Posts Tagged ‘Snowboarding’

With all the hype over the Winter Olympics, other sporting contests out there tend to get overlooked and this is one that nearly passed us by: the 4th annual Burn River Bank Show … Italy’s best snowboard event of the year.

Burn River Jump is the only Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour event in Europe ranked with 5 stars and its fourth edition will take place in Livigno from February the 24th to the 26th, sponsored by Burton Snowboards in collaboration with Mottolino, APT Livigno and Skipassion Livigno. After the success in the past years of River Jump, the slopestyle and big air format is back at this delightful and unusual site.

“With an amazing park, open terrain, accessible off-piste, a warm Italian reception, and prices far cheaper than most other resorts in western Europe, Livigno is one excellent Italian job”

Yesterday, the 24th, more than one hundred riders participated in a qualifying race for the final being held today. These racers will be competing for the podium with invited riders and wild cards in an extravaganza that has become known as ‘the Grand Finale’.

The show starts at sunset with an incredible night show in downtown Livigno  with the jump over the river Spoel. It is a unique showdown, where the 10 classified riders of the 5Star Slopestyle Contest will compete against the 8 invited riders and the 4 wild card riders.

Swatch Mottolino Snowpark, one of Europe’s best snowparks, has prepared special courses on the Livigno area of over 120 thousand square meters and it is also giving, to all riders and week-end bombers, a brand new jibbing area,  the METRO.

Terrain Park on Carosello
Photo: Steve, WSG

The Friday event will be broadcast live on web page www.riverjump.it thanks to the support of Keepod.

The Japanese national team have set up a BAGJUMP in Cardrona, New Zealand which is allowing valuable training for themselves, the German, Canadian, American and Kiwi snowboarders in the run-up to the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in 2010.

“It’s a good opportunity to get the feeling on the take-off, get control in the air and being confident to land on my feet every time!“ Stefan Gimpl, pro-snowboarder.

This 15m x 15m multi-chambered airbag is giving riders the opportunity to practice new freestyle moves and double tricks. It is a revolutionary way to push the limits of extreme sports.

The BAGJUMP is the most cool invention ever and is not restricted to snowboarders. It can be used for  snowboard, ski, freeclimb, mountainbike, BMX, freefall, slackline, parcour, skateboard BigAir, SMX and pretty well anything else you can think of.

Imagine – instead of anticipating every bone in your body being smashed or at least bruised when trying to master a new trick – with the BAGJUMP you can practice ever more impossible tricks because you know that your landing will be on a soft absorbing cloud!

It allows jumps up to 50 meters (164ft) and off-center landings and it even has an adjustable landing softness. It looks such fun!

The material is strong and very resiliant – witness this video with BMXs using the BAGJUMP

“… being able to try new tricks for big air contests with the assurance of the BAGJUMP I’m more concentrated on my take off and airtime” Georg Engel, pro-biker

Thank you to Bagjump for the videos.

Because of the high-tech design, developed by pro-snowboarders and stuntmen, there is no way you can break through the bag onto the ground or bounce  off it like on a trampoline.

As well as being a training aid it is also a fun-device for all freestyle orientated athletes of ANY skill level and for this reason resorts, sports centres and campus’ around the world are beginning to invest in them.

Air bag training is the wave of the future for high level action sports athletes attempting to raise the standard in a controlled environment and national teams from around the world are lining up to get training on air bags in an effort to prepare for the Olympics.

OK, I’m a few days late, but if you’re into wild and wacky – then I suggest you think about going to New Zealand about this time next year for the 12th Columbia Peak to Pub race on Mount Hutt.

It happened on the 4th October and 100 people were not in the least deterred by the wild weather and the wacky new course features.

Huge weather swings are typical to New Zealand, but the competitors were certainly not expecting four different types of weather during the course of one day, including blizzards.

This was a triathlon style event involving skis or snowboards, bikes and shanks pony which started high on the slopes of Mt Hutt Ski Area with a mass start/run to the skis or snowboard, followed by a giant slalom style race down to the base area through gates.

Following that came the 19km bike ride at breakneck speed down the Mt Hutt access road where racers dumped their bikes and ran the next 11km, with a quick swim en route…

… to Methven to finish outside the iconic Blue Pub in the centre of Methven, for a very well deserved drink!

Steve Gurney, multi-sport athlete and ‘famous’ for the new kite buggy record of 2,500 km crossing the Sahara Desert with 3 friends (Craig Hansen, Geoff Wilson and Garth Freeman)  with wind power only, helped design the new course and it was his idea to add the ‘water feature’. “The course will be extra fun and extra competitive,” he promised.

“The Peak to Pub is so popular because it’s got that fun factor. It’s a bit whacky and it’s nice and short but still has a massive sense of achievement at finishing it. It’s also ideal for teams,” reckons Steve, three times winner of the event.

“The weather definitely added to the excitement and the water crossing was incredible to watch – the water was freezing!” said Event Organizer Paul Marks. “It added such a fun element to the event this year and will be seen again in the future.”

40% of the field decided to hit the water instead of taking the “dodgy” purpose-built log bridge further up stream!

We’ll keep you informed about race details for next year…

Image captions:

1) Ski to bike at Mt Hutt,

2) Jos Hoetjes, men’s winner, takes the plunge.

Both credit Tetsuro Mitomo

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We were lucky enough to be in the mountains again this weekend with some great snow to be found in the mountains above the Val d’Allos – as we watched the pistes from our chairlift we saw something new – something bobbing its way down the steepest of mountains and going at break neck speed – not a snowboarder, not a skier – wait a minute that thing has handle bars and yet it is on a snowboard – it was, we discovered later, a snowscoot – the result of marrying a snowboard with a BMX.

What incredible fun it looks – you are able to experience the same sensations of snowboarding, riding a scooter and riding a BMX all at the same time. The snowscoot is the brainchild of Frenchman Frank Pitou who in the mid 1990s developed the concept of riding down a mountain on a scooter.

The first video from 8ogcrew below will demonstrate what we are talking about in a better fashion than our humble words can describe – thank goodness for Youtube. It shows the great manoeuverability of the snowscoot – how you can jump, slalom, race and scoot in any conditions.

Yes thats right, any conditions – smoothly bashed pistes to powder fresh snow and the steeper the mountain the better. The snowscoot consists of two skis, the front one being the same width as a snowboard but not much more than 35cms in length, and it is this ski which gives you the ability to turn so very sharply. The back board is narrower, being no more than the width of a monoski, but it is of course longer – the whole snowscoot being approximately 1.60 metres and weighing in at 9 to 13 kgs ( 20 to 30 pounds).

We only saw one of these snowscoots the whole weekend so it is not like we are going to be swept off the mountains by this latest toy but if it does take off – like snowboarding did 15 years ago – then you can expect to see a few more.

Following on from yesterday’s story of the adaptation of the waveboard to enable use on the ice with the blizice blades we thought it would be useful to talk a little more about how to ride a waveboard.

We have found two good videos on YouTube which talk about the sport, how to get started and what can be done on these boards.

This first video is from sweptawaytv and discusses the basic techniques of getting started on the waveboard. This blend of snowboarding, skating and surfing is claimed to have origins from the martial arts. That may be right – certainly symmetry and balance are required; your vision must be toward the horizon, your feet placed symmetrically on the board, your movement of shoulders, torso and hip to create the propulsion required to move the board.

No doubt about it this street surfing is cool and for less than $100 you can get started, further it is great exercise.

[youtube=http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=rKj0jyEc-aw]

The second video is from awesomescreename and is a good, solid guide on how to start on the board, how to get propulsion, how to turn, and how to stop – most important! Finally one or two tricks are demonstarted.

[youtube=http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=NfE-NM14mE4]

As ever with these extreme sports mishaps do occur so you are advised to wear appropriate protective appendages!

Did you read our blog two days ago? … How similar (or otherwise) is snowkiting to kitesurfing on water?

We have shown some classic instances in the past of when one or other (snowboarding and kitesurfing) goes wrong – well, snowkiting is relatively new on our blog and here is another classic … although happily no-one appears injured, and thanks to BUZZZZ101 for posting it.

Although a bit noisy I think you can put it down to fear, concern and relief!

I’ve been into a forum re. this video and the general opinion is that it is genuine – there are no no edits and no sped-up digital moments! Lucky he held on!!!