resistance to persistence

There’s a photo exhibit going on at Toronto’s Steam Whistle Art Gallery (near Rogers Centre). Claiming some of the best action sports photography, I think it would be worthwhile to check it out. The website is pretty empty on details, but hopefully the show has some good work. It’s only on until July 30th, so get there before it’s gone.

http://www.actionsportsart.com/about.html

I was in New York City 2 weeks ago and got to stop in at the Burton store in Soho. I could have spent hours in there, but we were on a clock so I had to shop quickly. Great prices too…some luggage that we really wanted for a great price, but we’ve got an entire closet full already. It also gave me a glimpse at the 2008 board lineup.

Vapor

This is my dream ride. Light and very tech. When the Vapor came out last year, I had to see it in person. When you’re in a shop, pick up a regular freeride board to judge the weight. Then pick up the Vapor. A significant amount lighter. I’d love to try this out on a demo day. Save some extra cash if you wanna ride this one.

T6

The T6 has a cool new edge dampening under the binding area. I’m not sure if it’s intended to give more flex under the binding area. It looked like it might help stiffen it a bit in those areas. You can see it in the images.

Custom X

My favorite…my ride. I rode a Custom for several years and thought that was the top. Then came the Custom X. I got this last year and it got even better. New this year is a wide version of the Custom X. I’ve got big feet, but would still go with the non-wide version to maintain faster edge to edge responsiveness and better tortional flex. Unless you’ve got size 13s, you don’t really have a choice. Light, great flex, a great all-mountain ride, really stable at top speed and highest quality materials.

EST bindings

The new big thing for Burton’s binding lineup this year is the EST (Extra Sensory Technology) bindings. They’ve gone away from the 3 and 4 hole mounting pattern with this binding and now have 2 mounting points on the side edges. This takes away the solid stiff area under the foot and should give a better boot-to-board feeling. I’d like to try this out to see how well it works. I want to see what the flex pattern is like on the board. The attachments mount to a metal groove that runs the center of the board called “Infinite Channel”. It’s not available for all boards, it looks to be more suited to freestyle, park boards. If it takes off, I’m sure it’ll be available for the all mountain boards next year.

Fall arrived yesterday, winter is on the way. It’s not too soon to get out gear shopping.

All photos, from www.burton.com

i was on vacation last week, thus the quiet blogging. i went to Whistler, bc for a last couple days of snowboarding for the season. it’s been an epic year at Whistler - 42 feet of snow and counting. yes, that’s right - more than a 4 story building worth of snow. i’ve been there about 5 or 6 times and i’ve never seen snow levels this high, ever. we even got about a foot of fresh snow just before we arrived. you can’t beat riding fresh snow in sunshine and -5degree weather.

I put together a video of all the video clips and photos from the trip. Keep an eye open for the automobile-sized avalanche boulders. Click the arrow to play the video clip.

Click the arrow to play the video clip.

on the weekend, i stitched together a series of photos i’d taken from my austria trip. the original is (7417 x 2345), but it’s worth it to see the details of the mountain. be sure to click on all sizes >original to see it in full detail.

See all my >> photos from the week.

Wow. What an amazing week. I’ve never had so much powder in my life. Run after run of fresh untouched powder. And so light. I’m used to heavy, wet powder on the west coast. This was fresh, light, champagne powder. If you carved a turn in it, the snow would fly up in your face.

Friday/Saturday - hit the airport for a long overnight flight to Munich, followed by a long wait at the airport, and a bus ride for a couple hours into Innsbruck. We (5 of us) arrived in the city around dinner time, exhausted. We grabbed some dinner, explored the city and had some drinks ready for a solid week of snowboarding. The city was great to hang out. Temperatures were around -6 C or warmer most days. It was only slightly colder in the mountains which made for great conditions. Such a beautiful city with mountains surrounding you.

Sunday - Off to Stubai Glacier. We lost one guy already. The city nightlife was too much and he never woke up until noon. We couldn’t get a hold of him in his room so we were down to 4 guys. More fresh tracks for us then. The drive there was amazing - so many massive mountains surrounding you. 10,000 feet at the peak of Stubai. The highest elevation I’ve ever been riding. Some altitude sickness crept in for one guy at lunchtime and made him sick. The jetlag and dehydration contributed. I think I felt a bit on our final day as well, but kept riding. The snow was crazy. Deep powder lines through rock chutes. Untouched bowls of powder. So much space to ride, and everyone stays on a groomed run down the center of the mountain while everything off to the sides stayed untouched. Photos from Stubai

Monday - Off to Axamer Lizum. Another great spot. It was the location of a few races in the Innsbruck Olympics in 1964 and 1976, so you know it has to be great. High speed powder runs in the morning with a powder dropoff. We met a skier from Geneva (originally U.S.) on the bus by herself and joined us for the day which was welcome company. The afternoon was more winding runs down to chutes and powder bowls. Photos from Axamer Lizum

Tuesday - Nordpark. We caught the city bus to Nordpark for the day. It’s funny seeing business people riding in the seat next to people with skis and snowboards. The public transit is free for anyone in ski gear. Nordpark was cloudy and blowing at the top. We took the gondola all the way to the peak looking for runs and couldn’t find anything that actually looked like a run. You had to hike out and the runs didn’t look like actual runs as they were so steep. Combine that with 5 foot visibility, we couldn’t find our way down. Along with everyone else, we took the tram back down. That’s when we saw the warning sign - “Runs are extremely dangerous. 70 degree slope. One fall could result in loss of life”. Definitely not the first run you want to start your day with. Nordpark has an amazing snowboard park. Hugh kickers. I saw 1080’s & backflips off of here. Amazing. We rode the halfpipe a few runs as well. After spinning and landing out too far from the wall twice, I returned to regular riding - no sense hurting myself so soon and missing out on all the great freeriding. The lower mountain was fogged in, but the upper mountain was bursting with sun. My freckles are back in full force. T-shirt weather. The remaining rideable area was only serviced by a double chair, unless you wanted to go all the way to the bottom, so this made runs slow. Nordpark was fun, but not as good as the other hills.

Wednesday - Schlick 2000. Best name for a hill. I think this was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life snowboarding. Unfortunately Ben took the day off to rest up so he missed riding with me. Just me, John & Al. I found a bowl that emptied out into a long set of powderfields with rollers (picture big snow waves) you could ride up and over and surf like a pipe. It was so much fun. I rode that all day and gave up on the rest of the mountain. I timed the run top to bottom and it was a constant 10 minutes of fresh powder. That’s as good as heliskiing and you can get on a lift right away and do it all over again. I shot video with my camera of a run, with me screaming and laughing all the way. We also met some Aussies who had just come from the Torino olympics and watched the snowboarding events there. Photos from Schlick 2000

Thursday - rest day. I had to take a day off. I rode Schlick until I could barely stand. I knew it was my best day, so I gave it my all. I slept in a bit, went to an internet cafe to email home and wandered the streets taking photos and exploring the history. I rested up for one final great day of riding.

Friday - back to Stubai. It was gray and overcast in Innsbruck, but when we arrived at Stubai, it was puking snow. Large fluffy flakes. So light you thought you were riding on feathers. A few times I got buried and had to undig myself and walk out at the bottom of the runs. Fresh pow up to your knees that had drifted to almost 2 feet in spots. A great way to finish off an amazing week.

I’m working on collecting everyone’s photos from the trip and putting them together along with my videos into a DVD video for each of the guys to have. This is something we’re gonna want to remember for a while.

If you can afford to hit Europe for a week of skiing/boarding, you have to do it. I’ve been to Whistler on many occassions and as much as I love Whistler, this was WAY better. And to visit Europe at the same time, see new cultures and languages - makes it even more fun. Next big adventure - South America (Chile/Argentina) for some summer snowboarding.

snowboarding, austria, innsbruck, travel, europe

I can’t believe it! At the start of the year, I proposed we head to Alaska to try out some new areas. After seeing too many snowboard videos where people sat in Alaska hotels waiting for the rain to stop, we reconsidered and decided on heading to the British Columbia interior (Kicking Horse, Fernie, etc). As of last week, another idea made it on the table. Austria! Skican has a great package price for a week of riding. One of our friends booked his trip there after having to cancel out of the same trip this year. I checked with J (you can see who wears the pants in this relationship) and she said I should go for it. The rest of the crew was in for it too. So at the end of February, I’ll be heading to Innsbruck, site of 2 Winter Olympics and surrounded by a whole lot of mountains. I can’t wait. It’s gonna be crazy. This also goes towards accomplishing one of my life goals - snowboarding on 3 continents. I think South America will be next. Chile or Argentina in September would be great.

If anyone’s been riding in Innsbruck, leave me some comments…let me know where to go and which mountains to ride. Now I’ve gotta hit the gym and get fully ready to ride.

image borrowed from vintagearte.com, where you can order the image as a poster.

I got an early start to the snowboard season this year. On Sunday, Dec 18 I went riding with my bro Ben (of course), and friends Betty, John & Luq to Blue Mountain in Collingwood. Ontario ski hills aren’t something I’m happy with nor challenged by, but a day riding anywhere is better than a day sitting on the couch. But I was actually surprised by Blue Mountain. It’s much better than Moonstone where we went last year. The trails are somewhat longer and there’s some steeper pitches to the hill. It’s definitely somewhere I’d consider going again for a couple of times this year.

It was a good warmup to get the legs going (the first day of the season is always the worst). The snow was very good as we’d just gotten a storm earlier in the week. We even found some small areas of untouched snow. We did a few runs in the half pipe as well. I was a lot more confident this year after practising last year. The pipe wasn’t as icy, there was sun keeping the snow soft on one wall. I even spun an accidental backside 360 at the end of my first run. I was only going for a 180 but I had overcorked myself and the flex in my board spun me around more than expected. All of a sudden I was all the way around 540 degrees and let out a “whooo” of surprise. I took 5 runs in the half that day and my legs got more tired after each run. I’d like to spend a few more days this year practising the half.

A fun and tiring day overall. A few more days like that will get me prepped for our big trip in March.

As I was doing my weekend grocery shop, I came across something very shocking in the cereal aisle. Free Burton sticker! If only I ate Captain Crunch cereal. I almost bought it just for the novelty of getting the sticker, but I can’t justify spending $5 for a sticker and some cereal that I probably wouldn’t eat. I guess Burton figures to get more market share, go for the kids when they’re young & impressionable. Then they’ll be Burton addicts by the time they grow up and have the money to spend on their product.

I’m a little disappointed actually. Call me a brand snob if you will, but I expected more from Burton. I see Burton as a higher-end snowboarding product. You pay more for the product, but you also get more. I equate it to the BMW of snowboards. I’d feel cheapened if I saw BMW giving away a sticker in a box of Captain Crunch. It’s an elite brand, one that shouldn’t have to stoop to crackerjack box gimmicks.