Winner of Giveaway/ Goodbye City

The winner of the first City Kid on Shred giveaway is Nate from Blue Mountain, Pa. Yay. I wish I could have given stuff to everybody. In my next contest I will, but you'll just have to wait and see what I have up my sleeves.

Anyways. This blog is really about my life- something I find myself drifting away from but I'm trying to get back to. Here's whats happening. I went out to San Francisco tonight with Rebecca so I could dance and be ridiculous on my last night in town. We went to the spot where my friend Martin was DJing since he had put me on the guest list. Well, we never went into the club because the guest list line was the same as the regular line and I was too ehhhh to wait. I thought we could find something else going on in the city but because Rebecca has no identification to back up any claims of being 21+, there really wasn't much to do. We found one club where the security let us skip the line, but then they told us is was "Asian night" and was $25 to get in. No thanks. I picked up my pay check at Sajj, ate some pita and hummus with Reebs, and then brought her back home. I almost headed out to Redwood City to see some other friends before I left but just went home instead.

I almost finished packing and now I'm typing this. I'll be leaving for Oregon in four hours so I'm going to pass out and then spring back up to finish packing. I'm really excited for tomorrow, I just wish it hadn't come so quickly. I'm not prepared to move. And as much as I'm stoked for a summer of shredding, the uncertainty of everything has me feeling a little anxious. Don't know where I'm living. Don't know people there (except a few old contacts). Don't know where I'm working. Don't know if I can manage to pull something like I did at Northstar this season and end up with amazing coaching. Things will work out, I'm sure, but I've got some last night butterflies catching up with me...

I think the only thing that will help is if I get as much sleep as I can. So I'm out. Good night, happy dream-shredding, I'll post again when I survive my first week in Oregon.

Action Sports, San Carlos

Every time I am home I make sure to stop by Action Sports in San Carlos, my local board shop. Since I was home for this entire month I really should have made a trip earlier, but it didn’t happen until yesterday. Anyways, being there reminded me of how much I love that place. 

I've been going there for I think four or five years and it's always been a great place to shop and chill. When I got my license a few years ago I'd drive over there every time I had nothing to do and just hang out. I've kept that tradition up and I pretty much go in just to hang out with Alex, who's been working there as long as the shop has been there, and Fritz the owner. Alex is one of the friendliest guys you'll ever encounter and his knowledge of products for skateboarding, wakeboarding, longboarding, and snowboarding have been life savers to a ridiculous number of clueless beginners and novices looking for more guidance. Fritz has always been very friendly with me as well. He is someone who will be genuinely interested in what's going on in your life and someone who will offer you help in any way he can. It's awesome to have such great people at my shop who can support me and make me feel like I'm part of the "home team". 

The shop has a bar area that you can get refreshments in and hang out at, a skatepark to ride indoors for free, and seasonal products like wake boards. The whole place has a really relaxed and welcoming vibe and it’s just a good place to be. If anyone is ever in the San Carlos area I’d highly recommend stopping by Action.

Also, every Wednesday night a ton of long boarders meet at Action to go ride the San Carlos hills together. Every time I've gone there's been a free BBQ afterwards so I'm pretty sure that's a regular thing as well. Call them for more details if you want to join in. Make new friends, long board some cool spots, and eat free food. What could be better?

Anyone else got a killer local shop?

Rapture.

All I'm saying, is if I don't get taken up into the sky with the rapture this evening, I'll be perfectly happy. I've always wanted to go looting in a post-appocolyptic world.

Winter Wars

In 2010 Peep Show vowed to made better mistakes tomorrow. This year the girls have gone to war. With what- I'll never know. Maybe Gapers? Or dust covered crust days? Anyways, Peep Show is back with another banger video. You'll have to wait for the Fall to see the whole thing, but you can satisfy your eyes until then with some teasers and clips of the misadventures the girls encountered during filming. Check out their website to watch more videos and updates on Winter Wars.




Winter Wars riders: Bryn Valaika, Claudia Avon, Colleen Quigley, Danyale Patterson, Darrah Reid-Mclean, Desiree Melancon, Gabi Viteri, Gabby Maiden, Laura Hadar, Jess Kimura, Joanie Robichaud, Madison Blackley, Silvia Mittermuller and friends.

Week till Mt. Hood!

I can't believe how quickly this has come up. I had the month of May to relax at home, hang out with friends, and get myself back in shape before I spend the summer on Mt. Hood. I had lots of plans for what I needed to do this month:

• Go to physical therapy to make sure my knees don't crap out over the summer.
• Unpack all my stuff and reorganize my possessions before having to pack up again.
• Lay out at the pool to get tan before the summer starts.
• Finish my edit
• Do yoga
• Get a six pack (or just get toned)
• Find a place to live in Oregon
• Find someone to drive to Oregon with me
• Skateboard a lot.

I didn't accomplish much. Didn't do physical therapy. Still have a hurricane disaster in my bedroom (see here). Only laid out twice (got lobster red the second time). I'm still trying to track down some of the shots I got this season. Haven't done yoga once. Still don't have toned abs (and this has been a goal of mine for like 3 years now).  Don't know where I'm ending up once I get to Oregon. Haven't found anyone who wants a ride up there either. Skateboarded for like 4 minutes.

So I'm looking at the calendar that says it's May 21 and I'm wondering where this whole month went. I mean, I have been doing stuff, just not the things I planned on getting done. I went to a concert with Rebecca, and Vivian and got invited to the after party. I've made new friends. I've gone out to play in SF. And I've discovered a handful of tv shows that I really like. Inbetweeners? HOLLA. Workaholics? HELL YEAH. So whatever. Things will work out.

I can't wait to spend that summer up in Oregon. I'm going to try and see if there are any last minute openings at Windells or High Cascade and if not I'll see if I can get on Dig-to-Ride at High Cascade. I know things will work out somehow and my riding is going to improve a ton over the summer. I'm figuring I'll be able to get some shots with the Crack Grease guys, and I became friends with Marie Hucal at the end of the season and she told me she'll be out there and I should meet up with her and the Peep Show gals to get shots. Which would be awesome.

Sitting at home is killing me. I've started having the dreams about snowboarding every night again. I just have to remind myself I'll be on the snow again in a week. I can't wait!

Anyone else going up to Hood or elsewhere for summer riding?

The first CKOS giveaway

It's almost summer. Time to get stoked. My drawer of “Giveaway Goodies” that I’ve been collecting all winter is about to explode and with the revamp of the website being (close to) complete, I thought I’d hold my first giveaway. I’ve got goods from Volcom, Billabong, Zumiez, Skullcandy, Nixon, Red Bull and Anon. I’ll be sending out a package with some prizes in it from these companies and others to the winner of this contest.

The contest is simple: Just leave a comment on this post with your name, email address, and home mountain. I’ll choose a winner at random on the 27th of May

That's Reno for you.

Don't do it in the park.
Reno is such a nice place. I guess I should post one of those "Not Safe for work" warnings. It's fairly vulgar, but completely amusing. I had a guy go off on me for like 5 minutes in Mammoth about how the home owners were just "not down". But this definitely beats my dude by like 5000%. Reno always wins.



"I have no fucking life. I live in Reno. This is a shithole. Okay what do you think I have to do? Follow you guys around? Yeah."

"Shaun White you know. If he had a tight little vagina I'd bang him too. You know? Because I'm a whoremonger. Trust me."

Ahh so many quoteable quotes. Can't watch this video enough.

Shayboarder and Roxy's Ollie Pop Contest

Back in the end of March in honor of the Roxy Chicken Jam, Shay from Shayboarder.com hosted a contest to give away one of next year's Roxy Ollie Pops. The entries for the contest had to include the six requirements (you can read what those are by clicking "contest" in the first sentence), and could be an "image/video/whatever". Since my beloved Rome Detail was starting to see the end of her life I thought I'd take a shot in entering the contest. There was something like 5 days left before the contest closed when I first saw it so I got to brainstorming right away. I ended up deciding to make stop motion video. Here's the final result: 


Gotta Get an Ollie Pop


Okay, yeah it's kind of ridiculous, but it did the trick and I won the Ollie Pop. The board came to my house while I was at Nationals and I made sure I grabbed it during the six hours I was at home before I drove back up to Sierra for the Billabong Flaunt It Finals. I rode my trusty Detail for the contest and then sent that board home with my mom. I knew the only way I'd break in the Ollie Pop was if I had no choice but to ride it. So I spent the last three weeks of the season riding the Roxy every day. Here's a review-ish

First day on the board freaked me out. See, I had ridden a camber board with no edges what so ever for the past four seasons. I had a camber board (with edges) that I used for pipe and racing, but I never hit rails or jumps on it. Then this Ollie Pop comes along with its C2 BTX shape- meaning its rocker in the middle and camber under the feet, and it's magne-traction edges and I'm shitting myself. I caught my edges sooo many times that day. I hadn't fallen that much in such a long time. I hit a couple boxes, and I felt a little sticky.  When I brought myself to hit the medium jumps (10-25ft) I felt a little strange on the take offs and landings but when I got used to the feeling I went ahead to try a front three indy (my safety spin). I landed it and then a millisecond later I caught an edge, flipped back and slammed my head pretty good. I was over jumps after that. I went on to try out some rails and there was this weird grabby feeling under my feet once I locked on.  I didn't like that feeling at all. It totally freaked me out. I was riding with my friend Lejawn who rides a Gnu board that is similar to my board, and she told me magne-traction/shape just gets a little while to get used to. So I took her word on that and just kept riding the board.

Not even out of the bag yet!

I got used to jibbing on the board, but still wouldn't spin jumps. I started hitting the bigger jumps (30-50ft) and felt pretty comfortable on them. I had one scare when I caught my nose/toe edge on the take off of a 50ft. Luckily I didn't get thrown off the lip (I had 3 feet between my sprawled out body and what would have meant a total wreck). It eventually got to the point where I felt like I always had when I was straight airing. Totally comfortable.

Like 5 days into riding the board some buddies from LTpark.com came out to Northstar to film and since I was the only girl riding with the boys I had to represent. I hadn't spun since catching my edge the first day but since I was being filmed I went for it. I planned on doing a front 3 off a jump but I got nervous as I was taking off and just did a 180. Then I realized I had popped hard enough to have time to 3 so I considered bringing it around to that and ended up just drifting to 270. Basically, I wrecked my face. Lots of blood. But that was definitely my fault, and not the board's.

Anyways, by a week and a half in I was feeling awesome on the new board. The mange-traction wasn't really throwing me off and I wasn't catching my edge anymore (for the most part). On the last couple days of the season I tried spinning again and landed my first 540s. I haven't had a chance to ride a 22ft pipe on it, but it feels pretty good in a 18ft one. So while I miss my Detail, I think I'll have a good future with my Ollie Pop.

My only problems with the Pop: I don't get pop. I just don't feel that SNAP that I get from traditional camber. This makes me nervous about getting onto rails. Maybe it's just me needing to build confidence on this board, but I really don't feel like I get the pop I used to be able to get. My second problem is that theres no metal edge around the nose or tail. I went to do a 270 onto a rail but pretty much just stuck my nose into the side of the rail. It made a fat chuck of the nose peel back and that wouldn't have happened if there was metal protecting it. The third thing is that when they say the mange-traction holds edge- they really mean it. It might help if I detuned my edges, but riding it the way it came has led me to hold really intense edges (GOOD!) but also get stuck in those edges (BAD!) I'll make a turn or land a trick and just get totally stuck in a edge that I can't get out of. I think this is mainly a problem on days when the snow is slushy because the edge sinks in and grabs to whatever solidness is underneath. But yeah, those are the only things I can think of right now.

Here's an entry from Heather Baker that I thought was really awesome:

Thanks Shay and Kyre from Roxy for doing the giveaway! I'm really stoked on having this new board its gotten a lot of attention on the mountain already!

USASA Nationals, in photos

On the way to Colorado

Arrival at Copper

View from my hotel room at the resort

Checking out the aggressive start to the boardercross course on practice day

Went out riding with my coaches and friend Kiah while waiting for awards on the first day

I don't know why but I love this face. Maybe it's because I 'm rather..... hello

My first podium! Getting second for halfpipe

Nose slide to tail grab off the second box during the slopestyle contest

Third in slope. This was shot right after the photographer said something like "Why don't you guys look excited at all?" So we cheesed it

At the Windells dance party, watching some kids go crazy over a jacket in the product toss. The fight went on for a couple minutes and the dog pile was huge. Eventually it was broken up by a security guard. The kids had to be literally pulled apart

Watching my team mate Ruby blast through the finish line in her Slalom race.

Getting my lean on in Slalom

Ruby and I stoked with our Slalom medals; Ruby got second and I got third

I met a monoskier. I don't know how monoskiers do it

I thought I couldn't get an all around because of getting DQed in boardercross so I was in shock when I heard my name during the all around awards.

Came home from Copper to find this beaut waiting for me, courtesy of Roxy and shayboarder.com