Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

Conditions are about as good as they get in Vermont right now. So there was pretty much no question that I was headed to the mountain this morning.

I started getting my gear on around 6 am to head to the mountain. A benefit to living in Waterbury is that you are close to the mountain, so most of us will get fully kitted out at home: boots and all.   Dr. Fung has been having me test his latest creation: The PureFlex Libertine.

The snow we are getting is pretty wet and heavy and has really been wrecking havoc in the towns.    So of course I lose power right before I need to put my boots on.

(In case you needed a photo for reference)

I can attest the Pureflex boots passed the test and were simple to put on in the dark.  Nothing could stop me from getting to the mountain today.

If you haven’t seen the video on how the boots work, check it out…

(As Ian describes in his piece the orange lace goes in to the internal cuff so it is tightening the internal ankle cuff, as well)

Rock and Roll Tuesday has been on haitus for a while but hopefully today’s selection makes up for it! First off, big ups to fellow shred Scotty Lago for keeping it real after winning the bronze, rock and roll Scotty! Anyway, I’ve been reading the book ‘Hammer of the Gods’ so I dusted off a bunch of my old Zeppelin albums and have been diggin on them alot more than usual lately.. Enjoy these two classics from one of the greatest bands of all time!

I don’t think I’ve ever heard this song performed by Zeppelin before, and I feel like we’ve all heard everything they’ve done at least 5 times… but check this out live performance from Australia in 1972..

Keep on rockin my fellow shredders…

Thursday, a bunch of Rome employees were doing what we try to do as much as we can…get our snowboard on.

Generally, this is a good week for us working stiffs; we start the week blacked out, but the rest of the week the mountain opens at 7:30. If you can get your ass out of bed, this pretty much means you can get just under two hours of riding in and be at your desk in Waterbury before 10 am.

So i was riding with Toohey, Anna, & Brendan and got a little ahead of them and rolled up on Josh. So instead of waiting, I hopped on the chair with Josh and headed up. Then…the lift stopped…abruptly. We were not quite half way up the hill.

Anna getting lowered...

We sat there for a little bit with some shit chat, when a patroller rolled up and declared that it was going to be a minute and they were going to have to evacuate us from the chair. Years ago I learned how to do evac when i was an instructor…I knew “a minute” was the understatement of the century.

Well the guys who rolled up to do our section needed some practice in the little things but safely emptied the chair ahead of us. Watching them empty the chair Josh & I decided that it was bad steez to have your hand on the chair while you were getting evacuated.

Mike Toohey. Having your hand on the chair is the equivalent of missing your grab

While waiting for the patrollers who evacuated the chair ahead of us, an extra patroller rolled up and this guy was pro. His rope was over the cable on his first try and we were down in no time.

Once we all had regrouped at the office most of us were pretty okay having had the experience; our curiosity well outweighed any frustration or inconvenience. I had never had this happen before (for real), and no one else in the office had ever been evacuated either.

So, first time for everything…

PS- the lift is now fixed

PPS- I missed my grab too.

Photos: Brendan

Not much to report lately. Tradeshow season is over, and i’ve just been grinding on the new collection. Slowly chipping away at it, but fear not, you’ll be getting photo teases in no time*

To prove that i’m not dead, here are 5 images from recent web lurking that are worth looking at. Dont fool yourself kids, this stuff was most likely done before you were born. Timeless indeed.

*and by ‘no time’ i really mean sometime this summer.

Twitter? Yup, right here.

I had to take a couple months of a snowboard-break due to an injury which sucked, but now i am back on snow and it´s awesome.  I started riding again at home in Europe, to be more exact i spent most my time in Mayrhofen so far - Mayrhofen got the best park in Austria and some really sick freeriding terrain which is all accessible from the lifts (if you know where to go). 

No hiking necessairy, no trouble with ski patrol – it´s easy to get sweet runs just off the lifts here in Mayrhofen.  I hope we get some more fresh snow again soon though…

This weekend specifically, there was a girls slopestyle event in the park in Mayrhofen. Since the speaker somehow ended up in jail i took over his job for most of the day which was quite the experience.

The Mayrhofen Park

Aerodynamic Starwars steez made in Europe. I don´t really get it, do you?

Last week has been pretty good. You know when you get your tricks without fighting with yourself and everything comes easily. Damn I wish it would be always like that. To be honest, everthing went good until I got there :

It is 46 stairs, narrow, shaky, sticky. Took me forever for this one…Than we found that rail that no one did before. We found out pretty fast why no one did it. There was a huge crack, like 2 inches wide, on it. So we tried to fix the same way we fix the cracks in concrete when we skateboard. Worked out pretty good and got the trick pretty fast to.

And we left the spot.

Today was a good day. Bluebird sky, 8” of fresh overnight, over 25” in the last 5 or 6 days.

I haven’t been to the SIA tradeshow in 4 or 5 years and I don’t miss it one bit; I’ve had some really good riding days in VT while tradeshows have been going on in other parts of the country (Vegas, Denver, etc.).

Below is the view looking down into the line “Ginger.” (I take a lot of these shots and always laugh at the lack of perspective of the pitch.)

One thing that especially made my day today was my helmet. I was first in on a line that most people know and it wasn’t quite as good as the above picture; all the fresh snow was there but it was on top of some classic Ice Coast conditions.

About a third of the way in, Coming out of a toeside turn I caught my heel edge on a “punji stick” (in woods riding they are the 1-2” diameter stump of a sapling). Well, this resulted in me sliding on my back head first down a fairly steep line.

I have a good sore neck and my helmet to thank as, inevitably, my head plowed right into a tree.

So it’s safe to say I’m in a mood to recommend helmets today. My neck may still hurt but I was able to shake it off and complete some great runs later in the morning including “Ginger” above and “Mary Anne” the run after (quite possibly my two favorite names for misty trails).

Thanks to my helmet: my day, and more importantly, my life, wasn’t ruined.