These had served me well for 4 seasons, so was keen to see what Salomon had to offer that would better suit my needs today.

I’d been reading about the Relay bindings system for a couple of years, which has sounded interesting. Here’s the low down from the Salomon Snowboards website

Soft ankle harness = Feels Good. Tensor system = Responsive SmartSole = Feels Good
1) Soft ankle harness.(comfort) Better boot wrap, 3D strap around you whole foot equals better fit and better comfort - allows med/lateral flex, natural foot movement. 2) Smart Sole (suspension) - absense of hard plastic under your heel, full eva plus a polymer structure between you and the board for maximum shock absorption and more direct board feel. 3) Tensor system (response) - transmits highback pressure directly to the front of the binding, lifting the toe edge and getting greater leverage to the board’s heel edge. With the absence of a hard heelcup, heel chatter does not turn into highback bite.

The tensor system in particular sounds like a great innovation.

Looking through this seasons range, the Relay Pro’s looked like the pick of the bunch. They’re pitched as more of a freestyle binding from what I’ve read about them. I’d also spotted the Relay Thruster’s from last season’s range, which offered up a stiffer highback, pitching them a touch more towards freeriding. Speaking to a guy on the Salomon Snowboards stand at the Metro Ski Show confirmed that the Thruster’s were a solid binding that were discontinued due to general trend of consumers favouring freestyle kit.

Independently, I’d had a couple of sessions trying boots on. I knew I wanted something stiffer than the Dialogue’s, and was prepared to put in the hours trying as many boots as possible to find the right combination of fit and feel. Before settling on the F22’s (which were the frontrunner from the start), I tried the following:

• Salomon Synapse - super-comfortable boots, looked great, but too soft
• Burton Ozone - comfortable, reasonable flex/stiffness but didn’t fit too well
• 32 TM Two - comfortable stiff flexing boot, but too much room to move my feet

Ending up with the F22’s - part of the Fusion series which specialises in reducing the overall foot print of the boot. With the smaller foot print, I could also aford to drop a size in the bindings, saving a little weight in the overall set up.

I admit they’re not the prettiest snowboard boots I’ve ever seen, but can’t say I’m too bothered.

Looking forward to giving the new set-up its first run out of the season, 6 weeks time in Cervinia.

Have you bought some new gear this season? Or used any of the above gear? Let me know in the comments below.

K2 Slayblade

Buy online at the following places:
K2 Slayblade 156 for $549.99 at Altrec, Proboardshop
K2 Slayblade 158 for $549.99 at Proboardshop
K2 Slayblade 163 Wide for $549.99 at Altrec

The marketing spiel initially alludes to a more all mountain freestyle board than the Zep’:

New for 2009/10, the Slayblade is the next step in all terrain freestyle high performance.

..before making it clear to all exactly what the Slayblade’s hreitage is

Two years in the making, the Slayblade is the ultimate tip-of-the-hat to the legendary Zeppelin that defined All Terrain versatility for the last 13 years.

On closer inspection, its pretty clear that the 2009 Zep and 2010 Slayblade share a lot of similar technical spec’s - ICG 20 Base, Hybritaper tip, Setback twin hyper progressive shape and a WH4 core.

The Slayblade also has twin carbon torsion forks adding stiffness and pop, while I believe the Zeppelin had tripple forks. This could be one of subtle differences as far as I can tell, though pitches the board squarely between the Zeppelin’s stiffness and the K2 Believer’s all mountain freestyle playfulness.

So what else is new?

Original Penguin™ styling meets Hybrilight construction for an ultra lightweight, yet refined, board/graphic package. Integrated Harshmellow dampens the vibrations and cushions landings allowing you to constantly push your speed and open up the bag of tricks. Add Flatline Technology for the perfect balance of power and playfulness and you have the most technologically advance, highest performing ATLAS arsenal ever assembled to slay the mountain.

Flatline Technology is new to the K2 snowboard range for the 2009/2010 season. If I understand it correctly, Flatline boards sit between conventional camber and reverse cambered Rocker snowboards, with a totally flat base. The main benefit is supposed to be better float in powder. Does make me wonder why snowboards progressed away from flat bases to camber in the first place if Flatline is genuinely an innovation. It would be interesting to test the effects of this. If anyone has ridden a Flatline board, then I’d love to hear your review in the comments below.

The report itself is well worth a peruse if you’re interested in the UK ski travel industry (i.e. UK skiers/snowboarders travelling outside of the UK), but here are some highlights:

• The total ski market was down 13% on the previous season
• Tour operator sales dropped 15%
• Italy and Austria fared well. North America lost visitors - perhaps little surprise given the epic snow in Europe and relative costs.
• The weak pound, high fuel costs and economic uncertainty driving people away from ski holidays
• Fewer new skiers and young families
• More fixed budgets
• Crystal suggest chalet holiday companies may put prices up
• Whereas for “bigger holiday companies” such as Crystal its “back to tour operating basics” and “[passing] on outstanding value to British skiers”

Hmmm… interesting. Last season Crystal did have one or two amazing last minute deals. £150 for a week in Cervinia, half-board, flights and transfers if I remember correctly was one such deal. I remember giving some serious consideration to picking one of their packages over the New Year week, before settling on an independent holiday in Montgenevre with a large group of friends.

This season, I looked again at the New Year packages available but was disappointed, though not surprised to see they were prohibitively expensive.

An article caught my eye last week reporting on a statement from Peter Long, Chief executive of TUI Travel, Crystal’s parent company.

TUI Travel said the decline in its UK market was in line with expectations and that capacity reductions meant it had 12 per cent fewer holidays left to sell.

It has seen booking volumes improve in recent weeks, but customer numbers for winter 2009/10 are still down 21 per cent on a year earlier in the UK. This has been offset by an 11 per cent rise in average selling prices.

Ouch. Makes me wonder how the outstanding value promised in the 2009 Report will manifest itself.

I’m sure there will be some good deals to be had at the last minute, but popular weeks will be very expensive. I think I’ll be sticking to independent trips this season, which all things even are certainly my preference.

Speaking of which, much has been made of BA’s change of policy on ski baggage. You’re now unable to include ski luggage AND regular checked baggage without paying a suplement. This still leaves them offering a much better service than the budget airlines. I for one can usually get away with just hand luggage and my snowboard bag checked. Just be resourceful with your packing, wear your ski jacket onto the plane - and your boots if need be - and stuff your pockets with t-shirts, socks, hats, whatever it takes.

There are definitely flight bargains to be had. You just need to do your research and understand the baggage policies in each case.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on package holidays vs independent. Which do you prefer and which offer best value?

Photo credit: the_amanda

The Indian Park blog jogged my memory that the latest offering from the Absinthe boys was filled in none other than Breuil-Cervinia, amongst other spots.

The trailer looks pretty sweet.

I’ve not watched a new snowboard movie since “That’s It, That’s All” (which if you haven’t seen, you must), but hoping to check this one out.

In the meantime, you can see if you can bag yourself free tickets on Whitelines.com (A= Metro), Allinlondon (A= Vancouver), Natives, Goneboarding (A= Zillertal), Powderroom (just log in and enter) or the mighty Ultimate Ski.com.

In fact if you end up having to pay for tickets, have a word with yourself.

All the usual stuff is there… massive kicker/demo sessions, talks, stalls and stands, this seasons new gear, etc. etc.

I’ll be going along on the look out for new boots and bindings. Maybe even the elusive new jacket that I’ve been promising myself for about 3 years.

Following that I have my eye on an adventure race in October (10k, 25k MTB, 1.5 kayak), and hoping to do both the Mudman duathlon and HellRunner (running only) events in Novemeber.

I did the Spring Mudman in March this year and HellRunner last year, both very hilly courses and with 6 days of one another. That’s going to be tough so I need to step up the training now.

Heading out shortly to up the ante on my mountain biking skills and endurance, heading over to Leith Hill for the first time. It’s come recommended and sounds great from the reviews.

Also catching up on some duathlon reading thanks to a handy Google Duathlon RSS feed.

A few interesting posts popped up recently…

Clark off-road duathlon 3
A first time duathlete, with limited bike experience, but sounds like a good (elite?) runnner. Reminds me of my first duathlon… I was different - I thought I was good on a bike but hadn’t trained properly. You get some top athletes at these events so without proper training you’ll get left behind. That was my experience not that of this blogger, SEABISKWIT.

The “Joy” Of Climbing A Hill On A Bike
Not a duathlon post, just mountain bike related but well worth a read none the less. Very quotable article, I liked this bit: “Suffering is at the heart of every hardcore cyclist’s connection to the sport—not just the acceptance of suffering, but the whole-body embrace as if you’ve just found your lost child—and nowhere will you suffer more than on the hills. They are the ultimate proving ground of the cyclist, road or mountain, and we can’t help but be drawn to them.”

Also check out the photos on the Mountain Biking in the Most Beautiful Places on Earth post about riding in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains.

Now, time to hit the road.

A cracking cover, slightly reworked from the original. Early days Maiden signer Paul Dianno wrote the lyrics about “a friend” who loved a bit of LSD.

Unchain the colours before my eyes,
Yesterday’s sorrows, tomorrow’s white lies.
Scan the horizon, the clouds take me higher,
I shall return from out of fire.

Tears for rememberance, and tears for joy,
Tears for somebody and this lonely boy.
Out in the madness, the all seeing eye,
Flickers above us, to light up the sky.

Unchain the colours before my eyes,
Yesterday’s sorrows, tomorrow’s white lies.
Scan the horizon, the clouds take me higher,
I shall return from out of fire.

Found via Metal Rock’s on Twitter.

Will get back to posting a proper update sometime soon. There are snowboarding trips from the end of season to cover and some recent wakeboarding - highly recommended for snowboarders looking for some summer fun.

I’m not familiar with her work - as to be honest, I know very little about the acting world and don’t watch many movies - but it’s always sad to hear about people dying, especially where skiing or snowboarding is involved.

One thing that has surprised me though is that no news report I’ve seen has mentioned whether Natasha Richardson was wearing a ski helmet at the time of her crash at Mount Tremblant.

Update: she wasn’t

There are many who argue that ski helmets aren’t for everyone:

“I’m sticking to the piste, so I don’t need to wear a helmet”

“I don’t fall over anymore, so I don’t wear a helmet”

“Helmets just ain’t cool, so I’m not wearing one”

“They don’t fit with my goggles”

All lame excuses as far as I’m concerned. Helmets save the lives of skiers and snowboarders.

I’ve been nursing a broken rib for the last 2 months after I caught a massive edge in whiteout and an avalanche tranceiver acting is the filling in a piste-torso sandwich. I don’t catch edges! But I did that day.

My point is you never know when you’re going to find yourself wanting for safety equipment.

Excuse the rant here - but lets all enjoy ourselves, push our limits, but without being reckless and respect the mountain.

Over the years, the name “Jeremy Jones” has become synonymous with “helicopters in Alaska” because he’s the No. 1 name in steep terrain, and helicopters are the No. 1 way to access steep terrain. It’s easy math.

These days, though, Jones is increasingly aware of what he does, why he does it and whether there’s a better way to do it that doesn’t leave a Sasquatch-sized carbon footprint behind. He’s weaning himself off carbon-based travel as much as possible, be it in the backcountry (snowmobiles, helicopters) or getting there in the first place (planes, automobiles). He might not be riding his mountain bike from Lake Tahoe to Alaska—yet—but he is doing everything in his power to show that world-class freeriding can be achieved by more responsible means.

Some cool riding footage inbetween interview segments, and more info over here.

Monterosa has a reputation as a “freeride heaven” attracting a serious croud of dedicated powder hounds. At the time we went, despite there having been no fresh snowfall in 10 days, Alagne had the biggest base of anywhere in Europe with over 5 metres.

4 of us on this trip, all good snowboarders of a similar standard and all keen to get away from the pistes. With only a weekend at our disposal and not being familiar with the area, we hired a guide for the first day. It’s the first guided day I’ve had and can say without question it was well worth the investment.

Up 2 lifts from Gressoney central station, a short 10 minute hike later we were strapping in for our first run of the day with our Guide, Rudi leading the way. Unfortunately, due to the lack of recent snow and some warmer weather, a layer of crust had formed on top of the snow. Very few spots of soft snow on this first run, but what the hell, we were snowboarding - and this place clearly had some great terrain.

Fortunately, things only got better from there - and we were treated to perfect blue sky without a cloud in the sky until late afternoon. I don’t know how he did it, but Rudi ensured that from then on we only rode soft snow. Sure, it wasn’t fresh, but not all of it tracked. And most importantly, he got a handle on the ability level in our group and kep on pushing us. By the end of the day, we had all dropped cliffs much bigger than we had before.

On the run down before lunch in Champuloc, Rudi had taken us of a completely untracked run with cliff drop after cliff drop and some deep deep powder.

An hour or so for lunch to recharge the batteries on some local wine and cuisine, and a short cat ride back up the mountain and we were off again. More of the same that afternoon. Hiking away from lifts, riding powder, looking for untracked stuff, avoiding the crust… and taking on cliff lines.

By 4pm, we were buzzing off a great days snowboarding… collectively one of the best we’d ever had… and retired to the bar for several hard earnt beers.

Gressoney is famed for its freeriding opportunities and NOT the nightlife. There seemed to be no more than one or two bars in Gressoney La Trinite where we were staying, but that was adequate for us. We knew snow was on the way that evening, and the next day would be a whiteout - so we enjoyed the beers and set the alarms late for the next morning.

It was a pretty casual day on the mountain. Visibility was indeed pretty bad, especially in the Alagne valley - which was a shame as we had the sense that there are some great runs there - if you can see where you’re going.

Ironically, the day was further tainted when I caught a massive edge in the whiteout and landed with my tranceiver slamming into my rib cage. Not 100% sure whether I broke anything but 2 weeks later its still hurting.

None the less, we did manage to get some good off piste in that day before heading for home.

One more trip report to write up - 10 days snowboarding in Montgenevre - to follow soon.

I’ve been wanting to add something from the mountains, ideally taken by me whilst snowboarding, as the scenery is so spectacular and I’d love a daily snowboarding reminder. Unfortunately, I still don’t think I’ve taken anything good enough. Though I do like the helicopter shot I took in Zermatt in December 2007.

I think I’ve found something suitable this morning whilst reading The Stoke, taken by Sean Orfila, a Revelstoke resident and photographer.

Pretty cool!

Also thinking about getting this classic Cervinia poster, as Cervinia feels much like my home resort having been there so many times.

In the meantime, the only snowboarding memorabilia in my house is my old FTWO Sonic snowboard which is acting as a makeshift headboard behind my bed, though this is purely a short term function measure. Honest!

So what snowboarding reminders are hanging on your wall?

Full disclosure: I was paid to post this video, which I accepted because I did find some cool stuff within the site. Honestly, I turn down (read: ignore) far, far more approaches from companies than I post, and will only post stuff I think is worthwhile. Feel free to criticise in the comments here, or otherwise let me know what you think about the videos.

For the last 4 years, I’ve always started the season in Cervinia, either late November or early December, 2 months before most people (in the UK at least) even start thinking about skiing/boarding. Cervinia is one of the highest spots in Europe, sharing a ski area with Zermatt’s glacier, so you can always be sure of some early season ridable slopes. For the last 2 years now, we’ve been blessed with full on powder runs right down to resort level.

This year, the locals have been saying its the best snow they’ve had in 15 years or more, and the whole of the Alps has had a great start.

We arrived on the Wednesday night, hit a couple of pubs and found the place to be eerily empty. First lifts up on Thursday morning - and throughout the day, the trend continued: few people on the mountain, no lift queues, plus exceptional visibility in the morning with clear blue skies, slightly clouding over later on. And the snow… not perfect, but still powder to be found on the edge of the pistes with a big dump forecast overnight.

We got the 3 big lifts stright up to Plateau Rosa, and rode all the way down to Zermatt, taking the Riffelberg Express lift up, and sessioned the 6-seat chair lift for a couple of hours. Some sweet off-piste with the pow nicely softened from the morning sun. Great fun hitting the natural terrain, some big rollers, jumping off a hut burried under the recent snow.

We took a variety of runs around the area, including the train up to Gornergrat, before riding back down to Furi.

Just before getting on the last section of lift required to get us all the way to Furi (last section not ridable) and the lift up to Trockener Steg for lunch, one of the patches in the base of my old F2 Sonic had started coming out. Pretty bad workmanship, as I’d only done half a day by this point and mostly on well groomed pistes and powder, and certainly hadn’t hit any rocks. I cut out the flapping section, but wasn’t long into the afternoon that the whole thing had come out leaving the base exposed.

I managed to get a good repair job done overnight that lasted the rest of the trip fortunately, but am due a new board now. If you follow me on Twitter you’ll know I’ve been trying to decide between an Arbor Element, K2 Zeppelin or K2 Believer. I might post about the dilema in hope of solving it!

So, after crying into my spaggetti about the demise of my trusty old stick, we then faced a freezing t-bar ride back in the direction of Cervinia, and the long ride back down to resort… with a hole in my board. Surprisingly it wasn’t too noticeable.

We knew the next day was destined to be a white out, so treated ourselves to a big night on the beers and a leasurely start - getting our first lift at 11am. It had dumped big over night, and was still snowing at times. The snow was great, but you really couldn’t see much. A bit of snowboarding around Plan Maison before heading over to the right hand side of the mountain and sessioning the Lago Goillet lift all afternoon. The sun came out - bright blue skies - against all forecasts we’d seen. And with the powder topping over the last 20 hours or so we were treated to an excellent afternoon’s snowboarding, staying out til last lift.

The avalanche risk was level 4, so we had to be cautious and not tuck into all the untouched off piste around us, but there was still plenty that we let ourselves get involved with, and no signs of any slides in the area that day. But the 3 or 4 hours we spent doing that one lift over and over again have to go down as some of my favourite ever.

Buoyed up by a great afternoon and more snowfall due over night ANOTHER booze-fuelled night out was on the cards. Unfortunately the next day was a total right off in more ways than one. Bad hang overs and terrible visibility, as the snow kept coming down. It’s such a shame when you can’t see anything but know the powder is in such great shape. We had a few enjoyable runs, especially round Cieloalto, and you can never really complain about chest deep powder, can you?

A more relaxed night after day 3 on the slopes, taking in a few football matches in the Yeti (Blackburn v Liverpool, Man U v Sunderland, and Lazio vs Inter) before heading to bed ready for our final day - forecast perfect blue skies. It didn’t disappoint.

We got the lifts straight up to Plateau Rosa again, riding back down the Theodulpass to Plan Masion. The pisteurs were out working on the Indian Park, which like everywhere else on the mountain had been buried under the recent heavy snow, so we had to give the park a miss this trip unfortunately. Maybe next time.

From Plan Maison, there was no question where we’d be going. Straight back to Cime Bianche, the Lago Goillet lift and the Gran Sometta runs where we spent the afternoon a couple of days before. The snow had had a little more time to settle, so it wasn’t as fresh as before but it was more stable allowing us to pick new lines and cover more ground than before. That afternoon was every bit as enjoyable as the previous one and goes down in my all time great snowboarding moments.

We spent all afternoon playing in the pow, picking lines, jumping ledges, dropping cliffs, pulling spins, face planting, head planting, cartwheeling and backflipping. So much fun, and a great way to wrap up our early season trip.

Back down the hill, a quick run down the line of the Bordoney lift and we were done. Time to dig out the car and head for home.

Ending sidenote: Usually our Cervinia trips had been big group afairs, anything from 6 to 20 people. This time there were just 2 of us, which made a refreshing change. Whilst I love the big groups, you do tend to get slowed down, waiting for people to get ready in the morning, waiting on the hill for the slow riders, and innevitably get shamed by having skiers in your group! With just 2 of us, we could ride at our own pace (fast), basically do whatever we wanted, when we wanted. I’m all for at least one trip a season like this - no more than 3 or 4 people all of the same ability and intentions.

Snowjet have done a write up, with photos and video (see below) from their ski trip to Cervinia a few days ago.

There are also some cool photos recently uploaded to Flickr such as this:

I might post some updates via Twitter so keep an eye out and follow me if you’re a Twitterer. Cheers!

snowboard.co.uk fetched £20,000 and ski.co.uk reached a mighty £80,000.

Compared with some other major .co.uk domain purchases in the last 18 months these might be a couple of bargains. cruises.co.uk sold for £560k in February 08, smashing the records.

Fly.co.uk went for £87,500 back in September 07, bought by ASAP Ventures, who then went on to pick up recycle.co.uk in November 2007 for a then record price of £150,000.

I don’t know who has picked up these great domains, but will be interesting to find out what the plans are for them.

The XTF was hosted at Hawley Lake, Camberley on an army training ground. A series of events were taking place including a 10k run, triathlons (full and sprint), aquathon,full and sprint duathlons.

I’d not competed in a multisport event before, but enjoy the occasional bit of distance running and bit of off-roading on my mountain bike. To boot, I’m a crap swimmer, ruling out a triathlon, but the duathlon sounded right up my street.

The full duathlon is made up of a 10k run, 24k mountain bike and 5k run to finish. There was a sprint option also (5k/12k/2k) but seeing as I’m new to this and don’t have a pace benchmark, I thought I’d go for the endurance event.

Raceday arrived on Saturday. I haven’t got a car, so had to get to the venue by train from London and cycling to/from the stations at either end. By the time I got there I’d already cycled about 8 miles. Probably not the best start.

Arriving at Hawley Lake at around 8am, there was a heavy mist. You couldn’t see more than about 10 yards ahead. It was quite cool as well, with loads of moisture in the air - great conditions for running. That said - we were having a bit of an Indian summer in London at the time, so warmer weather would be coming.

I’d had some problems with my bike the night before. Doing a last minute chain cleaning operation somehow caused an issue with my front gear changing system (railiuer??) and any changes on the front rings were unreliable to say teh least. I got it looked at by one of the on-site tech’s, but with little joy. Time was getting on so I racked my bike, fitted the helmet cam I use snowboarding to the handlebars and took my place by the starting line for the first 10k run.

I am a slow runner and it takes me a good few miles to warm up to a decent pace. So I let pretty much everyone (about 60 participants in total) get ahead of my whilst I found my feet. I think its fair to say I was representing the n00bs in a field of fairly seasoned athletes.

2 laps of a 5k circuit, with the second feeling much easier than the first, through woodland, some muddy tracks, a bit of sand and gravel and a few hills, but nothing too bad.

Then on to the interesting bit - 1 minute transition (should have been quicker) - and on the bike heading to do 4 laps of the 6k circuit.

If I’m honest, I’ve always thought I was pretty good on a bike. But, I also know that I don’t ever really do any decent off-road mountain biking on difficult terrain.

The first lap of this cicruit was a massive wake up call! The track was really varied: narrow sections through trees, mogully terrain, steep downhills and some long uphill climbs, mud, puddles, and one nice concrete downhill section back to the start.

Half-way through lap 1, I was having serious words with myself for underestimating the course and not training properly for this terrain. My core muscles were screaming out in pain. It was fun though, and was thoroughly enjoying it by lap 2. I think my third lap was pretty quick, though was slowed down by a fair bit of traffic by lap 4 with other competitors getting in my way. Most of the course is narrow with only a few over taking opportunities.

I later found out I made up about 8 places during the cycle section, which pleased me.

Getting off the bike after the 4th lap and transition for the final 5k run was also pretty challenging. By now my legs were aching badly, and the mist had cleared revealing a beating sun.

Any hopes of making up any more places became a thing of the past. It was all about getting round and finishing now, with my only real fear - finishing last - a distinct possibility. Barely saw another person during this section.

My split times tell the story well.

10k run: 57 minutes
24k bike: 1h 30 min
5k run: 40 minutes

And very pleased not to finish last. About 45th out of 60, which I’ll take gladly!

So… a few lessons from this:

1. Train for the terrain. Flat land cycling didn’t prepare me for this terrain. I love doing it so need to make a little more effort to get out of London and get off road.
2. Stamina. The last 5k was hard work with not much left in the tank. I need to build up my endurance.
3. Speed. Overall pace was a bit lacking. Will include some sprinting in my training as well.
4. Duathlons are a lot of fun.

Next up is Hell Runner next weekend. Training has suffered a little recently as have been a bit under the weather. Have got a couple of 10+ milers under my belt so should be fun. Images like these though get the nerves going a bit.

Its going to be cold, wet and muddy for sure, and a longer distance run that any section of Tough Guy or the duathlon. If the course is the same as in this write up it should be doable though.

Snowboarding trips booked
Had a good week last week - I booked my first two trips of the season. Firstly the annual early season pilgrimage to Cervinia for 4 days in early December. Secondly a 9 day stay in Montgenevre over New Year. Going to be a big group of us which should be fun. Also a few of us are planning on taking in a day at nearby off-piste Mecca, La Grave.

London Freeze

Image gallery at Telegraph.co.uk
The London Freeze - the UK’s first snowboarding world cup event or something like that - rolled into town a couple of weeks ago. A huge real snow ramp and kicker was errected outside Battersea Power Station, and some of the world’s top riders competed for some points and prizes no doubt! I didn’t make it, my bro tells me it was a good event. You can catch some footage on Freesports on 4 Freeze - Channel 4 - Friday Nov 7th @ 01.50am. I guess that is tonight / tomorrow morning! If you’re not staying up late for this then there will be repeats over the Xmas period. Possibly also footage online.

Metro Ski Show
I popped along to the Metro Ski & Snowboard Show a couple of weeks ago. Checked out a load of this seasons new boards on the Snow & Rock stand. Credit to the guy that was working on the stand - was pretty clear I wasn’t going to buy anything but he was more than happy talking me through the snowboards and offering up suggestions. He also tried talking me into going for a smaller board for my next one, whilst I’d been thinking about going bigger than the 161 I currently ride. Got to say, I’m loving the sound of the Lib Tech Skate Banana, which brings me neatly onto…

Snowboarding gear section
With a passing interest in (read: am trying to talk myself into) getting a new snowboard, I though I’d add a section to compile profiles of some of this seasons new snowboarding gear. I’ve included spec, some reviews including video reviews collated from YouTube from the likes of skis.com and sierrasnowboards. There are also affiliate links out to places where you can buy the gear online.

There’s about 8 or so snowboards profiled so far, with more to come. Watch this space.

Dramatic stuff, and a timely reminder as the Northern Hemisphere season approaches that its not all just fun and games out on the white stuff.

The Metro Ski & Snowboard Show kicks off tomorrow. It always signals the start of the ski season and is a great way to get a taste of what’s to come, watch some pro riders on a massive kicker, check out some holiday options, check the latest gear and pick up some bargains from last seasons over stock.

I’ve got a pair of tickets to give away here that will get you in on a weekday or evening. As there’s not much time to get the tickets out, I’ll pick a winner by 2pm on Wednesday 22nd October and get the tickets out in the post ASAP, so hopefully they should arrive on Thursday. They are valid to use on either the Thursday or Friday.

Get your entries in as soon as you can to stand a chance of getting free tickets to the Metro Ski Show! I’ve added one of my favourites to get the ball rolling. Bet, bet, bet now!

Part 1: Part 1 with Jamie Nicholls and Wayne Taylor (AKA Snowskate)

Part 2: Featuring Boo and Matt Macwhirter

Part 3: Featuring Friends of AKA (Ben Wall, Joe Tyler, Tyler Harding, Rick Campbell, Boxy, Katie, Debs, Tony, Sam, Lloyd and Hamish) Will Smith and Andy Nudds.