Jamie Nicholls 1st Battle of Britain, Gary Greenshields 2nd and Dom Harrington 3rd.

The LG Freeze this year was amazing; I had so much fun.

On Thursday I went over to check out the RedBull offices and Robbie introduced me to all the staff there, was so fun! Then on Friday it was the start of the Freeze. The Battle of Britain kicked it off with an enormous crowed which made the atmosphere amazingly good. The competition was held on the jump with 16 of the best British snowboarders including the likes of Tyler Chorlton, Nate Kern and Gary Greenshields. The competition was head to head so it was pretty tiring but fun at the same time. I was so stoked to get all the way to the final as the standard was amazing with Gary Greenshields landing a double backflip. Then I had my 2 runs and on the last run I landed a backside 900 which won me the Battle of Britain and entry to the Style Mix later on in the day.

Jamie Nicholls, LG Freeze jump

The Style Mix was so fun with me and Gary qualifying into it with 6 european riders. Again it was head to head and first I was up against Roope Tonteri who was riding amazing, we both did backside 9s but he took it. So it was a close one! At the end of the Style Mix it was Roope who took the win.

The next day it was the LG world Cup which was also a lot of fun. It was running really fast and the crowd was again really big. The standard was really good with tricks like double cork 10s and frontside 12s. I was so happy to get a cab 9 in the qualifying but was not enough to take me to the final. Maybe next year!

The rest of the weekend went great. It was so much fun with sick music every night, one night i went to watch the Eagles of Death Metal and met up with the Dalikfodda crew and a few others. Was such a good night.

It ended on Sunday night with a Burton Rail Jam, it went great; also so much fun. Massive crowd and big tricks with Kim Rune Henson doing a front flip on to frontflip out and Ulrik Badertscher doing a frontflip over the whole box. I was so stoked to get best trick and to win an LG phone.

Eagles of Death Metal night

So we set of on the 26th August, it was pretty tiring, as we had to get up at 2am! We were there till the 1st September so we had 4 days to shred on the new Snowflex slope on Liberty Mountain, Virginia.

The 1st few days was Rad and we even got loads of filming in. The jump was amazing and you could go so big. The best jump snowflex has ever built and the slope was so well designed with a great wallride and quaterpipe at the bottom. The slope also had some great rails but there will be more after the second part of the slope is built which will be in November this year.

I met some great people and made so many friends, mainly girls! “ Haha” who I will still in touch with all the time. Everyone was so kind and helpful and the atmosphere was great because there were always loads of people riding and enjoying the Snowflex Mountain!

We went in a group to Liberty University and that included Me, James Woods, Will Smith, Andy Nudds, Matt Mcwhirtter, Kat Miller, Katie Summerhayes, Russ Shea, Wayne Taylor, Dee Yeadon, Terry Di Stasi and Sam Nelson! It was so fun to go out with all of these guys of which most I have known for a very long time. We also met all the snowflex guys out there too so it made out to be a good team of people.

Whilst we were there we also met the Americans that came out to try out the Snowflex Mountain, which they all approved. The likes of J.J Johnson, Joshua Benedict Stock, Jake Black and Tim Humphreys also many others. Who were all super cool and great to hang out with.

The Grand opening was super fun and I have never signed so many autographs before, which made it feel even more amazing to be part of it. To open it up a guy from a plane skydived on to the snowflex then skied down the slope then we all showed our tricks to the people watching all over the world, knowing this was a weird feeling but so cool. The day went really well and it felt amazing to be part of such a huge event happening in America. I hope that more will be built in America and I think snowflex will now be huge all over the world.

I also got a lot of photos, which you can check out in the Gallery. So go to the page and check it out!

I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the people from Liberty University and everyone who I met, you’re all amazing!

Not forgetting a special thanks to all the Snowflex team including Brian and Terry! I think you have now made the perfect snowflex jump and that the whole layout works really well. I think that the jump should never be changed unless you scale it bigger, but it works really well as it is. This is now the perfect Snowflex Mountain and I can’t wait to try it out when the 2nd phase is complete. Well done!

I also want to say thanks to Wayne Taylor and whole team I came with, if it wasn’t for you guys we wouldn’t have been able to show of to America, “Haha”

Great trip all round!

Jamie Nicholls

On Saturday 18th July it was the first Westbeach Snowflex series and it was held at Halifax Ski and Snowboard Centre.

It was a pretty windy day but it didn’t bother anyone as the standard was amazing, a lot of 9s went down and nearly a 10 by Andy Nudds who is a local at Halifax and a good friend who I ride with a lot. Danny McCormick was also riding really well too.

The comp started with a 2 hour practice which was a great chance to get warmed up; even to get some runs down. After it was the Qualification which was around 45 mins, it went really well as I got some good runs on the jump.

Photo: Jools Smith.

It was then narrowed down to 8 men in the final; I was happy to be one of them. I was delighted to get some good tricks in the final which was hopefully going to put me in the super-final which included 4 men.

The super-final was announced and it was me, Andy Nudds, Danny McCormick and Col Mytton. I knew this was going to be a hard final as all were amazing riders. So the super-final was fun and everyone rode amazingly well. The results were read out and I was so stoked to come 1st, Danny McCormick in 2nd and Andy Nudds in 3rd. It was a great day. 

Shout outs to Sue Garlick and Wayne Taylor for a great contest!
Check out all the results on the Westbeach Snowflex Series site and the dates for the other 2 comps coming up.

It was our 1st day in Flachauwinkel riding the Absolut Park, me, Ben and Sparrow went up the mountain early to check out the park and see what there was to ride. We got to the park and it was amazing, jam packed with features from jumps to wall rides around the size of a 6 meter Giraffe. We first had a ride around in the park to see what could make a good shot. We went on the wallride first and we had a great session and after shooting the wallride we had an epic ham and cheese toasty. After we had a session on one of the jumps, it was really fun but the it got slow to the end of the day as it was really slushy but it turned out to be a great session. The day went great and we all came out with some good shots. Can’t wait for tomorrow, I am sure it will be better.

2nd Day.

It was another bluebird day and we all went to hit the big jump in the park. The wedge was so big, it was an amazing session and we all got great shots. After the session on the jump we had some lunch and Haribo to get us going again. After lunch we went on the wallride where Ben was getting some sick tricks on the side wallride. We all joined in doing backflips over a bench and we took it in turns to backflip over each other. We called it a day after the backfilps and went down to the house to chill for the night session which we had later. We shot the night session in the Burton Stash, It was so fun to be able to ride in the dark and get amazing shots. The day went great and can’t tomorrow as we will be leaving to Solden, Austria.

1st day in Solden

The first day in Solden was great and was the best day so far. First we got out of bed 7am to get on the jump early. We got to the jump and it was huge around 22m to the landing. It was great to find out that we didn’t need to hike the jump because we had a sled to pull us up to the top off the jump. The jump was so fun and safe too, we all had a great session on the jump and got some some great shots. We also learnt new tricks because we had so many runs due to having the sled pulling us up so many times. After this we all went to a BBQ which Rudi the photographer put on for us. The day went really well and had toasted marshmallows to end the day off.

2nd day in Solden

The second day in Solden was an up and down day. The day got off to a bad start as the sled broke down and we couldn’t hit the jump. The sled soon was fixed and the session started. I had a good session on the jump but not as good as the first day in Solden. Ben had a bad start falling on the jump and scraping his face down the landing, but he was soon ok and did some beautiful frontside 360s for the camera. We were all tired that day but at the end of the day we went and hit up a wallride under the gondola. This was amazing to film and shoot on and we ended on a high getting some more great shots.

3rd day in Solden

The third day in Solden was so much fun and we just had a chilled day trying to get shots on anything we could. But at the end of the day we hit another wallride but this time it was easier as we had a snow cat push the snow to make a landing and a jump. The wallride turned out to be a sick session and we got some amazing shots from it. At about 7pm we finished riding the wallride and went for a pizza, then went back to the hotel to pack for going home the next day.

Heyyy!!

This year the Brits has being the best yet. I have enjoyed it all. I have been there for two weeks and the 1st week it just snowed every day, but i had some great powder days.

The second week was the week of the Brits, I did really well winning halfpipe, Big Air and Slopestyle in my category. I was so stoked to get into the finals for all these events.

The slopestyle was amazing and the standard of riding was really good and keeps getting better. I had a really good run in slopestyle which included a frontside 360 tail tap over the barrel jib, a disaster on the wall-ride followed by a backside to fakie on the box and a cab 720 and alley oop rodeo in the haffpipe. Over the kickers I stomped a cab 900 into a backside 720 and frontside 720. I was so happy to come first overall in slopestyle as i got second overall the year before.

It has being a great week and thanks to Jools Smith for getting some great photos.

Jamie

Check my website: www.jamienichollsuk.com

I traveled to Davos for the O’Neill Evolution on the 5th January to register and practice. Practice was good because I had a lot of time on the slopestyle course and quarterpipe before qualifications. Two days later the qualification rounds got going, I was in heat four. I had three runs and it was best two runs combined but out of the three runs I only managed to land one really good one but was still happy with that and I enjoyed every bit of the competition.

On the 9th January we set off for Laax, which was about an hour away, this is one of my favourite resorts to snowboard. I managed to come 2nd in my heat out of 27 men in the pre qualifying rounds, which got me through to the next day. The slopestyle course was amazing and very creative; the jumps were always shaped well and fun to ride. On my run I hit the big kicker line and I was happy with the tricks I did. As always the standard of riding was high, most of the tricks that day were 900s and 1080s. Unfortunately I didn’t stick a clean run so didn’t make it through to the semi-finals but I was so pleased to get that far. I stayed until the end to watch the finals, which were amazing to watch, I had a great, fun trip, and can’t wait to be on the snow again.

I have been also very busy shooting photos and hiking jumps, I always used to think taking the lift was quicker and better but hiking is the best way to learn tricks. I have enjoyed every minute of the trip and enjoyed riding with the Freestyle Team, it has been amazing.

We rode for a couple of hours, Friday night but we weren’t allowed to ride the park until the day of the competition. We went back to the hotel early to get some well needed, sleep ready for Saturday.

The next morning me, Cody and Tom went early to register. Once we had registered we went on the slope to warm up, the set up was amazing! There were loads of rails and a good-sized kicker at the bottom, it was one of the biggest indoor jumps I have seen. Soon the qualification runs came round and it was an individual jam session. I had three really good runs and managed to put down the tricks I wanted to do. The atmosphere amongst the riders was great and it was well organised. Whilst we waited for the finalist to be read out I grabbed some lunch, I heard my name called out and I’d made it through to the final. The final consisted of two runs, best-run counts. My runs went really well and on the kicker I landed a BS720 and a switch cab 720 and I landed some good trick on the rails too. Once the finals were over I went inside to get some more food, I was starving. At around 6pm the results were read out and I came 1st in the juniors, which I was so pleased with and first overall. This won me a place in the Burton European Open, Laax in January. I thought the Burton AM, Bispingen was a good competition and I’m sure the rest will be the same.

After the competition all my friends from home went for a session on the jump for a few hours and then we all went go carting afterwards which was over the road from the snowdome, it was a great end to the day.

I look forward to the next stop of the tour at my home slope, Castleford Sno!zone on Saturday 22nd November.

It was held at my local slope Xscape, Castleford and thanks to Damian and the team they built a sick park for us to ride and hopefully come out with some great shots. It was all organized by Nike 6.0. Some of the Nike 6.0 riders were there including myself, Sparrow Knox, Chris Knightly and two riders from Germany, Ethan Morgan and Danny. There was also 9 invited riders who all rode really well, including the likes of Chris Chatt, Steve Revill, Laura Berry, James Carr, Tom Guilmard aka Little T and the locals Jonny Russel, Stu Edwards , Laura Hill and Simon Foster. Me, Sparrow Knox and Chris Knightly all had a lifestyle shoot for Nike before we could ride which was fun.

At around 12pm we all went for a practice on the park whilst we waited for the photographers and filmers to get ready. Then at around half past 12 we started to shoot, it was epic because the we switched off the lights, turned on the spotlights so they were pointing directly onto the rails. We also had great effects to make the shoot look really good such as smoke blowers, which Billy Neilson operated quite well. The night went well and everyone was getting some good footage and shots. The night ran into the early hours of Wednesday and everyone was feeling tired by 5am so we did the prize giving for the riders choice award of the night which I won, I was so stoked to get this as I thought the riding was at such a high standard.

There will also be the best photo of the night but that will be a while till we know. I am sure there will be more information in the snowboard magazines soon but I can’t reveal much more on the shots and footage, but when it comes out it’s going to be ace.

Jamie

www.jamienichollsuk.com