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!

Chip off the old board.

I got back from Truckee yesterday afternoon to find that campus was completely covered by a beautiful white blanket. And that kids had taken advantage of that blanket and set a box up on the hill right outside my window. So naturally I threw on my gear and headed out. I had a great time hitting the box. I was able to get 4 new tricks I had never tried before and that totally stoked me out. After a while I went digging through the snow covered shrubbery to find a rail that I had acquired and hidden a while back. I set it up as a pole jam over a large boulder-like rock and hit it a few times while some guys I was with built a booter. The pole jam sketched me out a bit so as soon as the booter was done I switched over to that. It ended up being pretty sick. I was throwing really clean front 1s off it which doesn't sound that awesome but I've never done regular front 1s before. I used to feel weird spinning that way so I'd only do back sides. Anyways, I had an awesome day and it was all good.
Until I went back out at night and noticed this when I went to strap in.

Well. Huh. This is the first time that's really happened to me. And I have no idea how that happened either. It's a bummer for sure because my I know my board's RIP-date is going to be closer than I thought. I was hoping she could pull through until mid-spring. I mean, I can still ride her, but I don't know if that's going to mess me up or get bigger at all. This happened to me about a month ago and my buddy Alex tried hammering it out but it's still not back to normal.

So now my baby has two wounds. I don't know if it's weird how I call my board my baby, but we have a very close relationship so I don't care. This is my fourth season with her and I have taken such good care of her over the years. She didn't have a single scratch on her base or edges until summer of 09. And the two months I've been riding her since I've been at school I've just completely thrashed her up. I remember back when I was 15 or 16 just sitting on my bed for hours waxing her by hand. Now I just hand her over to a shop employee and let someone else take care of her. I wonder if she feels abused? Probably not. I think boards are meant to be used and thrashed. I know when I finally retire her I won't get rid of her. I'm starting to think I'm going to be getting new boards fairly often (in comparison to 1 board for four years) now that I'm riding every day. I guess my plan is to save all my boards and do something neat with them.
But anyways, my poor board isn't going to make it much longer but I'm going to push through until she's completely unridable. But Rome, I just want to know, why do you make boards with copper edges when copper is such a soft metal? Save me the pain and make a board who's edges won't get bent at the single slam of a rail. :/

Powder day at Kirkwood!

Favorite shot of the day. Taken on my iphone in colorcross mode.

Woke up to this sight. Fresh powder right outside my uncle's cabin in Kirkwood.

Took the lift up to Kirkwood's famous Wall Ride with Tim. He told me it was basically a blue and the Experts Only warning signs were just a trick. See the big rock in the middle of the photo? It's directly on the right of the rock. Google "Kirkwood Wall" to see a better shot. It was so windy at the top that I had to crouch down and push myself with my hands to get onto the actual run.

Me at the top of the Wall. They had one of those signs at the bottom of the lift as well so no one got on it by mistake. The skull and cross bones may be a little extreme. I mean, its not a run for the groms, but still... Whatever. I wanted to back out so badly but I'm glad I didn't. It was one of the sickest runs I've ever done and a major adrenaline kicker.

My little cousin Luke at lunch. He's on skis for now but he'll start boarding when he's a bit older. I guess three year olds don't snowboard? He's hilarious. All he wanted to do was jump and go straight down the hill. No slowing this little guy down. With the middle name Burton, this kid will be unstoppable.

Tim Rice, my uncle's friend that I was shredding with, shot this after lunch. Just a nice view of the barely tracked powder.

My board stowed away at the end of the day. Tim's kids Vance and Shannon are on the other side of the truck. Vance rides and Shannons about ready to do the ski>snowboard transfer as well.

The mountain as we left.

First track to last chair, talk about a complete day. I had one bad fall jumping over a stump. My board got caught on the wood and I went flying. I ended up being a quarter of a rotation off from landing an accidental front flip. Other than that it was a perfect day. It snowed a bit during lunch so we basically had fresh powder all day. We also found a bunch of kickers hidden between trees and stuff. Kirkwood is theb no doubt.

The best things in life are free.

Or let me rephrase; The best thing in life is getting free stuff sent to your house. Ohhh yeah. I never entered contests when I was younger because I figured I wouldn't win anyways so why bother, right? My mom was always like "You never knowwww" and she'd win things every once in a while. I just recently started entering every contest I find and it's paying off. Greatly. Every time there was a give away or contest at Windells I hit it up and ended up with a bunch of shirts and beanies. I happened talked to the right person and ended up with this sick Bonfire jacket as well (retail price; $280). Back at home I started lurking around snowboard company websites and discovered a whole new world of contests. I sadly did not win any thing on 686 Day, but I played Rome's Steal That Banner game and won that. My new Rome jacket just came in the mail yesterday (original price; $229.95). It's prettty sick. And then a week ago I played a game on the Volcom website and this morning I woke up to this email;

"Hello
You are a winner in our recent Volcom Girls Holiday competition.
Please send me your size and your full address and telephone number (by
tomorrow if possible!) and I will post your prize.
Thanks for entering and Merry Christmas!
Josie"

And let me tell you; that is a great e-mail to wake up to on your last day of finals. So, I'll be getting one of these items in the mail from Volcom soon as well.



Oh, and I almost forgot; I won a sweatshirt from Sierra Nevada College a little while back, and I have a "swag bag" in the mail right now over from the folks at Shred Union.
Moral of the story; enter contests, win cash-money. Well, prizes worth cash money.

PS. Be like me and stop by Burton.com in the next couple of days. They've got major giveaways all week that you won't want to miss.

The worst time of the year.

This guy was not right.
This is not "the most wonderful timmmmme of the year".
This is the worst.
For city kids that is.
Correction, for snow junkie city kids it is.

Here's why;

It's getting colder and colder and Bobby Shredder wakes up every morning thinking "OH BOY! It's time to get my shred stick out and shred the gnar!" As soon as he leaves his house however, his smile fades away. Poor Bobby has remembered that he lives in San Fransisco where one can pray for snow all they want but it will never happen. Poor Bobby wakes up every day to a dull gray landscape dotted with bright colors of tourists. There will never be a snow day in Bobby's personal world. So Bobby leaves his beloved Rome Snowboard in the trunk of his car and heads off to school, hoping something will take his mind of the lack of shred in his life.

Bobby Shredder goes into his first class and tries to focus. He only last five minutes. Out comes a sheet of binder paper and the doodling begins. The paper has soon become a master piece of tail grabs, boardslides, and 360s. He smiles at his work and then goes to his next class, super excited for what he has in mind to step it up another notch. During this class he draws a birds eye view version of a park and then draws the front side of himself on another paper. He cuts it out and draws the back side. He bends mini-Bobby's knees and butt and then sets them up at the top of the park. Mini-Bobby is guided down the slope and does some phat tricks with the help of big Bobby. Now Bobby doesn't just have to imagine hitting the slopes, he gets to watch it. "Hey! Check out this tail tap 270!" Bobby whispers to his neighbor, who doesn't really care at all. By 3:00pm Bobby is feeling pretty stoked for winter, even though he won't be able to actually go snowboarding for a while. There is hope for Bobby. There is a glimmer of light in Bobby's heart, telling him that it is possible for him to survive the next couple of shredless months.

Bobby Shredder goes home and logs onto his facebook to do some chit-chatting. His spirit is crushed however when he notices that his friends in Oregon and Colorado have added tons of pictures of them tearing shit up. He desperatly searches through their pictures, like an addict on the hunt for coke. He can't get enough. He begins to stalk his friends, feeding off every new picture they post. Bobby joins sites like shredunion.com where he can discuss snowboarding all day long with other members. Bobby is in a bad place; he wakes up in the morning, checks his friends profiles for new shreddage, logs onto Shred Union between his classes and straps on his board in his living room, just so he can imagine he's boarding. Every morning Bobby wakes up with an unsatiable craving for pow. Every morning Bobby wakes up to gray snowlessness. Every morning Bobby's friends get more and more annoyed with his endless talk of snowboarding. Bobby is scared. He isn't sure if he can make it. His future is looking bleak. Theres a big circle around December 26th, the day he flys out to Oregon to go boarding. All he can do until then is watch snowboarding videos, harass his mountain friends, and make believe with pieces of paper. "This is the worst time of the year." Bobby mutters, finally closing facebook, hoping that ignoring all the fun his buddies are having will lessen the pain in his soul. Poor Bobby.

Photo credits: Brie Tiffany (Oregon) & Matthew Steinquist (Colorado). fucking lucky asses.