With the March Japan snowboard adventure looming, it was time to get the boards back in shape. Early season and peak winter trips to Whistler had wreaked havoc on the boards due to the marginal conditions. I am not sure what the conditions will be like in Japan next month, so I had to get both boards ready just in case. The short board had a base gouge and trashed edges, so that was an easy fix – just some P-tex repair filler and liberal filing and sharpening, followed by a rewaxing. The powder board was a different story. The edges were pretty much intact, but there was a base delamination bubble just forward of the end of the metal edge, and a 9mm x 12mm triangular smash on the nose with a tear in the base. Continue reading ‘Snowboard Repair’
Archive for the 'Snow' Category
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In my book, GU makes the best energy gels, both in nutritional content technology and flavor. Now they have upped the ante by introducing Roctane, basically a double load of calories and performance enhancing components in around the same volume. With double the content, comes double the price: A regular GU retails for about $1.25 USD, whereas a Roctane retails for around $2.50 USD. I bought a few back in December before heading to Japan for snowboarding and gave them a try. Indeed, the effects are more noticeable than with a regular GU. The added aminos and citrates that Roctane includes helped delay the burn and maintain performance levels. This was especially critical, since I didn’t bring with me my normal complement of sports drinks that usually provide these. There are two flavors, a vanilla/orange and a blueberry/pomegranite. Of the two, I only like the blueberry. The orange has a bitter orange peel flavor. This is in line with my dislike of GU’s other orange-flavored products – the regular GU gel and the GU2O electrolyte beverage powder. Continue reading ‘GU Roctane Energy Gel’
Just got back in last night from YVR aboard AC 047. Had a good first few days on the mountain with deep piles of fresh new snow and lots of unridden, unjibbed terrain features. The clear skies and warmth during the week made snow conditions deteriorate to hideous ice by day 7, but secret Ninja powder stashes, day-long Bigfoot jib sessions, the easy Blackcomb Terrain Garden, and the eventual opening of the Harmony Express chair on our last riding day kept us busy… and in constant pain! …delicious pain!
More later – stay tuned for:
Sushi and more sushi
How many steps?
Snowboard pioneers
Pinocchio’s nose
Die Rektumblähungmeister
Free pants
And more!
“You know we leave this Friday…”
WTF!!!
Fabio came by McBike on Tuesday while I was working on Mitch’s bike and dropped a bomb on me. I knew we were going to meet Kevin and Naomi in Whistler for snowboarding this month, but I thought it was MLK Day week. All those arrangements were made nearly half-a-year ago, so I completely forgot we were going one week ahead. Thankfully I had two nights to pack up my stuff, and my board was still OK after only three riding days in Japan. I packed the park board “just in case”, but the edges are all rock-gnarled and feel like ginsu steak knives! Maybe I’ll drop that one off for a base grind sometime on this trip… All my outerwear and layers were washed and actually were piled up on my suitcase, so packing went rather quickly. I just had to grab some gels, bars, bloks, and drink powders and I was done.
Off to SFO tonight then on to YVR tomorrow morning!
There’s an odd silence when you go from the creaking of compressing snow on your heel edge at the top of the run and point the nose downhill into a ghostly white void of boot-deep powder and dime-flake blizzard sky. Silhouettes of trees pass by, appearing and disappearing in and out of the ether. At speed comes the wind noise, but it is barely audible through the helmet earflaps and headgear. There is the dull thump of your front leg knee punching through deep pockets, and the low rhythm of the board surfing through the turns and rolling over the hidden bottom contours like waves. Turning into the wind brings the chatter of snowflakes against the goggle lens. Continue reading ‘Silence’
Being sent up to Seattle for the opening of Genki Sushi this comming Mon and Tues. The thought of hitting some of the snow there popped up, but then I looked into it and the late winter was delaying all the resorts. Only one area, Mission Ridge, was open with manmade snow. So it was a wait and see deal. When I decided to stay a couple extra days anyway, it was kind of a pain dealing with the travel arrangements. Trying to change the flight was simply not worth it, would have cost something like $700. So ended up forking out for a new one way ticket, not cheap, but not $700! The Washington ski resorts breathed a sigh of relief when a storm system they were eyeing blew in Friday and hapily stayed on a good track and deposited enough snow for Crystal Moutain and Mount Baker to open this weekend, just in time for my trip! Now I’m going to have to frantically pack and tune the board today before my departure on Sunday. It’s going to be a bit of a haul getting to Baker, 3+ hours from Seattle, but it is the resort that first allowed snowboarding, and all their lifts are going to be running so hopefully it’ll be worth it. Stay tuned for reports on how it is!
Arrived in Japan on Sunday and rushed to Immigration in order to pass through quickly and get my bags and get to the kokunai connection in the hour I’d been given. Even though I was the only foreign passport holder on my flight other than the Captain, there was a line at the single open “Foreign Passports” section from a different flight. For some reason, nobody had told these Chinese nationals about customs and immigration forms beforehand, because they hadn’t filled them out, or hadn’t filled them out completely, so the line moved gratingly slowly. When I finally got to the counter, I was in and out swiftly, and off to the baggage carousel in no time. My bags came out reasonably quickly – usually it’s “first in, last out”. Customs was fast and simple. The dude was impressed at my bringing a snowboard for some reason. Continue reading ‘Feet Dry – CTS’
Got back from Vancouver this past Sunday, and tomorrow (Saturday) I’m off to Sapporo! Had enough time to do the laundry and put everything back in the suitcase. Snow conditions aren’t really that good, but I’m taking the powder board up since the jib board came back from Whistler-Blackcomb a little worse for wear from all the rocks and krap – the edges feel like TV infomercial serrated knives, and there is a new core-shot amongst the field of new scratches and scrapes, not to mention the marred topsheet from when mister big dummy anglo ran me over from behind. Yesterday, Sapporo Kokusai looked as bad as Whistler, with dirt showing through the thin snowbase. There was a good dump last night, so there looks to be a new 10-15cm on the ground, with more to come over the next two days. With any luck, I’ll be out there poaching it on Monday morning!
Hopefully I’ll be able to keep you updated as my trip progresses, and I look forward to what Root and Fabio will put up here and on the gallery from the Vancouver trip.
The skinned finger healed up in time for the Whistler Thanksgiving trip, so all was good…
That is up until Saturday, when we were out-of-bounds on Blackcomb poaching some unridden fluff. We found a nice log jib, and hung around to session it. I rode it first and cleaned it (with a slightly off-center sortie, but that’s another story). After my run, the snow on top of the log had been scraped away, revealing a prong of death branch sticking out the top. I kicked at it and busted most of it off, but there was still a nubbin of death that bugged me. I got out my Swisstool and sawed it off. While I was shaking the wet sawdust out of the saw blade, the tool slipped out of my hand and disappeared into the snow. Without thinking, I plunged my hand into the snow and found the sawteeth with my fingertip! Blood fountained forth, drenching the tool, dripping all over the log, and splattering the snow like a crime scene! Continue reading ‘BFOD V2.0’
It’s been a slow start to winter with warm temperatures lingering until last month in both Hokkaido and British Columbia, but the snows have finally arrived. There has been the “snow, rain, melt” cycle going on for a couple of weeks, but the temperatures are stabilizing and dropping, so the snow levels are generally on the increase. The crew is already booked in for Thanksgiving in Whistler, and I’m off to Sapporo the second week of December, so time is getting short until snowboarding time! Continue reading ‘Winter’s Here – Time to Wax!’