Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

After the worst drive of all times ( exploded tyre in the first hour (2 hours delay for fixing it), snow chaos on the roads in Germany and Austria (another 1-2 hours delay), ending up at a mountain pass between Italy and France that was closed (4 hour detour drive, at that point it was past midnight), getting 2 speeding tickets in the mont blanc tunnel (30 kmh too fast on the Italian side/210€ fine an 33kmh too fast on the French side/90€ fine; the tunnel itself was 35€ – i paid 335€ to go through a fucking 10 kilometer tunnel) , getting to Tignes at 4am after 18 hours in the car!!!) i made it to Tignes for the first Euro X Games ever.

The course is somewhat crazy, 6 jumps in one run and 2 speedy jibs. The first day there were still some true gaps in there, but somehow they changed that within one night completely – they made everything poppier, filled the gaps in and made step downs instead. Then the weather was shit and practice was pretty sketchy today. Lots of people got hurt.  I´m not sure if its a smart idea to ride this course after just coming back from a knee injury. I guess i will just go with my feeling and be sponteanous when it comes to qualifiers.

Jump number 4 and 5, a speedy rainbow thing and jump number 6. Actually you can even ride the take off next to the rainbow jib as another jump, then you got 7 jumps in one run. Probably the most jumps in a contest run ever. crazy shit!

EB just posted this commercial they had on TV 10 years ago on their blog. Good friend, Rome team manager, filmer, movie maker divulged to me with unspoken trust I wouldn’t spread it around that he was the man in the video at about 17 seconds…well, that’ll teach him to trust me I guess.

Hell Yeah Cavan…

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.

Another week went by, some more shots got logged in, life is good. Here’s another edit.
You’ll probably notice that the lence is dirty…well, this thing gets dirty so fast…anyways…

We set up a rail next to a building that the alarm when off for some reason…cops came but never saw us, we had a good session.

Untitled from Will Lavigne on Vimeo.

Will Lav

I went on a trip with the Standard crew. Here’s a video of stuff we saw on the road. Lots a squirels and cops. We took today “thursday” off and we’ll keep filming on friday. Good stuff went down, can’t show to much, sorry…Somewhere not in Quebec

Squirrels and cops from Will Lavigne on Vimeo.

Wil Lav

Bs 5050

Bs Nose Slide

Bs LipSlide

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In later years, Ali Goulet was one of the first riders to drop stuff switch in the backcountry in Whitey’s movies. In this clip from the height of the New School movement, it shows his innovation in the early 90s with a bunch of switch stuff–cab 3s, switch bs 3s, switch rail tricks. 16 years later, it still looks fun as hell.

I spent some time this fall at woodward at copper. This place is amazing, so much fun. Check out the vid.

More of Woodward at Copper. from Will Lavigne on Vimeo.

Will Lav