I’m in Ocean Beach, San Diego. I’ll be here for the rest of the summer, maybe even a little into the winter too until I go back to Jackson, which will probably be around Christmas, that’s when it starts to get really good.
Tell be a bit about your trip to AK.
Alaska was sick. I went there with Willie McMillon, Adam Dowell, and Mike Mahon. We were there for 2 weeks, didn’t really have any budget, but we all got into King of the Hill which kind of became the focus of the trip. We did a ton of sick shit right off the road, tons of pillow lines and stuff. We also met up with a bunch of friends who had sleds so we got some trips up with them which was great. Saved our cash for a day of heli, each run there was 6-8000 of vertical, it was straight pow…so epic. I’m definitely going back next year, going to do King of the Hill again, and hopefully save up enough for some more heli time.
Rome TM John Cavan checks in on Skype with Marie-France Roy to find out about her recent injury, how’s she’s doing, and what’s next for her.
This has been a gnarly year for serious snowboard injuries. Kevin Pearce, Danny Davis, Nick Dirks, LNP, Andreas Wiig, Chris Grenier, and Pat Moore all experienced major injuries, some season-ending and others life-threatening. Earlier this year when I got word that Laurent had broken his back, I got that sickening feeling in the gut and feared about the worst for my friend. The hairy Canadian wonder is ok now, but I got a few more grey hairs.
A couple weeks ago I got another one of those dreaded phone calls. Our favorite female snowboarder Marie-France Roy was seriously injured in a fall in the Whislter backcountry while filming for the new Absinthe film, resulting in a Heli evac, and a fractured C2 vertebrate. Marie is one of the happiest, most positive people I know and she has been taking everything in stride with her typical sense of humor, and go-for-it attitude. We’ve spoken several times since the injury and it amazes me how positive she is. We did this little Skype interview the other day while I was in Big Bear so she could tell everyone how she’s doing - Cavan
This Friday, April 9th, from 4:30 pm to 6 pm Pacific Time (see time zone list below), Rome SDS pro shreds LNP, Johnnie Paxson, and Will Lavigne will be on Twitter to answer all of your questions in real time. You ask a question, they answer it.
This past weekend the un-contest contest known as Stoken went down across North America at Sierra Tahoe, CA, Gunstock, NH, Holiday Valley, NY, and Nubs Nob in MI.
While the features and the weather varied from location to location, there was one constant throughout the events. STOKE. As the season winds down getting together with good friends, sessioning some fun-for-all features and eating some free hot dogs is about the funnest thing you can do out there.
Nothing says college snowboarding like jibbing a stack of empty kegs.
The Temple University Snowboard Club, also known as TUSC, were the winners of the first annual Ima Betta Jibba contest. With record setting snowfalls in the Philadelphia area, the timing couldn’t have be better for a Rome crew along with photog Oli Croteau to hop in a van and drive south for some good backyard snowboard fun.
Winter has been great. I’ve been doing a lot of contests, and I also got to compete in the Olympics. It’s been a great season so far and now I should have some time to film and get some photos up until the end of the winter.
The big news was you went to the Olympics and you were the youngest rider there. How was it? Were there some problems with the Norway Team, I heard they almost didn’t let you go due to your age?
I was one of the youngest there for sure, and it was pretty cool. There were tons of people there, it was like a huge contest with crazy security! I have gotten a lot of friend requests on Facebook since then, haha! Really there was no problem with the Norway team, I just had to do what everyone else did and qualify.
We at Rome have just learned of a potential safety issue concerning our 2010 United binding. If you have purchased this binding or are using it, please stop immediately and contact us at 802.244.1758 or at warranty3@romesnowboards.com. We will upgrade your 2010 United binding at no cost to you. However, we will ask you to return your 2010 United bindings to us.
The Alps are a pretty amazing place. I’m not sure if it’s the pure size, or the free-for-all feel on the mountain that the lack of ropes and out of bounds signs gives you. Maybe it’s the huge focus on “Après Shred” that it’s known for. Maybe it’s just a combination of things, but the end result is, the Alps are awesome.
With a riding crew of Bjorn Leines, Lucas Debari, and Will Lavigne, the Rome film crew and Onboard photographer and editor Matt George and Danny Burrows, we decided to make a run at it and see what we could find. The plan was head to Avoriaz France to ride and then head over to Meribel for the second week of the trip.
Sorry to hear you’re hurt man. What happened and how long till you’re back on it?
Yeah, I was in Poland with Gooner, Dylan Thompson, and Lazz shooting with Cole Taylor and E-stone. I got there a couple days early to scope the area. My bags got lost somewhere on the way over, so three days go by and I'm stressing. The rest of the crew is getting shots, handling business, and I'm wheelin the shovel. So finally my stuff comes and I get worked on this elbow rail to cement bank. End up breaking my wrist in 3 places, dislocating it, and tearing ligaments. So I go to this sketchy hospital in Warsaw. It was super gnarly; they set it and tried to keep me there for the rest of my life by pumping me full of morphine when I would try to leave.
So I got home and saw a doctor here, and he said I needed surgery. So I went to Japan and filmed with the Rome crew for The Shred Remains for two weeks, got back, had the surgery, and now have a full arm cast. So…I think I'm gonna try and shred with it tomorrow, the doc said 5 more weeks till its off and the pins come out, then I’m either in a short cast or it might be good to go. It’s wack.
In-house designer, Shawn Dumont’s Twitter interview has come and gone. He stayed busy the full two hours fielding questions, and was really stoked on the interest out there in the design aspect of snowboarding. His new found fame expanded his hat size for a few hours, but we reminded him that he’s still the same Shawn, and abused him a bit to keep him grounded.
The winner of the 2011 Outerwear designed by Shawn Dumont will be @miguelrionda, so make sure to follow him and send him a congratulations over the old Twitter.
Keep an eye on the site for more interview dates coming up.
Last week Sully headed to Baldface Lodge in Nelson, BC to ride pow with the Transworld crew. From what he said, it sounds like one of the best spots in North America. For an added bonus, he got to hang with Jamie Lynn, Guch and Gerry Lopez in the evenings.
We’ve been in the Alps for about a week now. We started our mission in France at Nico Droz’s home resort, Avoriaz. The terrain there was amazing, but due to Mother Nature not giving us the snow and weather combo we needed, we had to make a move. We were checking out the weather all over Europe, and took a shot at our best option, and headed to Austria.
The Active Sponsor-Me Contest is going down on March 21st at Mountain High Resort. The Rome SDS will be hooking the winner up with a 1 year Regional Sponsorship.
Shawn Dumont, who you may know from such Rome SDS contests as, “Tramp Stamp for Dumont”, has been a part of the SDS for six years now. He’s spent countless nights sleeping on the couch downstairs after working into the wee hours churning out art, he’s been asked numerous times to stop singing in the office, and snowboarding has been a part of his life for the past 18 years.
Dumont’s responsible for a lot of things you see in your local snowboard shop like Rome Gloves, all of the art in our outerwear design, t-shirts, beanies, caps, and boards like the Postermania. Now go back and re-read that sentence. That’s a shitload of stuff.
Coming in hot off of his first place win, at Marky B’s Boardfest at Kingpine in New Hampshire this past weekend (Slalom), he’s sitting down this Friday to answer any questions you may have in the third installment of the Inside The Design House live Twitter interviews.
It will happen this Friday, March 12th at 3:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.
Rome’s Stoken event series has returned after a short hiatus, and the good times are guaranteed. What Stoken lacks in rigid structure, international point rankings, and official rotation judges, it makes up for in what’s most important in any snowboarding event… having FUN with a big crew.
Be ready to get awesome on three communal features which may include, but are not limited to….
• Barrel Bonking Bonanzas – Get tappy
• One Hit Wonders – Pipe hits without the gymnastics
• Small Air Contest – Grabbin’ fast counts
• Mystery Feature – Mysteriously awesome