SDS Blog
Archive for December, 2009
Holiday Post
Monday, December 28th, 2009
Christmas was great! Couple days to hang with the family, eat lots of home cooked food and take naps, lots of naps. This year was pretty mellow, got to spend a good amount of time with my whole family. I always love going to my dads house in NH because its a shine to my childhood. He doesn’t spend much time there and I haven’t lived there since middle school so my room is exactly like I left it almost 15 years ago. I took a few snapshots.
The other great thing about Christmas is getting cool stuff from the people you love. Ali hooked it up with this amazing decorative type poster from Jessica Hische.
And, in the spirit of giving, I present to you, the annual gift of song 2009.
http://www.zshare.net/download/702898939c9cf344/
Enjoy,
Shawn
Two Fun Things You Didn’t Know about the Rome Office
Monday, December 28th, 2009
The bathroom is really warm. Like oven status sometimes. If you ride all morning and come in late, a good trick is to sit in the bathroom for like 30 minutes. Not only do you come out all warmed up after a morning of shred, but people are way less likely to question you being late if you’ve been in the bathroom for a half hour.
(FYI, I don’t even know what this image is, but if you google image “hot toilet”, you’ll understand why I had to just pick something and get out…)
There are no forks. Seriously. Like 3 dozen spoons, couple dozen butter knifes, even obscure stuff like grilling utensils, egg beaters, at least 3 defunct coffee machines, and possibly an industrial mixer, but if you’re having some spaghetti left overs, or a nice healthy salad, get ready to spoon that shit right up.
Maybe I’ll think of more things that may be of no interest to anyone, and if I do, I’ll be posting the crap out of it here on the blog…
Merry e) All of the Above from the SDS
Friday, December 25th, 2009
I think Bill Byrne reminded me about this little bit of East Coast nostalgia…
You’ve had some long days at work so now it’s time to get out on the slopes…
Method Mag had that photo on Facebook. They’re a European mag if you couldn’t tell from the board…
Happy Holidays! Think Snow!
session in denver.
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
I went to Denver hit some rails with the Videograss crew. It was Nima, Alex, Louif and me. We had trouble with some girl…but we pretty much landed all our shits before she came. bouyyaaa.
jibbin in Denver from Will Lavigne on Vimeo.
tricks will be out next fall…sorry.
Will Lav.
PureFlex Vid
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

So you’ve seen the pictures of the PureFlex Lacing System, and it seem pretty simple, pretty straight forward to you. You got 4 zones in the boot, each zone is separated by locking guides and thus there’s a load of customizability. The mathematicians amongst you probably figured out that equals to 16 different combinations of tightnesses achievable. What you can’t tell from the pictures though, is how easy and fast it is to lace up a PureFlex boot. Check this vid out:
Rock and Roll Tuesday : X-mas edition
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Here are a few x-mas classics to get you in the mood for the holiday.. Shake your bones to a live version of Christmas in Hollis by Run DMC!
Here are a few other choice x-mas songs for you and yours to enjoy this holiday season.
1. Charlie Brown – Death Metal
2. Lemmy & Dave Grohl – Run Run Rudolph
3. AC/DC – Mistress for Xmas
4. King Diamond – No Presents
5. SNL Christmas Song
6. Justin Timberlake (for those still needing a gift idea)
Merry Friggin Christmas !!! Get out there and shred !
Profanity
Monday, December 21st, 2009
So Saturday was beautiful here in Vermont. At least in terms of the sky it was beautiful; like often happens when it’s clear it was very cold (no insulation for the earth). Kind of a contrast of what was happening down south.

View from the top of the Gondola
So the top of the mountain was calling out to me…so in the spirit of Capt. Al I decided I need to head up to the top. It was really driven more from the hiker/backpacker in me; I really wasn’t headed up thinking I would find that great of snowboarding up there.
The view was pretty much only hampered by the curvature of the earth. I only had the camera on my phone, so hopefully the pictures work for you.

Looking West, Adirondacks in the distance...

Looking Southeast past the resort...

The hike up was super wind-packed so I was ready for more of that when it was time to drop in....

...but the turns were much better than I expected
So I need to end by reminding the reader: when exiting the resort make smart decisions well within your comfort/ability level. I backed away from another line on Saturday that I’ve done numerous times as I wasn’t comfortable with the ramifications of a mistake. Stay safe…
Artifact showdown…
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
Paul here once again. Sorry it’s been a while. I can blame getting my posting re-started on the dealership where I took my car for its 45K service yesterday. Kind of a random detour but I’ll explain. Arriving early for my 7:30 AM appointment I’m anticipating maybe a little over an hour of sitting in the “lounge” drinking coffee, checking and responding to a few overnight emails and maybe taking Wiley for a spin around the lot to check out some cars (the new Oldsmobile’s are in early this year btw). About 2 hours into it as I watch the mechanics take their second smoke break and NOT work on my car it’s dawning on me that I may have been mislead a week back when the scheduling lady said they could “fit me in first thing next Friday” and I “could just wait till the car was done if I wanted”. I’m not sure who she knows who would “want” to wait for 3+ hours for anything let alone a car while it’s getting worked on but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know them. Accepting that my options were limited I settled in and took a stab at getting this post started – just wrapping it up here on a balmy Saturday morning.

So we’ve received quite a few emails asking questions on camber technologies – specifics about what they are and what they do. As always we suggest digging through the site – there is a lot of info on all the Rome technologies but I’ll try to go into a bit more detail on the Artifact and the Artifact 1985 models here.

VS.

The reason these boards are great to talk about with respect to any camber questions is that for the most part these boards are pretty much identical – they are built for the same rider profile, designed for the same type of use and are constructed in the same manner using nearly the exact same materials. The primary differences are in their camber profiles and a few construction details that should help to illustrate how adding some form of rocker to a board effects its performance compared to a positive camber board. Because this is the primary difference, the Artifacts are a great test platform for riders to compare and contrast these differences and understand better which type of camber profile might be optimal for their riding objectives.
So to start here’s what both boards have in have in common:
- Both boards are True twin shapes
- Both boards are built with our Pop Core Matrix, StraightBiax Laminate and Impact base.
- Both boards have Bronze edges with a +3/-3 degree Jib edge bevel for catch-free box, ledge and rail slides.
- Both boards share dimensional specifications – running lengths, waist widths, sidecut etc.
Where the boards differ is in their camber profiles, the Artifact with our Positive camber and the Artifact 1985 with our Reverse-Jib camber and the addition of a dose of Pop Rock technology to compliment the difference in camber profile.
Looking at the Artifact design details as a baseline we can focus on the differences in the Artifact 1985.
The Reverse-Jib camber profile on the 1985 version consists line consists of a flat camber profile through the middle of the board to just under the binding mount area and a mellow reverse camber profile from there to the end of the running length of the board.
The Reverse-Jib profile provides for a stable platform between and under foot which is great for initiating and landing tricks, locking in on rails, etc. and a tip and tail that allow for effortless presses, butters and virtually catch free tips and tails.
A direct consequence of this rockered camber profile is a reduction in ability to pressure the tips and the tails of the board so we’ve added a Glass Reverse-V Stringer to the tip and the tail to counteract this. The addition of the stringer increases the power transmission from the binding mounting area to the tail of the board which enhances the ollie pop normally lost with rocker. We used the Reverse-V configuration because we want to add pop without increasing the boards torsional rigidity as this would negatively impact the buttery ride that all Artifact boards are famous for.
At the end of the day both these models are great for what they are designed for – jib heavy parks, late night urban rail sessions and finesse heavy technical riding that riders like LNP and Eiki are known for. They just get there in slightly different ways.
Check them both out and let us know what you think.
[p]
p.s. Hope everyone has a happy and healthy Holiday Season. And stay safe out there.
Do Something EveryDay
Friday, December 11th, 2009
I got kinda sidetracked with this project. Something about 16 hour days, and 9 of them in row that took priority. but I survived the push, and I’m back to visually rambling. Here’s some of the latest.

“It’s Always Greener…Right?”

“When Cartoons Cry”

“Everything Must Go!”

“Christmas Spirit”








