Oakley Year End Jam: Sunny Skies, Good Friends, Hecka Prizing
Yesterday afternoon, on a spring day that could not have been any more perfect than it was, with a park setup built especially for the occasion, the good folks at Grouse Mountain Terrain Parks and Grousepark.com threw a season ending jam for the ages. Shaw Butterworth, Marcus Cartwright, Adam Nicolls, Tom Robinson and Dan Ripper were up early yesterday morning, hoping to get some solid build time, only to run into technical difficulties. With all issues finally resolved at 10 am, they went to work to build a formidable set up consisting of two jumps, a hip and a variety of rails. The hip seemed to be the feature of the afternoon, with kids sending it bigger than I’ve ever seen at a local Grouse event. I won’t ramble on too much as the other bloggers will be bringing you better coverage, pictures and some Go Pro footage. I just want to thank everyone from park crew that was there helping with the jam. Rob Morrison came out for his afternoon shift and helped out huge with course maintenance and tear down. I also want to give a huuuge shout to Jeff Silcock, Grouse Mountain’s Events and Sponsorship manager. Jeff is a background guy, you don’t really see what he does, but without this guy, we’d have no park and the parks definitely would not have grown to where they are. Jeff was there taking pictures all afternoon and you can find them all on our Facebook fan page.
Sunglasses and smiles all around.
Thanks to our sponsors, Quiksilver, DC, Oakley and Roxy, as well as Pow Gloves for hooking up over $3000 worth of prizing. Also, huge thanks to everyone that showed up and ripped hard. Most of you took a tongue lashing from me and put up with it. Not that you really had a choice. It’s tough love, kiddies. You’ll thank me one day. I called the local scene out on their lack of A-game, but you all definitely brought the noise yesterday. We’ll be back next season with more prizing to give away, hopefully I’ll be back as well, but that’s up to Jeff and the crew downstairs. Here’s to hoping we can get the parks bigger and better next year!
No one took me up on my offer to dance for a pair of goggles. Weak.
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SIA 2010 Tradeshow
New product is awesome. So awesome in fact, that for a few days in Denver, the shred industry had a little party to show off all of next year’s awesomeness. I can only wish I’d been there for it, but instead here is a post courtesy of Snowboard Mag that recaps what went down and what’s coming out next year. Enjoy.
2011 DC Outerwear. Photo courtesy of Snowboard Mag.
Random Rambles I
I met mini shred Nick last night while doing a few laps with Dan Jonas and crew. This kid is sick. Keep your eyes out for him in the Quiksilver park. He’s easy to spot. The smallest dude hitting the biggest stuff is a good sign that it’s him.
The term “Blogger” now identifies me, apparently. The following exchange from last night pretty much solidifies that assumption.
Sam: Hi Alice.
Alice: …Hi?
Sam: It’s Sam!
Alice: Hi Sam.
(Pause)
Alice: Sam who!?
Sam: The blogger.
Alice: OH! Hi Sam!
The Rookie park is amazingly fun right now. Everything is ride on. Even my girlfriend can hit features. Yay for progressive parks!
Nathan Jonas hurt his knee trying a ridiculous corked 7 off a tiny hit by the snowblowers. Bail or not, I was pretty impressed.
Formerly local shred Wes is back on the scene, working on restoring his local status. I ran into him lapping the park Sunday afternoon and got a few laps in with him. He’s super fun to ride with, but long hours at work keep him off the hill.
The BC Snowboard Association is holding a slopestyle competition at Grouse Mountain on February 7th, hosted by Showcase Snowboards. You need to be a BCSA member to register, check out the Facebook page or their site for details.
Fellow blogger Charlie Grinnell will be filming local boy wonder Liam Casey on Thursday with yours truly behind an old school 35mm SLR. If you’re in the park, feel free to stop by and say hi. If you’ve never seen Liam ski before, you’re in for a treat.
You may wonder why my blogs lack the visual stimulation some of the other blogs have. To be completely honest, I have so much fun riding, that I forget to pull the camera out. That and the fact that I don’t want cold hands.
SIA is over and done with and the new gear for 2010 is looking sooooo sick. Here’s a quick rundown of what I find sick…so mostly the reverse camber boards.Capita has introduced Flat Kick Technology to two more models. DC has a camberless model out. Rome is back with 1985s on more models. As for boards with camber, the choices are endless. All reverse camber boards have a sister board with camber. Now, some pictures!
Nitro Sub Pop Series for 2010 ft. RC
Signal 2010 Park Rocker with RIDICULOUS amounts of rocking
Some of DC's 2010 line.
Capita Stairmaster Extreme
Technine keeps it's street roots for 2010
The new Ride Slackcountry for all your powder riding needs
Local boys Endeavour have 4 RC models for this season. The Colour series for 2010, white with rocker and orange without.
Stepchild's 2010 line up
32 is in the outerwear business for 2010
Sessions has you covered if you forgot the gloves at home. Just pull out them mitts!
A sampling of the Rome boards. The Design, Graft and Slash from left to right.
Speaking of Rome, I’ve managed to get my hands on a 2010 Artifact 1985 courtesy of the good folks over at the SDS. Dan and I will be reviewing it in the next couple weeks. Be sure to check back to get the low down on some of next season’s gear.
2010 Rome Artifact 1985
See you on the hill,
Sam
2010 Preview!
Its 2009, but already, previews of next year’s line ups are already popping up on tons of forums, blogs and websites.
Here is a preview of:
Thanks to the guys at Snowbroader.eu!!
-Dan