CAVAN’S FUGNAR UPDATE: VANCOUVER 

Currently the plan is to just keep givin’r. 

Welcome to the first road update from the FuGnar tour.  

I left Waterbury and the Stowe crew a couple days ago, suffered through the horrendous baggage charges and the pitiful shit that has become the state of the airline industry, landed in Portand, and was immediately grabbed by one of the good people in the snowboard world, SDS rep Eric Schade. He and I made a short trip and paid cash for the 15 passenger beast that is going to be the team’s mobile home for the next little while. Next I grabbed Johnny Lazz who was up in Snoqualmie for a shoot, and headed to Canada. After some difficulties at the border involving Lazz’s age and oh I don’t know the giant sketchy van we were driving, we were eventually let into the Great White North at which time we high tailed it strait to Rome BC rep Derek Hale’s home. 

Derek’s place is sick, and in between stickering up the van, watching Fubar, watching some hockey, and maybe even enjoying a few Pilsners, Max, Will, Yan, and our photographer, long-time shred vet Rob Mathis all arrived. With weather rolling into Vancouver, the first stop for the crew was legendary Seymour Mountain.  

Riding at Seymour is like riding a little piece of snowboarding history. One of my favorite movies growing up was the Shorty’s movie “A Young Brown Walsh” and three-quarters of that movie looks like it was filmed at Seymour. The Skids, the Iris crew, the legendary style of Devun Walsh, are all products of this place, and cruising around the mountain you understand why.  The whole place seems like a natural skate park of trannies, hips, spines, drops, rollers, and cliffs. 

Although we had hoped to be able to go up on the peak to a backcountry zone accessible by hiking off the highest chair that’s home to a lot of famous and infamous jumps such as “City Booter” (a well known jump that has the city of Vancouver as the back drop), Mother Nature had other plans for our crew. Seymour was completely socked in by a layer of fog and snow that when mixed with the prior weeks of icy conditions, left the mountain hiding many tricky hazards and landings that looked great but were really 2-3 inches of snow on top of bulletproof ice. We met up with Sean from the park crew, Damon from Coastal Riders board shop, and a crew of locals that included riders like Logan Short, Brendan Keenan, Sean Genovese, and a cast of others that all seemed to ride fast and jump off any roller all over the mountain. The locals here are good, they all ride everything and right away this became evident when we had a Chinese downhill from top to bottom of Seymour that wound all over the mountain.  We got smoked by them, but everyone seemed to have a great time.  

We spent the first day hitting various cat tracks, stumps, and whatever other little knolls we could ride in the puking snow. That night Sean set up a cool rail to butter box to qp feature that we got some pretty unique tricks on. It was also locals’ night in the bar so we hung with a good crew that seemed to welcome us all in with open arms.  It was sweet. 

Day 2 started off a little rough, as it puked snow, and the van didn’t have snow tires.  After purchasing some new ones for the beast, we made the trek back up to Seymour and shredded another great day. Once again Mother Nature blocked us from hiking up onto the Peak to City Booter, but we slashed trees made some drops and just basically had a blast. Our friends from Quebec Alex Cantin and Ben Bilocq showed up to shred. Lazz had our entire crew, the local crew, as well as ton of onlookers laughing hysterically as he jumped off the chairlift in a pretty high spot and landed in a tree. I’m sure you’ll be seeing that shot in the FuGnar edit. 

How many times have you said to a friend, “Man, they should let girls ride for free up here so there would be more women on the hill.”? Well Seymour does this and Monday night was “Guys night out” where any female skiers and shredders get to ride for free.  After sessioning the park a bit more and listening to some great local stories, we said our good-byes to our new friends and started down the access road; but not before the locals sent us off with a barrage of roman candles shot at the van.  Awesome times!  

5 STAR ACTION IN MANHATTAN: SWATCH TTR TOUR MIXES IT UP WITH RED BULL SNOWSCRAPERS

New York City, USA – January 29th, 2009: With so many riders flocking to the many resorts and competitions buried deep in the diverse mountain ranges around the world, from the Swiss Alps to the Canadian Rockies, it’s always good to have a little change of scenery. Enter Red Bull Snowscrapers; a brand new and innovative 5Star competition on the Swatch TTR World Tour that combines the characteristics of a backcountry step-up session and the pumping life of metropolitan city. On Thursday, February 5th 2009, 16 phenomenal riders will descend upon the East River Park in New York City to compete for 850 TTR ranking points and a beefy $100 000 USD prize purse in what is sure to be a throw down of epic proportions.

To describe the riders that are set to compete in New York as the world’s best is an understatement as these guys are all at the forefront of snowboard progression and each has something unique and fresh to bring to the table. Contest all-stars Kevin Pearce (USA) who is currently Swatch TTR No. 4, TTR No. 11 Torstein Horgmo (NOR), TTR No. 12 Shaun White (USA) and TTR No. 13 Danny Davis (USA) will no doubt all be looking for higher places in the TTR Top 10 as Norwegian phenomena Mikkel Bang and Andreas Wiig fight to close the gap from further down in the rankings.

However, a place on the podium will be no easy feat with many other iconic riders shredding in New York. Backcountry style and urban adventure clashes with Travis Rice (USA) and Pat Moore (USA) both competing under heavy expectations as Jake Blauvelt (USA), Bjorn Leines (USA) and JJ Thomas (USA) make the irregular but highly anticipated contest appearance alongside the great Norwegian Terje Haakonsen.

The Red Bull Snowscrapers tosses out the conventional best of 3 run format and instead employs a jam session format where riders must consistently land difficult, distinctive and stylish tricks in order to walk away with the 5Star title. Frank Wells and Mike Bettera from Snow Park Technologies have constructed a specially designed step-up hip feature that caters towards the riders’ creativity and the spectators desire to get as close as possible to the action. A 90-foot tall in run will launch riders off a carefully designed ramp towards a massive 80-foot long, 45-degree spine and landings on both the right and left side allowing for a multitude of trick variation.

For more details and the live webcast of the Swatch TTR 5Star Red Bull Snowscrapers log on to www.go211.com on February 5th 2009. Also check out ttrworldtour.com for up to date news, rankings and videos of the greatest contests on the earth including the recent 6Star Burton European Open, and the upcoming 5Star Burton Canadian Open and the 6Star Billabong Air & Style Innsbruck.

2008/2009 - Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour Rankings as of: 26/01/09

1 Guldemond, Chas
2 Piiroinen, Peetu
3 Korpi, Janne
4 Pearce, Kevin
5 Malin, Markus
6 Mattila, Risto
7 Reid, Charles
8 Aguirre, Mason
9 Toutant, Sebastien
10 Maurer, Stephan

ABOUT SWATCH TTR:
Founded by Terje Haakonsen and industry innovators in 2002, the SWATCH TTR World Snowboard Tour is a non-profit, rider-driven organization with the mission to create the highest quality competitive snowboard environment in the world, using authenticity, accessibility, innovation as guiding principles. Since its foundation, the Swatch TTR Tour has been developing into the most exposed snowboard tour worldwide featuring global grass root and key independent freestyle snowboarding events over a ten-month period from Southern to Northern Hemisphere locations. Events are rated via a 1-through-6Star system, with points allocated accordingly, a 6Star event holds the highest (1000 Swatch TTR points). Any rider participating in these events, from up-and-coming to professional talent, earns ranking points and a position on the SWATCH TTR World Ranking List. The top male and female rider based on an average of their best seven results of the season is crowned SWATCH TTR World Snowboard Tour Champion.

Come join SNOWBOARD as we celebrate the final party of the SIA Tradeshow in Las Vegas this Thursday, January 29th at 10pm. The "Ender Bender" will conclude SIA's 35 year-long run in Vegas as the show moves to Denver, Colorado for 2010. DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill kicks off the night at the Body English in the Hard Rock Hotel and an exclusive performance by Redman will wrap up the week in official fashion. Special thanks to our sponsors: Burton, Hornitos, Aspen/Snowmass, Atmosphere Clothing, Frank 151 and EnvironmentalInk.com.

Skullcandy, a developer of core audio products, is stoked to announce Snoop Dogg and Mix Master Mike from the Beastie Boys as its headliners at this year’s SIA show in Las Vegas. A night of music chaos featuring Super Natural as MC, the company is set to make its mark in Vegas on the second night of the show, Wednesday, January 28th at Rain in the Palms Hotel. A way of thanking partnering industry companies, their supporters, as well as core retailers, reps and dealers, Skullcandy looks forward to bringing key music acts to the 2009 show.

"At Skullcandy, we're always looking for events that bring a unique energy to the action sports and music industry," stated Rick Alden, CEO and founder of Skullcandy. "Bringing a mainstream and talented crew of folks like Snoop Dogg, Mix Master Mike and Super Natural to SIA for the show’s last year in Vegas is our way of going out with a bang. We're thrilled to bring top-notch musicians to our party as a way of thanking our collaborating partners and core dealers—it’s going to be a great."

In addition to partnering with both Snoop Dogg and Mix Master Mike for the SIA 2009 show, Skullcandy is also pleased to announce their artist collaboration pieces with each music icon. Set to hit the market later this year, Skullcandy will introduce Snoop Dogg fans to a whole new world of music listening as they partner with the rapper for his own Skullcrusher—an extreme base amplified headphone. Skullcandy will also be creating a DJ headphone from scratch for Mix Master Mike, which is set to hit the market during third quarter.

The party will start at 10PM on January 28th and go into the “wee-hours” of the night. For more information on Skullcandy and their second day, SIA Vegas bash, check out skullcandy.com or stop by their SIA booth: D80.

Smokin Jay and Binky are the shit. They let us make the sickest snowboards on the planet, D.I.R.T. Rockers with Magne Traction, right there in their mad scientist lab in Reno, Nevada. Jay is truly the Mad Scientist of snowboarding. From Jay-tweaked machinery, to eyeballing edges to a fraction of a percentage, Jay and company are the last of the real brands owned by real snowboarders. They don't farm their shit out to some top ramen factory in Ding Dong China. Hell no! Jay rides every day, and then gets to the lab at mid-day and works until he falls over because thats what makes Smokin Jay stay Smokin. He's one of the truest people in the game. If you want to ride a sick board that you know was made by a legend himself, check out SmokinSnowboards.com to see whats up, then drop by PortersTahoe.com and buy yourself one of their shred sticks. Shit, they even have a 3 year warranty son!