SDS Updates
Premature Jibulation Mad River
Dec 22, 2009 - 05:28 PM EST
Year two at Mad River in Ohio brought opening weekend hype. With the sun offering a warming effect on the morning, finishing touches were put on the Capital Park set-up. A fresh feature we choose to call the Montréal offered a rail perpendicular to two down bars at a 90-degree angle capping it off with a larger drop off the end. At the bottom, an up rail and pole jam sat next to each other lookers left. On the right, a down box for getting that swivel on.
With more sign-ups than last year, it looked like Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana all showed up to throw down this year. It was great to see people showing up from all over. Riders were split into two groups and each was up for a 30 min jam session. Group one threw down early, the Montréal feature was getting lit-up on either side. 270’s were standard on or off and hard ways started to show up later in the session as well. A few riders attacked the up rail with methods off and front 1 on to back 3 off. Down box got all it could handle. With a long hike to the top of the line, riders were getting tired near the end of the session and tricks were coming a little harder as we finished out with group one.
The second heat seemed a little larger than the first, but still started out with a furious beginning. Similar results on the down bars… seemed like the hard ways were on in this group and the back 1 on was being thrown out a lot more in this group. When group two wrapped, the judges conversed to trim out about 20 riders for a semi-session. The plan for this heat, was to take the top three riders for a rider judged final… well, with tricks like hard way bs 270 board to same way 270 off going down, things were way to tight to pull the plug. Being too close to narrow down to only three, the judges, on the fly, decided to pit four riders head to head a la Berrics.
With the head to head battle set, Sammy Elam vs. Cody Hines, and Oliver Dixon vs. Dylan Chrismer hashed it out. After the head to head the judges determined the top three riders, for 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and let the rankings be decided by a group of their peers. After a few rounds of applause to sort it all out, Sammy Elam came out on top, with Cody Hines taking 2nd, and Oliver Dixon coming home 3rd. Prizes were tossed, a few short battles ensued, and Prejib concluded.
Post game left a large crew of Michigan and North Ohio riders running laps all over Mad River’s fun runs. Big shout-outs go to Mad River Mountain, Capital Park Crew, all the riders, Brighton posse, GR heads, Syndicate Crew, Kevin, Brian, Rich, Marie, Brandon, Casey, and Ohio snowboarding.
Words: Pete Harvieux
Video: Kevin Castanheira
rome pre jib mad river from syndicate on Vimeo.
