The idea of having two people ride on the same board at once has been around for as long as snowboarding. In one of our ancestors, surfing, it’s even a competitive discipline to ride tandem. Perhaps it’s the most laughable – often depicted by a man holding a posing woman above his head while cruising in mellow white-water surf on a giant longboard – but at least it can be done. It’s a little trickier when buckled into bindings and when a fall isn’t a soft landing in water.
In my case, I’ve considered the idea stupid for as long as I can remember, at least when it comes to 2 adults sharing one longboard. I did see some mono-skiers do it once, perhaps that’s why. But a faint – later to be proved incorrect – memory of an older snowboarding magazine owner riding with his daughter between his legs, with extra bindings, has been haunting me forever.
So when I had my first kid about 3 years ago, I naturally started thinking about how to teach him to snowboard properly. My wife thought learning skiing would be a better idea for the years just after having learned how to walk, but since you are reading Onboard right now you probably understand why she is wrong. Having spent the early days riding with him in sort of a backpack (another dangerous idea which is for good reason banned in my home country, Sweden) the idea of adding an extra pair of bindings came to mind.As there was quite likely no use in researching the local stores for a pair of boots and bindings size 20, 2–3 years, I raided the internet. I found a set of bindings in Austria and a custom-made pair of boots in a suburb of Stockholm, both from Burton.
I picked an old 169cm board – ironically with classic longboard surf graphics – from the back of the garage. It was a well-used plank from back in my competition days that had won me a few trophies during its heyday. Since I started snowboarding at a time when you had to build your own board, simply because there were none to buy, I didn’t encounter problems when adding an extra set of inserts using spare parts (from a kitchen mounting kit).
At the lodge shop at my home mountain, I found a harness designed for teaching kids how to ski. Without the intention of ever using it for its original purpose, I purchased one. This was to be used to hold onto John so he wouldn’t fall face down on the first toe-side turn.
Introducing the idea of keeping both feet firmly fastened on a piece of wood with a 2-year-old does sound like a pretty difficult one, but after the ride up the chair-lift he was probably in shock. So he didn’t object at all to this, and off we went!
A 2-year-old does put incredible faith in his parents and has only recently come to understand that there are other people outside the family. Perhaps this explains why he didn’t object at all to cruising along at what for him must have been a lightning-fast speed. We were in reality going down quite a gentle slope at a very modest speed, but with the extra weight between my legs it was enough of a challenge for both of us.Looking down at his face while riding was a little difficult, as John wore both a fat helmet and goggles, so I couldn’t really tell what he thought about it all during the run. Perhaps it was the shock, or perhaps kids just accept a lot more new things than we do, but each time we stopped and I asked him if he had enjoyed it he just nodded calmly in response. He didn’t say a word. Once at the bottom of the hill, I asked him if he wanted to go again and he nodded more enthusiastically. Still not a sound, though.
Other people talked to me. Being on the quiet side, I seldom make new friends while snowboarding, but this time I had several people coming up to me and asking heaps of questions about how I came up with the idea and how well it worked. I politely responded that it was our first time but so far so good, and simply rode on. As you know, talking snowboarding is best done when not riding.
Even more people probably talked about us than with us, though, judging from the looks and pointed fingers from the lifts and slopes. The situation reminded me a lot of the early days of snowboarding, when I was among the very first snowboarders in my area.
As it was a cold December day and the weather was a little on the harsh side, we stopped after about 4 runs. I thought it was about time to rest John’s legs and recharge his batteries a little. Now, finally, he made his voice heard regarding what he thought about the experience. Screaming and kicking he let me know that he wanted neither a snack nor a nap!
“More, more!” he yelled with a voice so high pitched that most of the people waiting at the bottom turned their heads thinking what a poor dad it was who forced his kid to stay out in the middle of a freezing day like this.So we did a few more runs, then my wife came along with the pushchair, and John, protesting, was put to sleep next to his sister for a well-needed rest. I excitedly told the story regarding our maiden voyage. “Is it John or you having the most fun?” was her first question. It was a difficult one to answer: I was all smiles, as this was a long thought-out plan that worked out almost too well.
A few days of riding later, another similarity to the early days of riding came along. As we were about to board one of the longer chairs at the resort, the lift suddenly stopped just in front of us. A young lift operator politely informed us that “for security reasons, riding such a device was not allowed at this ski area”. This was a déjà vu, as I was stopped at the same lift 22 years ago aged 13, on my first real snowboard. The liftie at the time – probably now retired – even used exactly the same phrase, I think!
Anyway, with the responsibility of parenthood comes the benefit of understanding such reasoning. Trust me, all of you who have not yet seen your life “as you know it, gone, forever, never to return” – or at least this is how Bill Murray puts it in the movie Lost in Translation, anyway. And as I had had my doubts regarding the safety aspect, I appreciated his call and told him so. When I was stopped at age 13, I was a little more rebellious, but I will spare sensitive readers the finer details of what I told the liftie that time.
John is off on his own board this season, and has firmly stated that he never wants to ski: a good character trait, methinks.
Now I feel a strong need to finish this story off with the well-used expression, ’do not try this at home’. The stunt men in this movie are trained and seasoned professionals. Failure to be so may lead to serious injury or death. When reading these words, my own curiosity is usually aroused. It translates as: ’this must be fun, and how do I prove this statement relates to sissies and Americans only?’. But I, as neither lawyer nor doctor, hope those of you are thinking about doing this with your own kids, think more logically about it than I did. After all, your kids are – to continue the Bill Murray quote – “the most interesting people you are ever going to meet, and you want to be with them”. Please don’t risk their health because a seasoned and possibly imbecile professional told you a story in a snowboarding magazine. It would make him – not to mention all involved – sad to hear about a kid being injured. So keep enjoying snowboarding responsibly.

Anders Hagman is a Swedish former pro rider who thinks a story like this would better fit in a snowboarding mag for adults, like Snowboarding Life TM, but he’ll never consider himself old enough to write for it.

A couple of issues back we put a story about some “ultimate” road-trips on this very page titled ‘Hit the European Roads Jack’. It turned out to be a popular theme with many readers, albeit a little late to use for planning the winter, according to some. A few also mentioned that most of the suggested trips were a bit on the over-adventurous and expensive side for – but that’s another story and nothing a good car and the right companions can’t sort out.
Anyway, on popular request I’ll continue down the same alley once again, offering a few suggestions for successful summer snowboarding holidays. And this time no fat wallets are required… Well, you may need to cut that booze- and Euro-guzzling EasyJet charter to Ibiza out of your vacation plans, but your vital organs will only thank you for doing this.
Here are some routes across Europe which includes both great glacier snowboarding as well as some off-snow fun. They have actually been popular with snowboarders over the past decades and still are. I’ll stick to the undercover story and low-down on each one, as in this day and age any fool with a computer hooked to the net can type earth.google.com and find maps along with the rest of the practicalities.
The Austrian-Italian-Brenner-Pass-Connection: Ahh… Austria, the glamorous epicentre of European snowboarding! At least if you ask a Bavarian that is. But they are probably right too. This is where the early ski industry got a permanent foothold back in the 50s and snowboarding did the same thing early 90s. Innsbruck, or IBK as many insiders refer to it nowadays, and the surrounding area is a likely place to find pros and look-alike-pros in action also in the summer.
For a mellow time on a mellow glacier, one might hit Sölden or Kaprun for a short while, but the slopes on these glaciers are a bit on the flat end of the spectrum. Better yet, go straight to Mayrhofen to set up a base camp, with just a quick 20-minute drive for hitting the Hintertux glacier every morning. Hintertux often spots a sick park for the majority of the summer, with a peak in shaping efforts around July when summer camps are running the show. Coming at the same time as a camp can, however, be a disadvantage as you may need to pay some kind of homage or fee to get to ride the park at those times. One thing is for sure with a camp in town, and that’s that it’s party time each night!
When you’re done snowboarding and going rafting (another fun activity in the area) – and unless your liver has said “enough of Weiss Bier, bitte” – the hop to recovery on great beaches is shorter than one would think.
Pack the car and caress it carefully up the famous Brenner Pass, just south of IBK. At the top, stop at the Mickey D’s and enjoy a shitty burger with a great view. Then continue the 5-hour drive to hit a true Italian beach classic: Rimini & Riccione. This is where the northern Italian locals go for vacation – and the place is actually blessed with not having hoards of drunken Brits yelling names of Premier League teams all night long. Instead, expect to spot models from Milano slowly sipping after-dinner Limoncellos after a hard day’s work on their tan lines. Just beware that unless you’re a Robbie Williams lookalike, you’ll need more grace than “Ciao Bella!” to even get to talk to them. Although, if you hook up, suggest a trip to nearby Venice for some Bond-style romantic getaway time. But unless this is the case, or you’re a history buff, this place may otherwise be left to the bus-loads of seniors.
The-Best-of-Switzerland-Overlooking-the-Chocolate: If you like it a little glitzier, do like the Swiss snowboarding mafia and pay the daily tourist tax required to even hang out in the remote village of Saas Fee. This place may have breast-fed more European pipe riders over the past decade than any other. So if this is your thing, plan to stay for a while. Although, after hiking pipe at 3200 metres above sea level, you’ll be fit as Lance Armstrong and may decide to switch career.
Just remember, you’ll find funny things in your knapsack if you bring cans of yoghurt and plastic bottles of drink up for a picnic at this height. So down your drinks at the Popcorn Bar & Snowboard Shop instead, a stellar place which has probably thrown more of the same breast-fed and now drunken snowboarders out its doors than any other establishment.
More central Verbier could be fun too, but the riding doesn’t come close to Saas Fee. It does, however, host camps as well which means most likely there will be a park built.
And Verbier is just a short drive away from a standout off-snow activity: The Montreux Jazz Festival. It’s held 4–19 July this year and although its name may imply otherwise, this festival is not only about jazz. For example, Chemical Brothers kicked it off in 2007. It’s one of the oldest (the song “Smoke on the Water” is based on a true story during the event) and coolest festivals around. It has something for everyone every night on a beautiful lakeside location.
Finally a word of caution if you decide to hit this area: tiny Les Diablerets used to have a hot park on its small glacier, but has now fallen victim to global warming (?) and is closed for downhill activities in the summer.
The-Far-Up-North-And-Way-Way-Out-There: Surprisingly far south in Norway lies Folgefonna in a out-of-the-way and rural neck of the woods. It’s not much of a resort, but has an ambitious young park shaper with a creative mind, so the place may actually be worth a visit. But do check that the park is up and running before going, because there’s not much to ride without it.
The almost legendary Stryn may have lost some of its glamour over the last decade but is still a glacier with a whole lot of riding. With a vertical drop at 540 metres, often fresh snow in June and steep backcountry riding few glaciers, if any, can compete. Avoid staying at the main camp ground unless your objective is people-spotting; instead go stay by the ones further south by the fjord-like lake. Try a swim at 10 degrees if it’s a hot afternoon.
And if you’re true water creature, bring your surf board and drive for less than 2 hours out to Stadtlandet and the village of Ervik. Sure, you can surf further north in the world but this is one of the most original spots around, with a long right-hander finishing right in front of a petite graveyard with a handful of metal crosses. And since all surfers secretly want to be fishermen, I’ll mention that the fishing is great there as well.
Finally, should you happen to going already in May, give Narvik and Riksgränsen a visit and ride 24 hours a day under the midnight sun… but this is a chapter that deserves a story on its own, so I’ll leave it here for now.
But-What-About-The-French-Fries? So now the French are going to go nuts at me for not mentioning the greatness of Tignes, Les Deux Alpes, and so on, but I’ll decide to take the crap for that. The reason for this is that France is a step behind the rest when it comes to summertime snowboarding. Possibly this is because they get the best snow in the winter… But if you happen to have been bitten by the climbing bug, then it’s definitely the place to be in the summer. Go hang out at the Verdon in one finger with the best of the best in that arena. But actually Tignes does often kick ass so I’ll honestly have to recommend going there as well… and then for a long haul over to Biarritz to catch some waves!

Looking forward to summer now? Then start saving tomorrow and start gathering a good crew coming Monday. But stop dreaming now and go out and get the best out of the rest of this winter!

Anders Hagman is a Swedish former pro rider who bleached his hair each summer trying to look like the Scandinavian chick magnet he never was.
The warmest winter I ever spent was a summer on a glacier

Summer snowboarding, summer snowboarding… To me those two have never been opposites or incompatible in any sense. This is because I can recall almost as many good times snowboarding in a just a sweatshirt on sunny glacier as from spraying dry January powder. Wanna join me?

A couple of issues back we put a story about some “ultimate” road-trips on this very page titled ‘Hit the European Roads Jack’. It turned out to be a popular theme with many readers, albeit a little late to use for planning the winter, according to some. A few also mentioned that most of the suggested trips were a bit on the over-adventurous and expensive side for – but that’s another story and nothing a good car and the right companions can’t sort out.
Anyway, on popular request I’ll continue down the same alley once again, offering a few suggestions for successful summer snowboarding holidays. And this time no fat wallets are required… Well, you may need to cut that booze- and Euro-guzzling EasyJet charter to Ibiza out of your vacation plans, but your vital organs will only thank you for doing this.
Here are some routes across Europe which includes both great glacier snowboarding as well as some off-snow fun. They have actually been popular with snowboarders over the past decades and still are. I’ll stick to the undercover story and low-down on each one, as in this day and age any fool with a computer hooked to the net can type earth.google.com and find maps along with the rest of the practicalities.
The Austrian-Italian-Brenner-Pass-Connection: Ahh… Austria, the glamorous epicentre of European snowboarding! At least if you ask a Bavarian that is. But they are probably right too. This is where the early ski industry got a permanent foothold back in the 50s and snowboarding did the same thing early 90s. Innsbruck, or IBK as many insiders refer to it nowadays, and the surrounding area is a likely place to find pros and look-alike-pros in action also in the summer.
For a mellow time on a mellow glacier, one might hit Sölden or Kaprun for a short while, but the slopes on these glaciers are a bit on the flat end of the spectrum. Better yet, go straight to Mayrhofen to set up a base camp, with just a quick 20-minute drive for hitting the Hintertux glacier every morning. Hintertux often spots a sick park for the majority of the summer, with a peak in shaping efforts around July when summer camps are running the show. Coming at the same time as a camp can, however, be a disadvantage as you may need to pay some kind of homage or fee to get to ride the park at those times. One thing is for sure with a camp in town, and that’s that it’s party time each night!
When you’re done snowboarding and going rafting (another fun activity in the area) – and unless your liver has said “enough of Weiss Bier, bitte” – the hop to recovery on great beaches is shorter than one would think.
Pack the car and caress it carefully up the famous Brenner Pass, just south of IBK. At the top, stop at the Mickey D’s and enjoy a shitty burger with a great view. Then continue the 5-hour drive to hit a true Italian beach classic: Rimini & Riccione. This is where the northern Italian locals go for vacation – and the place is actually blessed with not having hoards of drunken Brits yelling names of Premier League teams all night long. Instead, expect to spot models from Milano slowly sipping after-dinner Limoncellos after a hard day’s work on their tan lines. Just beware that unless you’re a Robbie Williams lookalike, you’ll need more grace than “Ciao Bella!” to even get to talk to them. Although, if you hook up, suggest a trip to nearby Venice for some Bond-style romantic getaway time. But unless this is the case, or you’re a history buff, this place may otherwise be left to the bus-loads of seniors.
The-Best-of-Switzerland-Overlooking-the-Chocolate: If you like it a little glitzier, do like the Swiss snowboarding mafia and pay the daily tourist tax required to even hang out in the remote village of Saas Fee. This place may have breast-fed more European pipe riders over the past decade than any other. So if this is your thing, plan to stay for a while. Although, after hiking pipe at 3200 metres above sea level, you’ll be fit as Lance Armstrong and may decide to switch career.
Just remember, you’ll find funny things in your knapsack if you bring cans of yoghurt and plastic bottles of drink up for a picnic at this height. So down your drinks at the Popcorn Bar & Snowboard Shop instead, a stellar place which has probably thrown more of the same breast-fed and now drunken snowboarders out its doors than any other establishment.
More central Verbier could be fun too, but the riding doesn’t come close to Saas Fee. It does, however, host camps as well which means most likely there will be a park built.
And Verbier is just a short drive away from a standout off-snow activity: The Montreux Jazz Festival. It’s held 4–19 July this year and although its name may imply otherwise, this festival is not only about jazz. For example, Chemical Brothers kicked it off in 2007. It’s one of the oldest (the song “Smoke on the Water” is based on a true story during the event) and coolest festivals around. It has something for everyone every night on a beautiful lakeside location.
Finally a word of caution if you decide to hit this area: tiny Les Diablerets used to have a hot park on its small glacier, but has now fallen victim to global warming (?) and is closed for downhill activities in the summer.
The-Far-Up-North-And-Way-Way-Out-There: Surprisingly far south in Norway lies Folgefonna in a out-of-the-way and rural neck of the woods. It’s not much of a resort, but has an ambitious young park shaper with a creative mind, so the place may actually be worth a visit. But do check that the park is up and running before going, because there’s not much to ride without it.
The almost legendary Stryn may have lost some of its glamour over the last decade but is still a glacier with a whole lot of riding. With a vertical drop at 540 metres, often fresh snow in June and steep backcountry riding few glaciers, if any, can compete. Avoid staying at the main camp ground unless your objective is people-spotting; instead go stay by the ones further south by the fjord-like lake. Try a swim at 10 degrees if it’s a hot afternoon.
And if you’re true water creature, bring your surf board and drive for less than 2 hours out to Stadtlandet and the village of Ervik. Sure, you can surf further north in the world but this is one of the most original spots around, with a long right-hander finishing right in front of a petite graveyard with a handful of metal crosses. And since all surfers secretly want to be fishermen, I’ll mention that the fishing is great there as well.
Finally, should you happen to going already in May, give Narvik and Riksgränsen a visit and ride 24 hours a day under the midnight sun… but this is a chapter that deserves a story on its own, so I’ll leave it here for now.
But-What-About-The-French-Fries? So now the French are going to go nuts at me for not mentioning the greatness of Tignes, Les Deux Alpes, and so on, but I’ll decide to take the crap for that. The reason for this is that France is a step behind the rest when it comes to summertime snowboarding. Possibly this is because they get the best snow in the winter… But if you happen to have been bitten by the climbing bug, then it’s definitely the place to be in the summer. Go hang out at the Verdon in one finger with the best of the best in that arena. But actually Tignes does often kick ass so I’ll honestly have to recommend going there as well… and then for a long haul over to Biarritz to catch some waves!

Looking forward to summer now? Then start saving tomorrow and start gathering a good crew coming Monday. But stop dreaming now and go out and get the best out of the rest of this winter!

Anders Hagman is a Swedish former pro rider who bleached his hair each summer trying to look like the Scandinavian chick magnet he never was.

It was Midsummer’s Day in Sweden and a heatwave was on. It was indeed a strange time to gaze at a tiny advertisement my girl had found in the local paper in the area we were visiting: “Great investment opportunity! 4 small cabins on large lot near lifts…” It was accompanied by a stamp-sized black and white picture of a small log cabin.

It was just before my mother’s birthday lunch as well, so it wasn’t until we were all fed and happy that me and my brother-in-law were able to hook up to the internet and read the rest of the ad. It contained a number of poorly taken images and very little useful info.

At the time it was just a hunch, and it wasn’t until very recently – after scouring hundreds of more ads looking for bargains – that I realised that this is the kind of ad you want to look for. At least if you want to find a decent place located near a decent resort. As soon as the usual recovery/hangover period of midsummer was over I called up the real estate agent. Surely the cabins would still up for sale and we could take a look if we wanted.

So a day later me and my brother-in-law drove up the hill to have a look. Sitting in the shotgun seat of the car I booted up my laptop and created a spreadsheet with all of the expenses relating to a potential purchase: mortgage payments, insurance, utilities, taxes…

These are unfamiliar terms for someone who had never owned a property before, but we had each bought a regular house just recently, so we were getting into it. Once I was done, there was half a screen of them in front of me and we were still probably missed some. This was a little discouraging but at the least we’d have a nice drive on a sunny day we reasoned.

The outlook didn’t improve once we arrived. Right in front of our parked car was a shed with a door half off its hinges. Behind the shed was a large pile consisting of miscellaneous garbage and furniture. This pile appeared to have been covered by snow a few times over the last couple of seasons. The place had obviously been mismanaged, and we hadn’t even gotten out of the car to look at it yet.

Yet, since the location was indeed good – I had spent the better half of my upbringing hiking and riding in the area, so I knew – we decided to have a browse. After all, both we and the real estate agent had interrupted our vacations for this visit.

The agent appeared honest and when touring the place he pointed out more things that needed a handyman. My brother-in-law, however, kept shooting photos of everything, something which later turned out handy.

Once in the car again and on our way back we summed up what needed fixing and added estimates for this to the spreadsheet. Turned out the price still was in the ballpark we could afford.

So I opened up a new spreadsheet on my laptop and created an assumed Income Statement. Suppose we bought this place, fixed it up, then rented it out all the time – what would happen to the place and to our personal finances? That was my idea.

After a few fair guesses regarding how many weeks per season we would have guests and the percentage a rental agency would charge for managing the visits, it suddenly looked like a great opportunity. We would actually make money by buying this! Could this be true?

Even when being fairly pessimistic in our calculations, it still looked like we would be in the positive spectrum financially – even considering bad snowfalls and excluding the likely growth in market value over time.

So we now started to consider a bid. All we needed to do was make up our minds if we would like to spend the better part of the rest of the summer fixing it up. Due to steep taxes on pretty much everything in Sweden, this is a common activity for summer vacations. For example, a lawyer or surgeon has to work about 10 hours to be able to pay a mechanic for 2 hours of work on his car. This implies that if he can do it in less than 10 hours himself he is better off doing so. So to us Swedes, it did not seem like a strange thing to sacrifice the rest of the summer for a cause like this. (But I can understand if it does to you!) Convincing our dearests to do the same took a little longer, but a few days later we made an offer on the place. It was a little lower than the asking price – with references to everything that needed immediate fixing – but within a week of seeing the place for the first time we got a call from the agent to say it was ours if we completed the paperwork and transferred the money.

We weren’t exactly sure if this was a good thing or not, but we knew it was time to pack up the toolbox and cancel kitesurfing!
So let’s stop for some advice here. Considering the pile of money involved in something like this, you want to get a sure grip on the financial dimensions before investing. There’s really not a whole lot more to it than above but if you want to get into details on the property business there are tons of literature on it, both online and on paper. So unless you’re trained in it, spend a little time understanding income, expense, assets, liabilities and so forth. It’s not difficult, but very valuable. Or, if you are as young as most readers of Onboard, convince and involve your parents in doing this.

The one thing to remember is, as this real-life story shows, that owning a house can actually be achieved without costing you any money at all. The rent brings in more money than interests and instalments. So financially my winter housing story is one that is making money for us – but perhaps just as important, it provides us with a free winter home when we need one.

So let’s get to the personal dimension now – and it’s not one you put on a spreadsheet. This means the answer may not be as clear as a positive or negative number, although it is probably just as important if not more so.

Just as with the financial one, we weren’t sure where we would end up personally when throwing the dice, but we were pretty sure it would be on a positive turn. Having our own place in the snow is an obviously good idea since all involved love various activities on frozen water. Fixing one up may not seem like as much fun, but in my case I was willing to spend some time to learn how to do it, and my brother-in-law is a handyman by trade with his own shop. So at least there was one of us who knew what we were getting into in this area.

The latter turned out to be a blessing. So if you have a snowboarding friend like my brother-in-law, hook him up on any ideas you have in the cabin area immediately.

Even though discovering a number of large unknown issues later with the place, fixing them has made us grow as individuals. The same goes for just owning a place. You naturally take on a whole new level of responsibility for it. More and more advantages have shown themselves over time. It’s a great feeling knowing you are going to get X number of days on snow each year. You get a lot of new mates, because people do need a place to crash quite often.

Last summer we pretty much completed the place, adding a hut with a state-of-the-art wood-fired sauna. Those of you who know a Scandinavian know that this is a necessity, valued more dearly than any other room in any house.

One theory for the popularity of spending time in the saunas is that it’s one thing which the government can’t put taxes on. Another is that it’s a damn good excuse to down a few cold ones. My own personal theory is that we just need a place to defrost once in a while since the average temperature over the year seldom climbs above zero degrees in some areas.

Ever dropped into a halfpipe or bombed it towards a kicker and had your mind go blank?
I thought so, because we probably all have.
In my case when this happens I’ll launch into the atmosphere without a plan for what move to execute – and possibly I’ll undershoot or overshoot the landing by 50%. In the first case I just end up looking stupid in front of my mates. In the latter my knees blame me for being stupid. Sometimes both will even call me stupid for a week or two.
It’s a fair guess that your mind goes blank about as often as mine, unless you did some drugs I didn’t. That’s why I’ll spend this page sharing some elementary research I did on why our minds go blank at times – and also why they work brilliantly most of the time.

Snowboarding is a mind game more than anything else, a fact proven by the fact that most pro riders you see on the pages of a glossy magazine like this one are approximately as well-built as you are. I say approximately because a wide span of human shapes exist, but they are at least probably about the same age, weight and height as you are. So why you don’t do what they do – at least not for the moment – boils down to what’s in our heads and not what’s in our legs. This and a bit of experience, but that anybody can acquire. All you need is time.
Fact is, in the first 2 seconds of looking at something, we actually make most of the decisions we are likely to make. The same holds true whether it’s a person, a movie trailer, or a line down a mountain. And in pretty much every case our decisions will be the right ones. It’s not a magic gift or anything – as a human being we are simply equipped with minds that are sharp. That is also why first impressions last, we simply don’t think as hard later as we do during those first seconds. (By the way, the bet is that computers will catch up with us ten or twenty years from now. So beware…)

A small problem, however, lies in that we every so often don’t trust our initial judgement. We then spend more time than 2 seconds looking at the situation, and it is during that extended decision making that we often screw up.

Now we are nearing the core of what you may want to learn: more information doesn’t make a complex problem less complex. And if the situation in which you need the judgement is urgent – like when you are about to drop in on a monster kicker – then it is likely to make you lose the flow in your thinking. So it’s actually likely to cloud your thinking and trick you into an incorrect path. A good sign that you are facing a problem that is likely to fall into this category is that you have a hard time describing your logic for solving it.

But how strongly can we trust those initial judgments? This theory says “very strongly”.
Experiments have shown that psychiatrists actually just as often make a correct diagnosis of a patient with just the right amount of information as with an abundance of it. They become more confident with their conclusions with more knowledge, but their hit-miss ratio remains the same. Same things go for studies of why doctors fail to diagnose a heart attack.
So when we are about to drop in, should we first spend some time contemplating issues like “what speed did the guy before me use?”, “gosh, my beanie itches badly” or “did I use the right wax for my board?” Nope. Instead, blank out your mind. Put some positive thinking into it if anything. Then go ahead and, as the slogan states, just do it.
So why are great snowboarders good at trusting their first judgement?

Part of the picture is also that because the first thoughts of a great rider makes connects to hard-wired associations – built on experience from thousands of runs in their life – the decisions made have a superior hit ratio. This is also a fact the rider has become accustomed to, so he or she trusts it. This means some of them can be daring enough to put their life on the line, going down mountain faces in Alaska so steep that once they’ve started the run the slush coming down behind them removes all options for stopping anywhere during the run. They simply bet their life on the fact that they are quick enough thinkers to come up the right solution at any point in the run when something unexpected happens.

So what can you do with the information I’ve just given you?
Well, if your gut feeling now tells you this is just a bunch of crap, then you are most likely to benefit from thinking this. However, at the risk of arguing with my own argument, I’d advise you to think a little longer about it all. You may even want to cultivate something new within yourself. Eventually you can even get to a point where you, on a conscious level, can let the sub-conscious rule.

Try this a few times when you are riding a pipe or park and see what happens. Quite possibly you are able to develop your skills in this area, tuning your decision making to match your experience level. This will lead to less ‘paralysis by analysis’, better decisions, and fewer sarcastic comments from your mates or knees regarding your intellect.

Finally, for all you geeks out there who didn’t get the above, here’s one last try: it’s just like using THE FORCE in Star Wars. So do it Skywalker style next time and turn off your radar when you attack that evil space ship… or even better, a monster kicker.

The answer is, of course, that you’d suck and you’d be as sour as a kraut. You’d be bailing all the time because you’d only have skiers to learn from. Sure, after a few years of practice you may be able to copy their ‘helicopter jumps’, but there wouldn’t be any McTwists or switch indy-grabs in your portfolio. So get out there: hooking up with snowboarders in other areas, listening to new tracks on the car audio system, getting those new impressions.
Here’s a collection of ‘ultimate road trips’ – use them to feed you thoughts, even if you just end up going to the hill on the other side of city the next time you ride. It’s difficult to come up with the equivalent of the classic big surf trips – like ‘All-around-Australia’ or ‘Island-hopping-the-Indo-archipelago’ – but we did our best to summon up 3 of our favourite road trips. And remember: road trips involve cars, not airplanes. Flights are boring exercises of trying to make time pass in a closed space. Cars, on the other hand, are made for driving and for getting exactly where you want, when you want. And keeping a good feel for how far you travel will also make you understand why you travel.

The-French-Italian-Menu-de-Powder:
Pack your longest board and gather your mates somewhere in the surroundings of Geneva. Work your way southward along the multiple private toll-roads towards Chamonix. Do this at night to get the right science fiction-feel as you near the landing strip lights at each toll-gate. Sleep a few hours in the car park in the morning hours by the lifts at Le Brevent. Do some hiking there and you’ll get the runs of the day, something you would be unlikely to do among the huge crowds turning the more popular area of Grand Montes into a mogul field. Don’t expect to hook up with some locals. They are as shy as mountains goats and about as talkative too.
After emptying your last Kronenbourg stubby (a small and cheap bottle of decent beer), resist the temptation to head in to civilized Switzerland and instead drop into the infamous Mont Blanc tunnel and exit it in Italy.
Stop right at the exit for a full day of splendid riding a Courmayeur, a lesser-known resort but often with untouched powder fields within easy hiking distance.
Re-load the car and point it towards any of the 3 lift-connected valleys of Champoluc, Gressoney and Alagna. Alagna is the most eastern one, so the drive will be the longest, but is worth the extra effort if it’s dumping. In the morning, pick up a copy of Polvere Rosa, a core off-piste guide to the area written by a serious local. Unless you are already religious, it may turn into your Bible. If it’s bluebird, use it to understand how to access the steep and wide chutes from the top of Punta Indre. If the weather is just decent, try Val d’Otro, a hidden gem with 1700m of vertical in varied terrain.
The lifts above Alagna pretty much offer heli-boarding without the heli, but there are helicopters to be hired as well. Try flying to the refuge Capanna Margherita if you want to see how far out you can get while staying in central Europe.
And don’t forget to have a Peroni (the oldest Italian beer) to refill your liquids after full day of snowboarding the Italian way.
- Ideal time: End of January, early February.
- Best conditions: Heaps of fresh snow.
- Dangers: Getting robbed while sleeping at truck stops along the highways.

Iron-Curtain-Käse-Cross-Over:
The south of Poland may not be your obvious choice for a road trip, but with close to 1000m of lift-accessed vertical above the ancient city of Zakopane, you may want to try it a least once. It gets dumped on heavily from time to time – and if you happen to be there at one of those times you’ll be a one lucky rider. The competition for fresh tracks is almost non-existent, with the majority of people falling all over the green slopes at the bottom. However, the locals you meet will be amongst the most friendly you’ll find anywhere, really. Buy a Warka Strong for any of the girls you are likely to hook up with.
A short drive away you’ll find Spindleruv Mlyn in the Czech Republic. It has a similar feel to it, but with a higher ratio of bars and discos. These and the fact that the pipe and park are usually well groomed have allowed it to host some TTR events over the last years. There’s a growing population of good riders in the area. Here beer is a most serious affair, so try out a few – most notably Urquell and the original Budweiser – but don’t make any jokes about the American namesake.
The Germans may take their beer seriously too – and it’s the shortest drive on your way to the Austrian Alps – but don’t stop there. Even if there are some decent sized mountains and riders too, they are usually hidden in a thick fog. Instead keep going to Innsbruck where a stop at the Burton flagship store is worth the time for anyone with roots in snowboarding. While there, take the time to talk up some locals regarding where to head next. The reason for this is that there are probably close to fifty resorts within a 2-hour drive from Innsbruck, or “IBK” as the locals prefers to spell it. If it’s dumping they are probably all good, but if it’s been a while since the last snowfall you are likely to find out where the sickest park is currently located.
But let’s pretend it’s dumping when you are there: then point the steering wheel to the ritzy Lech and Zürs, passing the more known and crowded St Anton on the way. You may want to stop for a day at Stüben in between the two, for a day of cold north face riding on the biggest powder fields of this trip.
With the concentration of resorts being so high, Austria is likely to be the ultimate area if you want to ride as many new slopes as you can on the same tank of gas. An unfiltered Weissbier makes sure you understand how Stefan Gimpl and the rest of the locals grew up to become what they are today,
- Ideal time: February/March.
- Best conditions: Good any time after New Year on an ordinary winter.
- Dangers: Avalanches in the Arlberg area has claimed many victims. Don’t be the next one.

The-Viking-Snow-Park-Drive-by:
Ever wondered why there are so many wonder-Finns in the top ten of every international snowboard competition? Even though the riding is most likely to on a smaller hill than you’ve ever ridden, going to Finland to find the answer to this question is worth it.
The answer is at Talma, the home of more good park hitters per square metre than any other resort in the world. Spend few days getting schooled by the locals and double your own park skills by taking 78 five-minute runs each day, including the lift ride. There’s no need to see any other resort than Talma really, and it is close to the capital of Helsinki, so your entry and exit is easy.
Just don’t make the mistake of trying to drive around the Baltic Sea to Sweden – even if the resort of Levi is a good one too, it’s a 24-hour non-stop drive to it. Have your Lapin Kulta (a mellow brew made of spring water) on the ferry to Sweden instead.
Since you probably ended up having more than one beer on the never-ending party which these boats are, you are likely to drive off it hungover. Luckily, the drive to Sälen is only 5 hours, which is a short one in Scandinavian terms.
Sälen is a mellow family affair, so don’t expect to throw moves on any dance floor; save them for the Swedish equivalent of Talma. This actually a minor resort 30 minutes drive short of Sälen called Kläppen. It has had the sickest park in Sweden for the past decade and spawns a couple of new pros each season.
The regional beer experience is having a Mellanöl (a watery beer with just alcohol to give you a buzz but still keeping you legal to drive).
You should now be ready for hopping the boarder to the Norwegian hitters at Trysil. Here you’ll find a different kind of park: it’s a 2km long run with a pipe, rails and super-sized booters, all in a one long row – a brilliant concept, especially if you’ve got the legs to do them all in one go (something only possible if you also have the snaking skills of pro skater).
Norway is darn expensive so make sure to get out of Trysil before you are stuck there doing dishes for the rest of the season.
- Ideal time: March/April.
- Best conditions: Warm and sunny.
- Dangers: None apart from being beaten by the locals in a drinking game.

Teased enough by now?
So start saving tomorrow.
Start gathering a good crew coming Monday.
Start dreaming now.

Anders Hagman is a former Swedish pro rider who could have moved on to a second career as a truck driver, that’s how many times he’s crossed Europe behind the wheel.

Words: Anders Hagman.
Illustration: Chris Gordon.

Snowboarding in 1987 equalled being a pioneer, not entirely unlike being a trapper in the Wild West. There was probably some lost soul in each snow-covered town in Europe falling over on a plank at this time, but it was unlikely that this person would meet another in the same situation. Even though this might sound like a lonely life, it wasn’t. He or she probably felt as lonely as a sugar cube in a barn full of flies. An average day on the hill would mean explaining “it’s called a snowboard”, “no, it’s not that difficult” and “no, you can’t buy or rent a board around here – but I’ll let you try mine if you want” approximately 50 times.

Sporadically we’d then meet another boarder and focus on the real issues. These were “how bad do your feet hurt” and “how have you modified your bindings”, as well as “have you heard of this amazing guy called Craig Kelly”.

Pretty much all of the boards were way too long, way too stiff, and some of them even had a fishtail. A lot of riders used what was called a “plate binding” and tall, stiff ski boots… Needless to say we probably thought we looked cooler than we actually did.

Look at a video from that era now – some are available on youtube.com – and you’ll notice that anyone could have been a pro back in those days. If we could only travel back in time, we’d all probably easily beat Craig with a few 360s in the Soda Spring World Masters, winning a grand prize cheque of about $1,250.

With poster-boy Craig in the lead, Burton Snowboards from the East Coast of the USA was the No 1 brand. Some fair rivalry from the Californians at Sims Snowboards and their hero Terry Kidwell did, however, exist in the freestyle arena.

Jumping to 1997, things have changed dramatically. It’s almost impossible to grasp the difference these 10 years in snowboarding history made. The number of snowboarders world wide had been growing madly – probably doubling each year – and so had the number of good riders. A few hundred of the best were now battling it out in their home countries trying to make it to the first ever snowboarding event at the Winter Olympics (held in Nagano, Japan, 1998). A few really goods ones did, however, skip this entirely, most notably Terje Håkonsen, dissing the circus completely. Terje had dominated the sport for almost a decade now, but during that decade the International Ski Federation – FIS – moved from ignoring snowboarding to trying to make it into another discipline of skiing. Then it embraced snowboarding in its own peculiar way. As you may understand, those who had seen all of this take place had their reasons to be a little reluctant to join the party.

The ski industry completely jumped on the bandwagon. Soon there were boards made by every brand of skis and by a few hundred snowboard companies as well. Each brand needed team riders, so becoming one wasn’t that hard, even though the level of riding had picked up tremendously. Most riders on the pro tour did back-to-back 720s, which became a predicable trademark of the time in every halfpipe competition.

Burton was now the number one brand by far, but hadn’t yet spawned any siblings.

Catching up with 2007 is something really not worth spending time on. We all know what it’s like, don’t we? We just need to open our eyes and observe it. So let’s leave the current to those who are able to catch the moment, like the pics in the rest of this magazine.

1080s in every different direction is a must if you want to make it to even talking with a brand about becoming a team rider, not to mention a pro.

One more thing is, however, worth noting: that having grown madly for its entire lifespan, snowboarding is starting to mature in a lot of senses. It’s remarkable that the number of riders may for the first time no longer be growing. This means there are as many people retiring from snowboarding as there are newbies, probably levelling out the age curve as well.

Snowboarding will probably not be at the top of any hype-list in year 2017 either. The coming decade of ups and downs, occasionally interrupted by a splash of interest after each winter Olympics, will however by that time have created a firm breeding ground for those who have opted for snowboarding as their prime life-hobby-thing. As no-one will have started riding due to a hype, each rider is more committed than today. To be a snowboarder now is not something you brag about, it’s something you are, no matter what the public opinion is. I guess you can sort of compare it to what skateboarding is today, or even the way cross-country skiers look at themselves.

The silly fights over naming of tricks with skiers will be over. Everyone will be comfortable with that there are four ways separated by 90 degrees in which you can face when going down a hill. What’s on your feet will be of lesser importance.

There will also be heaps of old farts talking about “the core old days”. Yep, those exist already today, but they will multiple in numbers – and yes, those grandpas will be as bitter as the old surfers we see today.

On the other side of the spectrum there will be kids riding back and forth to kindergarten as if the snowboard was an extension of the their feet. Riding will be so natural to them they will not even think of it as another activity, just another way of playing. These will be the kids who make Tony Hawk Extreme Skateboarding a reality… Now let’s do a quiz and see if you can guess the number of degrees you need to be able to spin – and land – consistently to be able to reach the podium at a pro event?

My prediction is that Burton will still be the brand most often related to snowboarding, but they will in addition to boards, clothing, shoes, etc, be selling motorcycles, cars and cruise ships, all under various futuristic brand names. An aging Bill Gates will be looking over his shoulder. Global domination will be close.

I admit that there will be some diversity, but if I’m your average pro snowboarder – like one of those on the previous pages in this glossy magazine – then I should know well the figures which follow:

About 21,000 times is the number I’ve ridden up in some kind of lift. If I’m Scandinavian I have developed a new muscle on the inside of my thigh, since most of those rides were on T-bars. If I’m central European or American I would probably have a little flatter ass than normal from sitting on chairlifts. In either case I would probably also have a slight case of haemorrhoids from being out in the cold so much.

During my 3 years on the pro tour I spent more time on the road than on my board. In my ex-pro life I could have easily become a solid truck driver as I know the Autobahns like the back of my hand. I’ve eaten at every McDonalds along them and have gathered a large collection of truck driver hats.

My frequent flyer mile program has 89,500 miles on it, even after my 2 surf trips to Tahiti.

I’ve thrown about 5 empty bottles from hotel balconies and been thrown out of 7 night clubs myself. I’ve made enemies with as many doormen as I have with halfpipe judges (2 each). The latter has attempted to fine me on at least one occasion for threatening or swearing out of disappointment at a contest result.

Speaking about drinking… I’ve probably finished 3 times as much free booze compared to what I’ve paid for. If I was a pro during the 90s, when Ballentines™ sponsored the tour, then I’d never touch blended malts again. If I was a more recent pro, then I know the name of 13 Bacardi Breezers and guzzle them like lemonade.

But my intoxications are not limited to the number of cc’s of alcohol… No, I’ve seen and likely tried about 4 “recreational drugs” out there. I’ve gathered knowledge regarding them, made up my mind and decided that they will do me harm in the long run. To give an example: on average I’ve maybe smoked 17 grams of Mary Jane, less and less each year.

In total I’ve broken 4 snowboards on purpose – for example over a sharp kinky rail – lost 2 more during flights and had 1 stolen outside a resort cafeteria. My team manager thinks 5 boards for a season is plenty, but as I keep handing them out to fans and groupies, I tend to ask for about 8 boards a year. The 3 boards left at the end of each season gather rust in a shed at my parents’ house. Counting test sessions, I have ridden more than 100 boards in my life.

I currently own 2 surfboards (also in my parents’ shed back home) and 4 skate decks. Still, I can hardly surf and I can’t skate that well either.

Did I say groupies earlier on? I’ve had almost 1 in each country I’ve visited (about 16) – and you know what I mean when I say “had”, don’t you? A year later I’m able to remember the first name of half of them… so that leaves perhaps a total of 18 during my 3 years on the tour that I know the name of today. How many of them got pregnant? I have no idea, but I’ve heard from a couple… I have 0 kids that I know of.

I own 1 car which is cooler and 50% more expensive than I could really afford. But image is everything when it comes to salary – and my current salary, after expenses, is about the same as a decent normal paying job: possibly €3,500 / month. Plus expenses that is – and those include flights to Alaska every now and then. So all in all the incentive package is in the top 2% of the population – at least if you would spend all your money on snowboarding in any case. But I’m poor at maths and economics, so what do I know?

In total I’ve lost more than €2,000 on poker, including online gambling.

There is 57 gigabytes of media on my laptop, most of it made up of 27 films downloaded from my friends’ computers. The music I often sync to my 3 iPods, on which there are on average 3,456 songs, mostly fall into the category ‘acquired taste’. I’m not much for popular music and more for a ‘harder and heavier cutting edge’ at about 123 bpm.

My current laptop is my 3rd in as many years. The earlier ones went missing in action, e.g. left behind in bars or in airports. I’ve also lost 4 jackets, 1 wallet and 2 mobile phones in the same manner. Another 2 wallets, 2 digicams and 3 mobiles I’ve lost or broken on the slopes while riding with my pockets open.

I’ve traded sponsors 2 times and I’ve been on a Burton team on 1 occasion. I’ve never been invited to compete in the Air & Style, but seen it live 3 times. I try making it to any of “The 4 Opens”, but when I do I only make it through the qualifiers 0.3 of the times.

I’ve spent no more years than I needed to in school and I intend to spend 0 years at university after my career as a pro rider. I have 102 connections within the industry – all collected in my Gmail account – that will help me land my next job. Once I have found my dream job I intend to work 4 easy hours per day at the most 4 days a week.

I play 24 rounds of golf per summer season at an 11 hcp level. (To all you no-golfers out there without time or money to learn this game: this is pretty good.) I have a poor temper and therefore broke 2 clubs in my bag.

There are 17 days before I’m back on snow again.

In most other senses my life is just like yours: I have 2 legs, 2 arms, 1 head and 1 heart. 5 of my bones may have more fractures than yours, but head and heart are still more or less intact, if only a little twisted from circling the globe 7 times in 3 years. All in all it’s a good life, so I stay busy trying to figure out how to continue to add to all of these numbers for a few more years…

Illustration www.mothi.biz

Buckled way too hard into my bindings, I was looking out over a sizeable part of Switzerland often referred to as Rheintal. But a whole different aspect of my snowboarding life was on my mind. What I was thinking about was how much I missed a tool to sharpen my edges with: a file.

As I tune my board regularly, I don’t usually miss a file that much, but the Laax halfpipe – which I was about to drop into – had been groomed during the previous night. To perfection as always, I must add. It had however been reshaped at one of those infrequent times during midwinter when the southern Sirocco winds make it all the way across the Italian Alps intact. The slush yesterday was evident in icicles hanging from everything in the ski area, now glistening in the first sunrays of the early morning. In the morning hours the wind had died, and the temperature had returned to an average for early January – about twelve degrees below zero. Do I need to spell out the words ‘Blue Ice’ to make you understand why I was missing a tool that could sharpen my edges?

Flims Laax Falera – the resort’s full name – has been at the forefront of modern snowboarding since the early 1990s. Possibly due to its central location in Switzerland, within a few hours drive from several major cities and just a quick hop off the autobahn, it has attracted generations of snowboarders. But there is another factor at play as well, something they deserve hard-earned credit for: a consistently world-class halfpipe for over 10 consecutive years. A halfpipe which has born and bred more halfpipe superstars than you can shake your 10 points scorecard at. The location of the pipe is terrific too, just a short walk from the futuristic spaceship-like gondola top station, and to state that the view from it is breathtaking would be an understatement. Snowboarders living in eastern Switzerland are a lucky bunch.

Today’s halfpipe designers usually take the stand ‘the bigger the better’, but sometimes you can look at one of their creations for more than an hour without seeing anyone get over the lip. We bow before them and shiver, humbled even prior to dropping in. For the ones who can both ride a snowboard fast and control it in the air they are a blast – but how many can make both of those claims? Why they all go for the ‘superpipe’ concept is not that puzzling considering the sheer market value of the term. Yet sometimes could it possibly also be attributed to a lack of imagination? If you can’t create something interesting to ride, you should stop making parks and pipes and start making huge perfectly groomed flat slopes.
The Laax halfpipe is a prime example that bigger doesn’t always have to be better – and there are more examples of this.

Stratton Mountain, Vermont, USA. It’s as classic as it gets… The home of Burton snowboards, Stratton was the first US ski resort to allow snowboarding. Ross Powers, both World and Olympic champion, grew up there. And even though the pipe has moved around some over the last years, Stratton can probably boast that it created the world’s first true halfpipe in the late 1980s – something close to what the skateboarders were riding – and without doubt still clinging onto a top spot.

Levi, in Finnish Lapland, has a long boarding season from mid-October to the beginning of June. The highest vertical drop may be a humble 325 metres, but they compensate with a consistently shaped superpipe, one halfpipe and a large park. So if you appreciate riding a really, really good halfpipe – and you can stand living in harsh competition with packs of insanely hard working Finns (as well as without any sunlight from November to February) – then it’s actually worth a trip up there.

Anyone travelling the globe full time in search of halfpipes can probably add more places who care for their halfpipe as if it were their baby, or at least one of their main sources of income, but even the list of these would not be that long. If we were looking at parks, the same list would be longer – but the issue remains the same for them: Super-Size-It is not always better.

So what happened in Laax? Despite the early hours that morning, quite a few of the locals plus some visitors had made it to the pipe already. Most of them were hanging around the top of the pipe and although the view of the valley below was incredible at least half of them were watching each and every rider to drop in. My turn was next… and how I was missing my file, for the moment located some 22 hours drive away in my tool shed back in Sweden.

“Dropping next….” As I dropped in, my thoughts focused on the wall ahead of me. Would I be able to make it up it, or would I slide down the U-tube like a Bavarian sausage on the Oktober fest? Luckily it was the first and I took flight, perhaps not cat-like but with enough balance to grab, tweak some, checkout the view again (it was still really good), and finally place my board just below the coping. There was no roar from the crowd but I could sense some respect in their eyes on my back. So may whatever God you put your faith in – and the resort you pay your ski pass money to – bless your perfectly shaped halfpipe. Because you can usually ride it quite well even if mother nature has taken a vacation or had a mishap.
So my mind had slipped when I packed my bags for this road trip. But thinking about it, it keeps slipping, but this time to the fact that each and every resort should have a halfpipe like the one in Laax: they shouldn’t forget a view to match either.

Anders Hagman is a Swedish former pro rider who spent about a decade as a pipe-junkie all over the planet. He even dug them out by hand at Mt Hood, USA, as a night-time job for a while.

Illustration www.mothi.biz

Growing up I was lucky to have two dads: one that taught me the values of schooling and of striving hard, and one who showed me how to use my talent to the maximum with some mental “tricks”.

My real dad was my Ski Dad. He was extremely fit and knew how to wax a pair of cross-country skis better than pretty much anyone I would ever meet. He brought me along on his ski runs and had pulled me in a pulk (Norwegian sled for transporting kids). By the time I turned four I skied downhill faster than most adults, albeit a bit more recklessly. Throughout my upbringing I spent the autumns running in the woods and lifting weights. In the winter I bashed gates under the lights while my father watched from the sidelines. In the evenings we tuned skis together and went to theoretical classes to study the basics of skiing.
There was only one issue: no matter how hard I practiced and how many races I went to, I never made it even near the top of the podium. In fact, even the girls in the club beat me on a regular basis – something which can seriously hurt the self-esteem of any adolescent boy, trust me.

One day I asked Ski Dad what I needed to do to finally win some competitions. As I expected the reply to be “train harder”, I was baffled when he told me he didn’t know the answer. Instead he told me to go ask the dad of one of my friends at school, Tom. He didn’t say why, but I was an obedient kid and made a mental note to do it.

Tom’s dad was an ex-chef who now owned a number of restaurants at the nearby ski resort. He was also a former European Champion at vert skateboarding and had for many years had a pro model with one of the larger brands. He wore his long curly grey hair tucked into a ponytail and his clothing was usually a bit on the rugged side.

A few days later, when Tom was picked up after school, I saw my chance and walked up to their car. Before I was there Tom’s dad spoke to me:

“Hi Anders, how you been? Heard you and Tom tried snowboarding during the weekend. How was it?” He was all smiles as always.

“Well, it wasn’t that easy but I guess chicks dig scars, right”, I joked back at him.

“Ha ha… Tom said the same thing, but we’ll have another go this coming weekend. Wanna tag along? I’ll teach you both some moves which will catch the eyes of the ladies!”

“Sure! See you at the hill”, I replied and thought I’d save my real question for then.

Saturday came and I could hardly control myself. I made Ski Dad drop me off at the slope long before the lifts were running. Under my arm I had a borrowed snowboard and I intended to hike a few runs before the others arrived. I really wanted to impress Tom’s dad by being able to at least link a few turns together.

When the others arrived and the lifts opened I was sweating a lot but hadn’t been able to do even a single turn, just fall over a lot at slow speed. I felt embarrassed, even though there had been no-one there to see me. Snowboarding was a silly sport, I reasoned, but deep down I had a feeling I thought so only because I sucked at it.

I had decided to ask Tom’s dad about how he won all those skateboarding competitions already on the first chair of the day, but thought I’d start with some small talk:

“This snowboarding thing is really hard for me, but that’s probably because I’ve spent so much time skiing, right? I’m not used to going sideways.”

“Nah”, Tom’s dad said. “You’ve got better potential for it than most. You just need to focus on making it work for you.”

“But I focused pretty hard on it this morning and all that happened was that I fell over a lot on a board which was probably not the right one for me anyway. Also, my feet hurt already from these bindings, or perhaps it’s the boots… Can’t wait to get on my skis again!” I didn’t really mean the last part, because I wasn’t looking forward to being beaten by the girls again either.

“Really?” Tom’s dad asked.

“No, not really,” I said regretfully, “because I sort of suck at skiing too. What I meant to ask you was how you managed to become a skateboarding professional and win all those competitions. How did you make it?” Finally I had managed to ask my original question!

“Well’,” the man who I would soon call my Skateboard Dad started, ”Life is tough. We all have weak spots. But when you focus on them you are actually creating excuses for losing, and finding excuses for losing leads to losing. It makes it easier to accept losing, but it also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Guess I was guilty of that a moment ago, right?” I asked already knowing the answer.

“Well, everyone’s better off focusing on their strengths and finding places were they’ll do them the most good. So focus on the ways you can advance. I seriously believe you can kick-ass on a snowboard, considering the commitment you showed when hiking this morning. That’s an important part of it.”

He continued: “Many of the guys on the skateboarding pro tour come from broken homes and from poor neighbourhoods. When they were young they were sometimes forced to prioritise between buying a new board and between buying the books their school required them to read. When they made the decision to buy the board they also made the decision that it was the right choice for them. It made them a lot more committed to succeeding as a skateboarder than they would have been if they had gotten it handed to them as a present. If you think about it, the same is probably true for many NBA and NHL stars.”

“Is that all there is to it, commitment to success?” What Tom’s dad had told me made sense but I wasn’t sure it would make me win any ski races.

“Well, there is one more important thing: worry only about the things you can control and forget about the rest.

It’s sort of as with people who are afraid of flying. What they are really afraid of is not flying – it’s crashing. So they focus on crashing and this makes them scared of flying, and it stops them from reaching their destination quickly and comfortably. If you think about bailing out on the trick you are dropping in for, then you are likely to actually do just that.”

I sat silent for the rest of the ride, thinking about these ‘rules’. A little later, after a few lucky successful turns, I committed myself to learn to snowboard as well as I could. Tom’s dad said he’d help with some more advice along the way – even if I went back to skiing again – and this was how he became my Skateboard Dad. I continued to learn a lot from him over many years.

As I pretty much never touched my skis again, I never won a ski race, but I did win quite a few halfpipe competitions – and the respect of most of the girls who had beaten me at skiing too. When I later turned pro – getting respect from a larger part of the snowboarding world – I realised there are a hundred guys and gals around the world who more or less had figured out the same secrets… But they did get me that far and then some more.

And even now, having retired from the pro life a while back, I still think about these ‘secrets’ when I drop in for a run in the park. The times I’m able to get thoughts about how icy the landings are out of my head, and thoughts about the respect a 35-year old father of two kids gets for sticking smooth 720s into it, then I’m pretty much there before I even drop in. So I know it still works – for me as well as for you.

Anders Hagman is a Swedish former pro rider who twisted the story of his life based on a text he found on the Internet. But people on the Internet see Elvis at their local 7-11, so perhaps you shouldn’t believe every word of it.

Illustration www.mothi.biz

My first board snapped over a half-hidden tree stump in woody powder on a late January afternoon. The jump wasn’t very big – in fact, it was one of my first jumps ever – but the angle which I landed over the stub did the job. I had lost my virginity. On bad days, boards of all sizes, shapes and brands have moved on to meet their maker under my boots since then.

I’ll give those who claim that snowboarding is an expensive sport for snotty rich kids half a point. Sure there’s a lot of snotty rich kids up there on the hill, but it’s not that expensive compared to other sports. Just ask anyone playing hockey. However, I’ll give them full marks if they say that I am a snotty rich kid practising an expensive hobby when I’m snowboarding. In my case snowboarding has developed into a dear and destructive art form.

But I won’t let them call me crazy or stupid, because the joy of breaking a board on purpose – or any other piece of equipment for that matter – is bliss and ecstasy combined into one giant pill. Trust me, those who subscribe to this kind of prescription can cross off Prozac from the elixir they get from their regular doctor or shrink. Give a man frustrated with his parents, love life or boss – or the sum of all – a brand new board to break and you’ll soon find the same man at peace with himself, God and the rest of the universe.

It’s a little known fact, but crushing the sidewalls over a shard-edged rail is better than sex. Well, at least better than poor sex and surely better than masturbation.
“You didn’t break another one, did you”, my girlfriend will ask me whenever I return from the hill a bit earlier than expected. If I have a smug smile on my face she is more often than not right. I’m usually in a calm and positive mood a few hours after breaking a board in half. “Are you going to throw it away? Can I have the bindings, please”, strangers will sometimes ask me on the hill right after the deed, as if I would ragingly throw the whole set in the bin. “Maybe I can have your board instead”, I reply. “You see, this one is broken.”

They haven’t the slightest clue. Breaking a board is not something you plan in advance. It’s not like, “Let’s see. I’ll ride this one until lunch and break it on the slope above the cafeteria about lunchtime. That way I won’t have to leave the warm cozy indoors for the rest of the day”. No, no, no… It is in the spur of the moment you’ll want to finish off your board – quickly, with finesse, and without hesitation. Soprano-style, if you know what I mean. Bystanders should not be able to grasp what just happened before it is over and you’re far from the scene of crime. But tuning bindings to fit comfortably is hard work, so those I seldom part with.

So the first board that I broke was the one that got me hooked, but the first fix didn’t come for free. It took me 3 months in 8th grade to make that board during every woodwork class, plus putting in some detention overtime. He he he… The simple plywood-and-surf-strap-construction then only gave me 3 lousy hours of frustrated falling back and forth before it dawned on me what I had to do. After the deed I could go back to skiing again I reasoned. But subsequent to being able to steer myself towards a small bump in the powder field which me and my mates were hiking – and subsequently stomping the landing over a pointy stub – I realised I would never go back to skiing again. Breaking a ski is damn near impossible to do with style and you’ll still be left looking stupid with another one stuck on your other foot.

From my almost 20-year career as a serial-killer, I consider these my all-time highs:

1. The Sims Switchblade. It was probably my first real board and gave me almost a full season of faithful riding before getting sticky in the slushy spring snow and hardly moving down the hill at all. After the 3rd run, my friends had to wait for me at the lift. I probably should have stopped to give it good waxing, but no no no… I drowned it in a nearby stream instead. At first I thought about stripping down and diving for it, but as I watched it slowly sink to the bottom and lay there peacefully I realised it wasn’t going to make it into the next season anyway. Didn’t miss it a bit!

2. The Avalanche Damian Dagger. This board came with a lifetime warranty and was supposed to be indestructible. Irresistible of course! After not being able to learn frontside 360s after half a day of tries I decided it was the brutally heavy board that was at fault (and not my lack of talent). Me and a sharp rocky surface made an appointment with the Dagger. A single hit made sure it wasn’t going to be a dagger to anyone else’s snowboarding career. I hid the evidence in the woods while I was at it.

3. The K2 “Piezoelectric Techno Monster”. Can’t recall the real name of this board, but the silly technology with a light that blinked when the board vibrated kept bugging the crap out of me each time I looked down during a speedy run. After accidentally focusing my sight and concentration on the light mid-air during a corkscrew, I had had enough. After getting up for the crash I pointed it straight for the parking lot and didn’t stop until I was halfway into it. There was no snow on the asphalt, so the lime green base of the board was clearly visible in a long freshly made track behind me. Did save the binding on this one though, as K2 was the only one to make decent step-ins for a lot of years.

So does this make me a happier person? Not necessarily, but my everlasting backup plan keeps me from stressing out on the hill. In particular, I remember one day last year when I was riding with a mate of mine: The conditions were white-out and rainy. He wasn’t riding that well that day and was stressed about some fuss with his girlfriend too. He hardly talked at all on the lift and seemed to be in a hurry to get down during each run, wanting to quit early that day too. I wasn’t riding particularly well either, but still enjoyed the day to its full and by the end of it managed to stick a few new moves. He asked me how I could stay positive during such a shitty day.

“No worries,” I smiled back at him, “it’s all about finding your secret power animal.”
“Like in the movie Fight Club, you mean?”
“Yeah, like in Fight Club,” I whispered to him, as if it was a valuable secret.

But the real secret was that I, an almost new Burton Vapor, and the frozen coping of the local halfpipe had got together for a little meeting before my friend arrived that morning. The sound of high-tech aluminum honeycomb going to pieces over a force of nature such as blue ice beats thinking about a silly little penguin even on a good day.