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!
