Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

Great article in the New York Times.  check it.

Check this viddy – I think I see Tim-Bro (of Rome history books) and Nate B (former Burlington manimal) pretty much just absolutely getting urban on an urban ledge. Check the link below for the full urban experience.

http://www.yobeat.com/2008/12/urban-first-descents/

Urban First Descents from YoBeat Magazine on Vimeo.

The New York Times released their take on 2008 in photos, which can bee seen in its entirety here. There are some excellent images shown in this story, and some of my favorites have been stolen fare and square, and are shown below. Not nearly as good as the images shown in my previous post on The Big Picture, but good none the less. Most interesting to me are the lost Robert Capa negatives. Some digging around brought me to this link with info about them and a few images from the set. Fingers crossed that the ICP is printing them for a future exhibit. 

Enjoy

go to: http://www.zshare.net/download/531391814410dbc5/ and click “download”.

Merry Christmas

It’s the holidays, and the spirit of giving is in the air. So here ya go – enjoy.

So much so that George & Cavan decided to fire up the snowmobiles in the parking lot Friday Night…

Trying to Get Cavan's Sled going...

Success!

Job well done.

“It makes me feel good to know that we live in a world where pirates still rule the seas”

Somali pirates

Im not trusting this ransom deal they worked out. I’ve seen enough movies to know that whoever is handing over the cash probably has a few tricks up their sleeve. Be careful Pirates…. Im rooting for ya!

other pirates of note

Captain Hook

that guy from Treasure Island

Captain Morgan

The Boston Globe has, what i consider, the best photojournalism on the internet. Sure, you might get some amazing photos here or there, but the Globe is consistently on point with their imagery. The Big Picture is a regular visit for me, and i continue to be blown away with the images they display. They are currently showcasing “2008 in Photographs” in a 3 part series. Part one and two are up as of this morning, with part 3 coming. Below are some images that blew me away from the first 2 sets, stolen fair and square. For the back story on all these photos and much more, make sure you check out The Big Picture site. 

EDIT: Part 3 is now up. Get in there, spend some time, learn something new.

Education in photographs.

One other recent gallery that blew my mind was of the riots in Greece last week. Enjoy.

A lot of effort goes into naming tricks in snowboarding, I’m sure we can all name 20 or so with minimal effort.  A lot less effort goes into naming falls.  Aside from the standard face-plant and scorpion, it’s pretty much virgin territory.  There’s also the yard-sale, but that’s for skiers.  I know I’m immature, but yelling yardsale when a skier loses all their gear under the lift has made me laugh from the age of 10 to 27.

Not saying I’m the best at naming stuff, but if no one else is jumping in, this one’s going to be named the butt-tear.  Not be confused with buttering, butt-tearing occurs when you hit a jump, fall on your ass and your back cheek lands higher on the jump resulting in a tearing feeling. (see illustration below).

There’s a moment when you get up and sort of try to suck yourself back together, but that doesn’t help, you might even let your friends ride a little ahead and check for blood, but you’re fine, usually.

Who knows, chances are I’ll fall again really soon, so maybe I’ll have some new falls to name, feel free to comment or email in if you have any suggestions.

So we got some more natural snow on Friday…  If you live on the East Coast you really need to pack the car head up to ME, Northern VT, or Northern NH…  Down south may have had a heck of an ice storm, but fortunately we mostly got more snow.  We are in full on winter up here and you really should take care of yourself and come make some turns; you’ll feel a lot better about the world.

So Friday I hopped on a Notch 1985.  I had ridden one of the early protos, but hadn’t been on one in a couple seasons.

Holding an early Notch 1985 proto a couple of February's ago; six riders didn't cross a track...a good day...I still remember George doing a crazy blind drop into a river bed...I think Ron took this picture?

Friday was one of those storms everybody was jonesin’ for, so the parking lot was pretty full by 8 am, and  it got played out pretty fast.    Nonetheless, it was a good opportunity to make some turns on the 1985, to see if I would prefer it as my full-time powder deck.  I loved the ability to ride fakie.  Now, I can’t tell you I was doing huge airs in pow and needing to put down the landing gear switch, but it really was more about coming to a stop in a tight area and deciding that I feel more comfortable taking the option to my left (I’m goofy).   For example, I would never take on a water bar fakie on my tapered Notch, which I did Friday.  It really shows how this board evolved from the Design and much of why I rode the Design before we had the Notch in the line.

I had to give back the 1985 Notch that day, and so I rode my own tapered Notch (158cm) the rest of the weekend.  I was riding it with my Targa’s.  (The Green/Brown one’s look pretty tight on it, lame, I know…)

Ready to Drop - 12/14/08

I had to start the day riding groomers or use groomers to get to “where I was going”.  I will say that for my riding style the tapered Notch is very satisfying at railing on groomers.  I tend to have a lot of fore and aft movement on my board;  driving into the nose to start a turn and powering off the tail coming out.  I really felt more confident initiating turns at speed on my own Notch (on groomers).  Honestly, I really was blown away how well the board coped with groomers; if you ride a bunch of pow and can only afford one board, do not hesitate to buy this as your one board.  Obviously, the board rides pow awesome so I won’t spend too much time on that.

So for myself, riding in VT on lift serviced stuff, I think I prefer the tapered Notch.  I think the same would be true if I was doing frontside and backside stuff out west.

If I was out building kickers or in general riding in more of true backcountry experience (hiking, using snowmobiles, cats, heli, skinning, etc.)  I would choose the Notch 1985.

I hope this helps you understand some of the differences between the two boards and why different people might choose the different models and why both exist.

I would finish my "hot lap" coming down at the foot of this rocks. This line is just over a knoll from the main gully...sometimes a little extra work gets you to a slightly hidden untracked line.

PS-  I did a POV video of riding this gully but I had the camera on the “compact” setting, so it kind of looked crappy on YouTube.  I’m not really a fan of POV stuff so I guess it was karma.