Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

The FuGnar Interviews

Nov 16, 2009 - 10:16 AM EST

Getting there is half the fun. Unless the “there” doesn’t matter, then just getting becomes all the fun. When your whole shred trip is a road trip, it can be a great adventure, but at the same time, spending more time traveling than riding, can be a tough ratio at times.
With a loose plan put in place and an end point to reach, the Rome team jumped in the van in British Columbia last season and headed East across Canada to shred, meet some shops and have a good time together. Below is the first in a handful of interview recaps on the FuGnar adventure. We decided to start at the source with Team Manager/Filmer John Cavan and get his thoughts on the trip. Enjoy!

Breakdown the main idea behind the cross Country adventure.


The main idea behind the FuGnar trip was, since we weren’t making a movie, a good road trip through Canada, taking our time and really riding where we wanted to ride with the locals would be an awesome way to keep everyone riding together. Also it would be a great way to check out places we hadn’t been much. We kind of had to change the trip a bit to meet certain needs and time deadlines so… that added with some weather issues we faced made it so it didn’t turn out exactly how we wanted, but we still had a blast and I’m stoked to have done it.

Best day of the trip if you had to pick one?

I think for me one of the best days of the trip was probably at Kicking Horse. We had the entire crew there so we had a big train of riders bombing around the hill and everyone seemed to be having fun. We found this natural jump over some rocks that played out well, and we also found some hidden pow slashes here and there that were fun. The best part about Kicking Horse was that we found these long gully runs that were a blast to work, so it made for a great day. I think we all had a really good time together whether it was messing around in the gondola, or sitting in the snow waiting for someone to get a shot. That night I we all had a great dinner in town and played a game of credit card roulette that may not have ended up so well for one of the riders.

Worst day of the trip?

The worst day of the trip for me was when we got to Ottawa. We were just fried…The drive had been hellacious, everyone was cranky, we hadn’t gotten too many shots, and then when we got to Ottawa and there was no snow so we couldn’t really do anything on all of the spots we had scoped out. Also LNP’s bags got lost and we apparently had some shop visits we were supposed to go to. Basically at this point everyone wanted to leave, but I guess it’s to be expected when you pack that many people in a van and send it across the country that fast. All in all it could have been a lot worse.


How many times did someone on the trip wanted to kill Johnny Lazz?

Man, I don’t even know how to start to answer that question. Johnny is a handful…a giant ball of energy who’s constantly talking and laughing and yelling and scheming and loud. Add that to the cramped quarters and the fact that he didn’t drive once the whole trip and you have all the mixings for a beat down. I know a lot of people wanted to drop him, but in a little brother kind of way. I only was really aggravated with him one time, when we were stuck in customs and I was kind of stressing and he was just kind of bouncing off the walls and not giving a shit…..I think if looks could have killed, Johnny would have been dead in there.


Did you check out any good shops?

We saw a bunch of shops on the trip, but one shop that really stood out for us was Society in Revelstoke. Karl the owner is a good friend of Rome so we are treated well whenever we are in town. Derek our BC rep was having an on-snow ride day with a lot of his shops, so we hung out in the Society with the crew, had some good times out on the town, and really felt like home. We had a blast riding Revelstoke with Karl and crew, and then we were even shown some jib spots that we sessioned with Karl. Great times out there, I would recommend Society to anyone that goes to Revelstoke, it’s a real old fashioned snowboard shop, I even think we watched the whole Whiskey trilogy at Karl’s house while we were there.

How was it traveling with photographer Rob Mathis?

I’ve always been a huge fan of Rob Mathis; I mean he’s shot some of the most iconic snowboard photos of all time during the day of the Forum 8, so to be on a trip with him, I was stoked. Granted we didn’t get to shoot anything that was too gnarly and I hope to get a chance to rebate that with him this winter, but just picking his brain and listening to his stories was rad enough. The guy is hilarious; he’s constantly kind of messing with you but in a funny way. We were always joking about fighting one another for getting in shots…..and the best thing about Rob is he listens to good music, all metal- all the time, which is dope. He aint afraid of a little van time either, he was on that trip from start to finish. There’s not to many photographers I can think of that would get in the trenches and go for it with us like that…..I’d be interested to hear his opinions though, I’m sure there were times where he wanted to slit my throat.

How was Mt. Seymour?

Mt. Seymour was awesome. We didn’t get the best weather while we were there, but it kind of didn’t matter; we lapped the park with the locals and we just had a blast. This was really the first stop of the trip so everyone was really psyched. The van was a little gnarly cause we didn’t have snow tires at that point so it was pretty sketchy. The locals there are no joke, they shot us with roman candles, they partied their faces off in the bar, they took us on this crazy top to bottom Chinese Downhill where none of us knew where we were going, so we’d just try to stay in the pack at high speed, it was fun. We checked out some of the famous jumps from video classics Lil’ Bastards and A Young Brown Walsh, and we even built a few pat downs off a cliff or two that were fun. I think while we were there Will worked all day to build some crazy dam gap that didn’t end up working, that was a bummer, but he got a good work out from all of the shoveling. I think I’d have to say the Seymour crew was the strongest locals scene we ran into on the trip, they were down for snowboarding for sure. I can’t wait to go back, the whole place is like a big skatepark.

How was the Battlefield Session?

The Battlefield Rail is probably one of the most famous rails in the world. It’s been in every video and seriously, like so many tricks have gone down on it. Our Quebec guys sometimes ride the rail just for fun just to warm up on and what not. I don’t think we’ve filmed on it since Any Means, but I could be wrong. After driving all that way the crew was a little battered and worn so we thought it would be fun to have a session together on the famous Battlefield rail. It was cool because Eiki had never been there before so he was freaking out and just so stoked to be riding the rail. Will did just about every trick in the book on it that day, and Max and Yan were sessioning it pretty heavy. LNP did a whole slew of tricks, and I think even Marius was having fun on it. The highlight for me was seeing LNP and Eiki doing back to back backside 180’s on it like it was nothing. That was pretty cool.



How was Sun Peaks?

While we were in Sun Peaks BC we heard about some locals that wanted to have a party for us. It was so cold and they wanted to have a bonfire at night. We grabbed our stuff up and headed down to their home and we found a true snowboard flop-house. Just a bunch of people from all over that had moved there to shred. They had a fire going in the backyard, beers, fireworks, and a really fun backyard jib park. We stayed there for a long time riding the cool set up, and I think Will and Lazz rode the set up with the kids for what seemed like hours. After riding everyone piled into the local bar where the “Lazz-Bell” story took place, and also some other scandalous stuff involving Lazz and some locals.

Describe life on the van.

Man, you have to mentally prepare yourself for life on the van. Everyone has their zones in the van and you kind of don’t mess with that person’s space. I drove most of the way, but when I wasn’t driving I was usually sleeping or watching a movie in the way back, we kind of built a little nest back there for sleeping. You have to be careful how you pack the van because there is so much shit in there that things get piled on top of piles and it makes it hard to get at things. We were rolling around with a generator and lights as well as all your personal gear, so it made for cramped quarters.
We watched a lot of movies while driving, I think the top two were the new Alien Workshop video and probably Finally Flared, but we pretty much always had something going. Music was usually controlled by the driver, which was awesome when Rob was driving and not so awesome when Will was at the helm.
You have to really watch your shit when you have a van that is all stickered up, we had some lurkers in a few spots and we picked up some surprised hitchhikers, but all in all it was mellow. The hardest thing about making long cross country trips is the mental commitments to the all nighters, there really is nothing like pointing the beast at 100 at 4am while driving overnight with the window open blowing freezing air in your face just to keep you awake. The middle of Canada is a massive desolate place that makes you feel small in the world, rocketing across it in a confined vehicle with just your friends is really something special. It’s like you’ve gone to war together. I would do it again with any of these guys in a second……well I might think twice about Johnny, but I’m sure I’d get over it quick.