxy mixture adds a rubber like characteristic to the compound. It makes the boards tough as nails. “When we do Prospect Demos we always tell riders Hey, go break this board. We’re still waiting.”


Prospect Snowboards is on a mission to bring some killer decks to the table. They aren’t well known and they don’t dump their cash into marketing. Instead they stick to their mission. To drive home their point they gave all Prospect Snowboards a 2 year warranty and Neil Assures they stand by their warranty; if you break your board riding we’ll fix it free or you get a replacement if we can’t fix it. Good points, and Neil concludes by saying “Hey, ya know, we’re putting up a true effort here to bring out boards that pushes the accountability of a snowboard company. We listen to what each individual rider wants and we work to build that into our boards.”



Published On: 11/17/2009
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The lovely boyfriend and I have been working hard to keep this new puppy in shape for winter!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
is it snowing yet?
 


Published On: 9/3/2009
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The swinsonburger is still kicking it in Australia... bout to head off fruit picking to get another visa. Joy Joy Joy.
 
 

 
 


Published On: 9/1/2009
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Sony World Photo Award - Marek Ogień

Miło nam zakomunikować, że nasz kolega po fachu Marek Ogień aka Ciacho vel Ogień wziął udział w konkursie Sony World Photo Awards 2009. I jak przystało na wieloletniego wyjadacza jego zdjęcie dostało się do ścisłego finału top 10 w kategorii sport spośród 25 tysięcy zdjęć nadesłanych przez amatorów.

W sumie w pro i am zostało zgłoszonych ponad 60tys zdjęć ze 139 krajów.  Może to nie pierwsze miejsce, ale jednak mały sukces i cieszy….. jest to zdjęcie deskorolkowe, ale w top ten było też foto snowboardowe. Cała lista top 10 w kategorii sport  tutaj GRATULUJEMY!!!!!!!

http://www.roninsnowboards.com/sony-world-photo-award-marek-ogien



Published On: 3/17/2009
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Yarrek – Wystawa fotografii

Zapraszamy na wystawę fotografii autorstwa Jarka „Yarrka” Możdżyńskiego do Klubu Alchemia na Krakowskim Kazimierzu (ul. Estery 5 w Krakowie). 

Prezentowane prace, to zbiór kilkunastu fotografii które powstały podczas realizacji projektów m.in. w Polsce, Słowacji, Austrii, Niemczech, Szwajcarii i Nowej Zelandii. Na zdjęciach, których część nie była pokazywana wcześniej w Polsce, zobaczycie dużo konkretnych akcji na śniegu i betonie, na streecie i w górach, w wykonaniu riderów z Polski i z zagranicy takich jak: Wojtek „Gniazdo” Pawlusiak, Antti Autti, Simon Daumont, Marek Doniec, Michał Ligocki, Lukas Danek i wielu innych.

Wystawę można oglądać do końca lutego.

Sponsorem wystawy są firmy Billabong oraz Cormax.



Published On: 2/9/2009
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Volcom is proud to announce that Gigi Rüf will be rocking Volcom outerwear and riding Volcom snowboards for the 2008/2009 season and beyond.

Gigi has been a part of the Volcom family for more than 15 years. The young Austrian made his first trip to Volcom when he was just 12 years old. At that time Volcom Art Director, Ethan Anderson sent Gigi home with a hand made Volcom card. In the card EA wrote “Christian aka Gigi- Thank you for coming to America and hanging out. You rule. You are the future keep it up. Ethan”. The future is now.



Published On: 10/21/2008
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My Journal: October Sessions
By: perrik


Well, unfortunately the website is still having some of it's hiccups and I can't upload pics to my galleries. Let's see if I can paste them in my post.

Session #1: Arapahoe Basin (10/18/08) The first session of the season! And now in Colorado! Awesome! Regularly I'll be doing this the first weekend of November in the Midwest and driving 2 and a half hours to Ski Brule for just one run of 20 sec. Here it was a nice 75 min drive and the run at A-Basin, was like 3 times the one at Marquette. I mean it was just one run but it will take me 4 to 6 minutes to get down! I was there for first chair and the first 3 runs I got in the singles lines without waiting at all. There probably was around 1,000 people in the first 3 hours but that number easily increased to 3,000 by 11:30. The second wave brought too many beginners falling in the middle of the run, the snow was tracked and with icy spots and the wait on the lift line was about 10 to 15 min... So I took my 8 runs and went home a happy rider after a good first session. 

First Chair

Left C-Box
Flat-Down
Beautiful Rocky Mountains @ A-Basin
20 footer
d
d

Hell Yeah!


Published On: 10/19/2008
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THE MESSAGE  - OCTOBER 2008

Welcome back to another exciting edition of THE MESSAGE.. da da da DUNNNNN.
Good new snow fiends, We got are first dusting on the Sierra's last week, so lets hope that this will be an early season for all us!  THE BLOCK, THE BLOCK is gearing up for Snowboard Season by sponsoring a bunch of snowboard premieres and parties. I just saw the new First Tracks Video,  Knock on Wood at Mont Bleu, and what a great turnout we had, THE BLOCK was soldout and Flick was dope as all hell! 

Hot Dawgs and Hand Rails

If you missed Hot Dawgs and Handrails last month, you done F@cked-up. ! Hot Dawgz & Hand Rails 5th annual snowboarding specatcular tested the skills of some of the best jumpers and jibbers in the world and paid out $15,000 in prize money!  Rio and the entire Bear Mountain Park Staff pulled off the 1st contest of the year with Grand Style!  The Dropin, The Gap, and the rails were epic and riders were stoked to be throwing down for the first time of the Season! Big props to reelcomp.com for broadcasting a live feed of the event besure to check it out on their website.

The winners in the Men's Finals were...
1st Place- Jed Anderson
2nd Place- Chas Guldemond
3rd Place- Scott Vine

and the winners in the Women's Finals are...
1st Place- Desiree Melancon
2nd Place- Marie Hucal
3rd Place- Raewyn Reid

Scott Vine brought home Best Trick. Congratulations riders! Additional Heavy Hitters were Ben Bogart, Scott Stevens, Louif Paradis, Bode Merill, Keegan Valaika, Leanne Pelosi, Elise Borelli, Nick Dirks, Zak Hale and Tim Eddy. J.P Walker, Seth Huot and Hana Beaman were chillin' at Bear and Josh Sherman and Dave Duncan were announcing! If you missed Hot Dawgz this year, we'll see you next September! Big ups to Nam for organizing the afterparty, DJ Slip Matt and Matty Mo held it done hard. If you aint heard Matty Mo got a new mixtape out so be sure to Grab Government Cheese Vol 1. 

THE BLOCK BOOTCAMP 2008

Has been rescheduled to December 1st -13th in South Lake Tahoe. We are selecting 50 lucky recruits from an applicant pool of over 500+ that I received. It has been no easy task going through the applications, so if you were selected congratulations you will be receiving your deployment orders at the end of the week!  Remember that during bootcamp you will be tested to your physical and mental limits. So do yourself a favor and start working out and jogging now. This is not going to be a walk in the park. 

Knock on Wood

Who wants to see some sick snowboarding action for cheap?! Well, South Lake Tahoe based First Tracks Productions is offering a special deal to friends of The Block. If you click on the following link, you'll get to a hidden page on First Tracks' site where you can purchase their new movie, "Knock on Wood" for $10 off retail! http://firsttracksproductions.com/knockonwood091317257375.html If you haven't seen the trailer for Knock on Wood, check it out for free here:

Upcoming Events

Big Bear

October 18th is the last Bear Mountain Job Fair at Snow Summit from 8am-2pm. If you got to ride Bear and cant pass the bootcamp, this is a good option for any shredder.

October 18th and 19th is the 38th Annual Big Bear Lake Oktoberfest! So if you missed the job fair you can atleast Drink it off.

October 19th @ Active Ride Shop in Le Brea - F.O.D.T. Presents "Familia"  and TWS These Days from 7-9pm with DJ Episode! Be there!

Lake Tahoe


Wednesday Oct 15th  Technine's own Eric "MessyHair" Messier aka The Snow Man, will be playing with his group "The Fiz" at Whiskey Dicks with The Mathematicians in South Lake Tahoe.
THE FIZ KILL IT!!! DO NOT MISS!

This Thursday and Every Thursday BAR24 is holding Battle of The Bands until a winner is announced on November 6th, so get down their and show your support!
Every Tues and THURS - Bar 24 is the place to be!

Saturday, Oct 18th – Late Nite productions brings the Original Wailers back to Tahoe at Moe's Place.
The Wailers!

Wednesday Oct 22nd – Collie Buddz  is playing at Whiskey Dicks with Rise of the Revolution and DJ Pee Wee.  Rise kills it so sure to get there early and check em out!
im blind to you HATERZ

Wednesday Nov 12th – Pato Banton with the Mystic Roots Band and Planting Seeds! Mystic Roots is dope and Pato got love for THE BLOCK so don't miss this show!
Pato w/ Mystic Roots

Friday November 14th – Finger on Da Trigger presents "Familia" Premiere at Bar24, signing with the Technine Team, Snowbunny Contest, Live Performances by the worlds top VJ; DJ Crime,  Hip Hop by Concise Kilgore from the Cali Agents and more TBA Lots of other bar24 contests for lots of SWAG and giveaways! Be sure you are there!
Fri. Nov 14th Bar24

Saturday November 15th – The Premiere and the team travel to the Sandbar in Sacramento. We got a Snowbunny contest with the Déjà vu Girls and Zsu Swimwear, a Rail Jam in the back, T9 Team Signing and so much more so be there!!!
NOV 15th - Sacramento - Sandbar

Tuesday Nov 18th – One Block Radius come to town, Marty James, MDA and Z-Man throw a tough show, pickup there new hit "you got me" and come to the show.
One Block Radius

Friday November 28th – Del The Funky Homosapien has been add to host the "Blizzard" Pray for Snow Party with A-Plus and Bukue-one! So mark this one down cuz its going to GO OFF in Tahoe that weekend!
BLIZZARD PARTY @ VEX

Saturday December 28th– "How The Grouch Stole Christmas" with Grouch and Eli from the Living Legends! I am looking forward to this show the most! So get up on game and go buy his new album that came this past spring and be sure to celebrate X-mas with the GROUCH!!!
Snowboarding in Tahoe and THE Grouch! X-Mas is going to off the
HOOK!!

Ok that's all I got for ya for now, I am working a bringing a "Familia" premiere to Vegas as well as planning THE BLOCK PARTY 2009 at the SIA Tradeshow. More info when I got it all confirmed but until then, Pray for Snow and see you on THE BLOCK!


-Dirty D from THE BLOCK


PS Check out these Videos:
Live From the PALMS Pools and Bungalows - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru3vhbtu7tI
Live From Hot Dawgs and Handrails - http://reelcomp.com/videos/view/6990

Published On: 10/13/2008
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’ve never been exposed to military life, and I’ve certainly never been in a combat zone - until last week.



I spent a good part of my summer vacation in Afghanistan. Danny Kass, Grete Elliassen, and I spent 10 days in the Middle East, visiting our troops on an "X Games themed meet and greet." Our mission was simple: boost moral. If you’ve ever hung out with Danny, Grete, or I you’d know not only did we accomplish our mission, we went above and beyond the call of duty. It was a small sacrifice compared to what the servicemen and women of the Armed Forces are doing for our great nation.

I went over to Afghanistan with an open mind, to see first hand what was going on and how the troops were doing. I came back humbled and with a true understanding of sacrifice. I mean, I know how trying “the road” can be, but giving yourself for 15 months of your life, away from family and friends, is one hell of a sacrifice and a test of a true patriot in my book.

Our Middle East tour started in Qatar, a small but very wealthy country on the Persian Gulf just off of Saudi Arabia.

Qatar is the hottest place I’ve ever been to - including the sauna at your local health club. The temperatures ranged from 120 degrees during the mid-day heat, and would drop to around 90 degrees at night. Needless to say, we spent the majority of our time in doors soaking up every ounce of air conditioning we could before bolting to an air-conditioned car, and off to the next air-conditioned building.

Other than the heat being almost unbearable, the troops were amazing. The base in Qatar isn’t only a fully-functioning military base, it’s also a rest and relaxation base for solders to get out of the combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan for four days every six months. This was their R&R time. The feeling in Qatar was pretty light hearted. The solders were allowed three beers a day, which loosened them up enough for Danny to olli four of them laying down - including Col. Cotter on his skateboard.



From Qatar we boarded a C130 military plane flight into Afghanistan. Once we arrived in Afghani air space the plane blacked out completely into the night sky. A young soldier with a thick Kentucky accent leaned over and said, “We're going to drop in fast, they have a tendency to try and shoot these things down.” That’s when the realization that I was in a war zone fully hit me.

He was right, too, the C130 plane dropped like a rock out of the night sky from about 20-30 thousand feet up to the runway below. A “combat landing” is one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. My face was glued to the window praying I didn’t see a rocked fire out of one of the many clusters of lights seen below. Thankfully nothing “exciting” as another soldier put it happened.



Once we were “safely” in Afghanistan, Grete fell ill with salmonella poisoning. She was hospitalized and our tour was put into a holding pattern. Not only would Danny and I visit Grete in the Afghanistan Hospitals but we ventured around a met most of the Doctors, Nurses, Staff, and of course the injured and sick. Carmen our guide practically lived at the bedside of Grete, what a guide! My experiences of Hospitals are that they always have an eerie feeling to them, and this one was no exception. My heart sank as we toured room after room. Everyone had a different story to tell why they were there. A group of local Men were all smiles getting routine check ups, so they were able to get a job on base. Then there was an American Soldier awaiting hand surgery after his armored vehicle was rolled during a roadside attack. The most disturbing was by far the small children. One little girl lost her leg from an old Russian land mind, and in the very next room a little boy laid out dressed in bandages healing burns from an explosion. Experiences like these are reinsuring my thoughts and wishes to have peace on earth.



Danny and I carried on and entertained ourselves by exploring the rest of the base. While checking out the base we met a group of armored truck guys who called themselves “The Reapers”. These guys were cool as hell and had story after story to tell Danny and I about their life in the military and their tour in Afghanistan.
While hanging with The Reapers I felt safe - these guys were the bad asses on the front lines. They gave Danny and I a full tour of their armored vehicle, including sitting in the gunner’s chair. Spinning around in that chair armed with a 50 cal and a grenade launcher was quite a feeling.

Grete wasn’t getting any better after a couple of days so Danny and I left her and our tour guide Carmen behind as we ventured to a FOB (Forward Operating Base) named Solerno - better know as Rocket City.

While in Rocket City, the Air Calvary gave us a tour of the Heli pad holding Blackhawks, Apaches, and a smaller surveillance chopper. We took shooting lessons from a sniper and visited an artillery group of guys who are responsible for shooting back at the Taliban after Rocket City is attacked by, well, rockets. Danny and I were reminded that we were at a FOB nicknamed Rocket City at about 2 am by our guide McKnight. I was abruptly awoken my McKnight’s deep voice saying, “come on, get your sh*# on, get your sh*# on, we got to get to the hard building.” I looked over at Danny while he was throwing his bulletproof vest and helmet on and started to do the same.



We all grabbed our blanket and pillow and ran across the street to the hard building, aka a bunker. It was thought that we may be getting attacked by rockets that night so we all spent the night tossing and turning on the concrete floor wearing bullet proof vests and Kevlar helmets. Let me tell you that was one hell of a night. Let’s just say I wasn’t missing my flight out of Rocket City.



After our Rocket City adventures Danny, aka Afghan Dan, and I met back up with Grete and Carmen, did one last signing in Afghanistan and started our trip back home.



Although our trip was short and sweet, I think I got a pretty basic taste of military life in a war torn country. The highs of hanging out with the gung-ho soldiers and their weapons, to the lows of visiting a four year old girl who lost a leg from a land mine are just two extreme emotions I felt in just one week.

Again my hat goes off to the servicemen and women who sacrifice so much to protect this great country we all love.

www.porterstahoe.com


Published On: 7/23/2008
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This year our spring shoot consisted of four park sessions, Aspen, Whistler, Grouse Mountain and Mount Washington.

As witnessed in the blog below titled "One way to get to the next shoot" our journey from the session at Grouse Mountain to Mount Washington was an unforgettable experience to say the least.

To our crews delight the spring session at Mount Washington turned out to deliver unexpected pow freshies for all to enjoy.

But the Highlight of the trip was the night of KAZU aka GIZO. A few of the crew on our last night went out for Gizos B-day and did it up pretty well as you will see, look for the DVD easter egg aptly named Night of Gizo.

http://www.alternaactionfilms.com/blog/mount-washington-shoot  





Published On: 5/28/2008
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Blue Sky and snow!!!!!!
 
 
looking the wrong way? mesmorized by snow!
 
 
Unfortunately no pics of me doing the moves on my beastly Nitro eheh.
xxxx
 


Published On: 5/21/2008
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 Yo peeps,

After coming back from KBECK, aka the second best place in Canada next
to BC, I was set up to do some contest at this big festival in
whistler. Although in my own world I figured I would be pre-qualified
as I placed 4th the year before, missing finals by one spot, it was
not meant to be and I had to run qualifiers the day before the main
event. The qualifying day was hella foggy and everyone was being
pussies and not hitting the jump. So I rolled up and figured it would
be an awesome idea to try a judge run in the fog, and as I preceeded
to drop in, I called everyone bitches and then claimed I was going to
knuckle the jump anyways and didn't care....well I hit the nail on the
head and knuckled trying a frontside 9 and also came up 90 degrees
short on the rotation which ended up sending me into a superman down
the whole landing. With the weather they ended up cutting it from 3
runs to 1 each for the day, and that ended up being my run, so
needless to say, I did not qualify. So the next day instead of
practicing for the event I went out shooting with Serfas in the park.
We ended up trying to hit the same jump that claimed me the day
before, but once again I knuckled it and we called it off. We decided
to shred a hip at the bottom of the park that had lotsa pop that you
could air over like a table. First hit off it I over shot the sweet
spot by probably 15 feet, but stomped, so I figured why not keep
landing there if I could because it would not only make my photo sick,
but would also more or less cancel out anyone else's that wasn't going
that big, muhahaha. After moving on from backside 180s I went into
backrodeos, and landed about 5 all 15-20 feet past the knuckle, until
Serfas told me to get one more for a sequence, although I have to
admit I thought he had already shot some sequences. I proceded to
chuck another one, but over-rotated a bit, and where I was landing all
the other times was good as long as a landed perfect, but the first
time I didn't stomp right, there goes the ankle. So I am now layed up
for a week or 2(hopefully), and Serfas has claimed another victim!

 


Logan Short


Published On: 5/2/2008
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If you believe in any form of a Heaven -- I swear that we were there today. Think of taking the stretch of Sierra Nevada mountains from Sugar Bowl to Anderson Peak to Tinker Knob and then scooping up all of Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows and continuing right on past Twin Peaks and through Blackwood Canyon and down to Homewood. Now think if that stretch had ZERO trees on it and how differently you'd ride each and every feature and spine and chute and cornice and headwall between those four ski resorts and all the downright delicious backcountry terrain in between. Then put it all on steroids. And quite often we're talking A LOT of steroids. Chute 75? Munchkins? The Palisades? How 'bout all three in the SAME run.......twice over......and only a dozen other people you have to share it with.....oh yeah.....and you have a helicopter as your private chair lift?!

Be on the lookout for tomorrow's post as I finally got my V.I.O. helmet cam situation straightened out and am planning on going out with it today....
And happy April 20th for those counting!

for the rest of chappy's AK post check out
http://WWW.PORTERSTAHOE.COM




Published On: 4/21/2008
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So it is now spring time but judging by the conditions in Whistler right now you would think it is mid winter. check the photo below with Jake basically drowning in powder up at the lake the other day. We Just had a good 4 day stint of sunshine so Logan and I were snowmobiling everyday and we are a tad bit tired and sore now. Below you can see a picture of our backcountry tour guide (and fellow Endeavor rider) Kale Stephens taking care of his morning business before we went to build some jumps. We stayed up till about 7:30pm yesterday to hit our jump right till sunset and it worked out great! I raced to the city and barely got my life together, then jumped on a flight to Montreal for the Empire Shakedown this weekend. Stay tuned for some photos and video update from the trip out east.





later boys and girls,

Johnny & Logan


Published On: 4/4/2008
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I find posting once every two years is best. One it takes me that long to be creative enough to entertain you monkies (I mean that lovingly) and two... I'm lazy.
 
Anyway, so the day starts off balls ass cold. What is balls ass cold you ask? Well, balls ass cold is somewhere below "Holy Jewish Christ it's cold!" and just slightly above "Dude, I can't feel my nuts!". Tim and Dan can fill you in more on how cold it was, since they decided to sleep in their car... on the mountain... at 5am... with the heat off. Yeah, them Maryland boys ain't all there.

So as I was saying, it was balls ass cold, and we decide to warm up with a nice easy run. Now this run, had this stuff called packed powder on it. I'm not sure what it really was because it was light and fluffy and responsive and easy to ride. Where I'm from, packed powder is the frozen painfull shi*t you get the day after all the man made snow froze. I have to say, I like Vermont's version a lot better. Anyway, we're on this run, and there's this little roller of a jump at the start. Now, everyone is hitting this thing and landing with ease. I says to myself "SELF! that looks fun and easy so I'm gonna try it!". Sadly, what my mind failed to take into account was that the ones who went over it where Dan, Tim, and a few others who have been riding a hell of a lot longer than me and therefore, can actually ride really well. So just because they make something look easy, it may not actually be so... easy. Apparently, I left this part of my brain back in VA. So I tuck and make a straight line for this thing hit the top and leap. It's at this point that I realize I have no earthly clue what in the blue flying catholic %$&* to do whilst airborne. This becomes even more obvious when I land with all the grace of a drowned bubonic rat. But this isn't Liberty, so the landing area wasn't made of rock. Unfazed, I get up and ride down.

From there we wait and get on the tram. The tram by the way is the slowest means known to man to get people up a mountain. Seriously. Anyway, we get to the top of this beast and I'm looking around at the kind of terrain I've never ever ridden before. I can't wait to ride down this bitch! So I strap and and get ready to roll. It's at this point that I realize one of the straps on my binding has snapped in half making my foot wobble around in my binding like a drunken irishman on st patty's day. Getting down is going to be a bit of a challenge. The only thing I can do at this point is ride down and pray for a repair at the base. So Carmen and I take off for the base.

I will point out that the ride down was pretty awesome. Especially for a mid atlantic rider. Lots of terrain, snow, and no ice. Again, NO ICE. Hah! Anyway, I'm almost all the way down I start to get cocky again. Yes I know, not exactly a bright move when im working with half a binding on my back foot. Like I said, I left that part of my brain at home. There are these nice rollers/hills/whatever the hell you call them, that were just screaming for me to get some speed and jump at the top. Soo, I jump em. And amazingly, I land the first one. Excited, I tuck and get ready for the next one. Up I go and again I land without bailing. At this point I'm flying down the hill and there's one more coming. I figure go for 3!! Haha, yeah bad idea. I tuck and throw everything I have into my legs to jump the last one sending me into a low orbit. I try to land but my balance is off and I come crashing down right on my head. That's when the lights go out. But only for a second or two. Thank god for brain buckets. But this has certainly put my ego in check for the rest of the trip... Kinda

Finally at the bottom, a little woozy, I go into the shop in the hopes that they sell flows. In the middle of burton country (yeah). They don't in fact, no one does... anywhere. I'm stuck buying the only large size bindings they have. a $70 pair of Burton Freestyles aka $70 of pure unholy suck. But whatever, I meet up with everyone and again head up the tram. We're headed for something called the ugly tree. I don't know which of the 80 billion trees was the ugly one but I'll get to that shortly. So we're riding to this thing and I'm trying to get used to the new bindings. I'm kind of getting the hang of it and let myself get some decent speed on the way to this glade run. That's when I catch an edge and come down on what is becoming my prefered landing cushion... my head. Honestly, I'm pretty sure there's some important SQL knowledge that i've forever lost up that hill somewhere. I can still tie my own shoes though so I'm good. However, I've managed to shatter my goggle lenses in this fall. Yeah I don't know how I managed that either. See below for pics

Now for the trees. Keep in mind that I've never even really been on a black before. Sure I rode a handfull of them at 7 springs for one day ut those are about as challenging as picking my nose. This is a run through trees n shi*t... TREES! But I'm with a bunch of people who know what they're doing so I'll be all right... Kinda. They head on through these trees and in a matter of 3.4 seconds, I've lost all of them. I can't see them, I can't hear them, they're just gone lol. Now these new bindings aren't responding very well to my "oh shi*t turn now!" commands. So I'm spending most of my time on my ass, and my back, etc etc. It takes a retarded amount of time to finally work my way out of the trees. Once I do, I find that I'm all kinds of alone. So I spend the rest of the day exploring this huge mountain. Next time, I'll bring a radio that works!

Friday was a different day. After some inventive binding "repair", I'm back on my flows. And I brought some spare lenses for my goggles so I'm back to working condition again. Time to make another run through some trees!

I've learned a few lessons about riding through trees with this group. 1) Never follow rob because he loves his superman impression. But unlike superman, he doesn't stay airborne. 2) Follow Zach (cifex), because he takes lines through trees that people can actually survive. 3) Never ever ever follow Tim through the trees, unless you brought your golf clubs, and a shovel, oh and a tent. More on that below At this point I'm doing a decent job keeping up with these folks. Again they've been doing this a hell of a lot longer than me and I sure as hell would never attempt these runs on my own. This is one of the things I liked best about this trip. Hitting terrain that i never thought I could do and pushing myself damn hard to keep up.

Anyway, I follow Zach as best I can through these trees. I gotta admit, riding through trees is a huge rush. I've never done anything like it before. It's better than snorting blow off a hooker's ass! After a few hundred falls, and crashes into trees, I pop out onto the trail where everyone is waiting. Somehow, I've managed to beat Tim out of the woods. Which is odd because it took me just under a decade to get out. Then I found out why.

Apparently, Tim decided he wanted to go golfing. f*ck this riding shiz, boy wanted to break out his clubs and hit the back nine! Soo, he headed for the golf course. Which is obviously well out of boundes. For some reason Tim thinks this is a really good idea anyway. Even though he didn't bring his gold clubs... and there's snow on the ground. It's the little details that count. By the time he figures this out, he's waist deep in powder in the middle of a ravine on the opposite side of Vermont. So while we wait for the gallant golfer to carry his lanky ass back to the rest of us, we decide to keep ourselves entertained.

Dan works on his backflip (not quite as funny as Andrea's backflip but with much less ankle twistage).

Waiting for Tim

Several others play jump the tree stump.. thingy.

All the while shouting for Tim so he could get a bead on where vermont was again. (I think he cried). Dan was a bit upset that he was the only one shouting but that was because we were all laughing too god damn hard and the filth flowing from his pie hole like a raunchy poet. If Danimal was a religion, I'd f*cking worship it. Apologies to all the random folk riding by that heard what was said. But it was epic funny!

I'd write more but I think this post if long enough already. Needless to say I had the time of my life. I broke bindings, a helmet, goggle lenses, my ass, bought 2 pairs of bindings, got a horrid chest cold (btw, you can get a great buzz off of 5 advil, 3 strong swigs of robotussin, a cup of thera flu, and 4 sudafed caplets.), bit out a chunk of my mouth, spit blood in front of some random skier (that was pretty funny) and was molested by more than one tree (It wasn't gay because I didn't push back) But at least I didn't slip getting out of the hottub and bust my ass like a certain porch flying canadian


Published On: 3/25/2008
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My Blog: akfd
By: laura_jo


hurt knee.. pain killers are good.
i don't know the exact status of the injury.. but it hurts, so that is all i need to know at the moment.

still shreding though. if i can walk, i can ride. so thats what i'm living my life by at the moment. just taking it easy, cruise time.  winter is holding in there though.. we got a little snow fall this morning. hopefully helps out a tad. we will see. i'm expecting a mid/late march blizzard.. maybe even early april if anything like last years spring shred.


Published On: 3/13/2008
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Time is running out! 

We have snowboards, swag, and a Nokia N95 8GB camera phone going to the lowest unique bidder! Make sure you go to www.bidwhack.com to play in our auction and get
yourself some great prizes. 

Now you can download the show at:
http://www.mobovivo.com/store/programs/young-willing-and-eager



Published On: 2/28/2008
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Just got back from a trip to Sun Peaks Resort with the Coastal Riders
Shop Crew. I was a little bit worried heading into this weekend trip
because I know these guys love to party and let loose when they are
all together. I arrived to find out I have no bed and everyone is
already wasted so I join in on getting belligerently drunk and
everyone eats my tacquitos I brought up. The people who got pranked
the worst would be the Coastal Riders staff... for example someone cut
off all the bristles on their tooth brushes. I could go on and on
with these stories...do you want to know about Matt losing a bet and
eating a 5 dollar bill and swallowing it? Or Pat trying to jump a road
gap he built and not quite making it? As you can tell things got a
little out of hand. One thing I was baffled by was the lady scene. I
thought there might be some cute girls from Kamloops up that maybe
resemble the girl in the picture below...

But instead i felt like I was in middle America with women that looked like the one standing beside Damon Pyett (CR team manager) in the other picture below.

Anyways, we made it back in one piece and shared a couple laughs.

Thanks to Nate, Bill, and Damon for making the trip happen!

-Johnny


Published On: 2/27/2008
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Hey ya little web freaks! So Logan and I were planning on going
snowmobiling with our filmer Morgan Rice. Morgan and I met up in the
Brandywine parking lot and Logan is such an idiot...he went to the wrong
snowmobile spot and he never found us. We were forced to go along
without him. We went up to a spot called Metal Dome that is past the
Brandywine cabin. We met up with the Whistler Valley Snowboard Club
crew and had a cat to build us a big booter. In the morning we just
hit some natural lines and in the afternoon we hit the jump. The day
was a beauty and it was tons of fun. Everytime you go snowmobiling
someones sled mess's up or someone gets really stuck. You can see in
the photo that Dan (WVSC coach) rode over a roll to find a creek bed.
He buried his snowmobile nose end first and fell flat on his face.
Luckily he was not hurt and we were able to get is sled out pretty
easily. Hopefully Logan is not lost somewhere on his snowmobile right
now. I'll let you know.









-Johnny


Published On: 2/22/2008
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