From tomorrow on we’ll have to get used to writing down ’2011′ on all official documents. People from the UK are always appalled at our sense of fireworks safety measures. “My first New Year’s Eve in Munich was like being back in Vietnam,” was the way our English ed put it. Oh well, there has to be something Germans are unorganised about. Pro tip for fireworks: Don’t use them on New Year’s Eve, store them in a dry place for later! Now you can terrify friends and family all year long. Happy New Year!

December

Like in the previous month we started things with an ancient shred flick – this time Isenseven’s first ever movie ‘New Noise‘. Our senior photog Matt Georges appeared in this neat Billabong clip. David Bertschinger Karg got his own video profile from Smith Optics. And All Plugged Up was an excellent free movie. We really suck at filming and editing, but somehow our little interview with Peetu Piiroinen got a lot of attention:

Then there was the Air&Style in Beijing. Think of it what you want, but we created a live blog and posted the best tricks and a highlight video. Get in the Van 2 was a banger of a free movie. Like so many good riders before him Halldor Helgason signed for Nike 6.0. And the Pow-Pod caused quite a stir, and so did Dan Brisse’s full part from Poachers X. But quite honestly, everyone preferred Scott Stevens‘ clip:

Torstein revealed his love for… his board, the Austrian Sanesation movie was quite popular, Kareem El Rafie’s video part was solid, and we visited Fredi Kalbermatten at home:

The YES. crew rode the Whistler back- and frontcountry. We posted all Airblaster Family Portraits in one go. The Euro Nike 6.0 team rode Keystone in a shockingly bad edit, and Jamie Anderson posted a shockingly good edit of herself riding in Tahoe. Xavier De Le Rue launched his own webisode series called Timeline. And how to describe Eero Ettala’s part from the Nitro movie? Doesn’t matter – just watch it yourself!

The Dew Tour kicked off in Breckenridge and Torstein Horgmo, Louie Vito, Jamie Anderson and Queralt Castellet won in their disciplines. The Willett brothers showed that they are insane, we posted a gem called ‘Bad Santa‘, and then we started summing up each month of the year in posts called “This Year in Snowboarding.” No wait, this cross reference might damage the space-time continuum.

Have a good one everyone, see you on the other side!

We’re not really writing this on the day of its publication. That’s not how we roll at Onboard. In fact, right now it is still well before Christmas, and it was only a few minutes ago that I realised that I’d gotten all dates wrong for these reviews. I made the ‘necessary amendments’ in all earlier posts, but now I ran out of ideas for anything funny for today. Hope you enjoy the epic day that December 30th always is. And here’s the best and worst of November 2010!

November

We kicked things of with a true banger – we unearthed the long-lost Euro Gap 1 movie as part of our Euro Gap 3 week. Other great posts included the Niki Korpela interview, some Joni Malmi chit-chat, Jaako Itäaho talking about the new Euro Gap 3 movie, Euro Gap 2, and of course Euro Gap 3 in all its glory.

Marc Swoboda rode his way in great style through the Nitro flick, and Jamie Nicholls was yet another young, innocent pro who posted his online video part:

Ted Borland’s part from All Plugged Up/The Leak was also noteworthy. Then there were the Finnish movies Mortal Wombat, High Guality, Wannabe, and Homework, but the Onboard crew decided to go to Innsbruck for a game or two of football. Nitro dropped their Road Warriors full movie, the Wappulounas peeps were already watering our mouths for next year’s event, and Joe Sexton showed what we were to expect from his Cheers video part:

The Dump Em Out full movie was released next, and it features Forest Bailey. Reason enough to watch it. Frames came next, and it was supposed to be the slowest snowboard film ever. Reason enough to skip it. Solberg and Fuse’s parts got remixed, which seemed to be a trend in November, and using Bungee cords was obviously a trend all last winter. This was all nice and good, but what really blew us away was Process Film’s Shot in the Dark teaser:

(Well, the Commotion full movie was also pretty, pretty good. Watch at least Keegan’s, Harrison’s and Ted’s parts!) Next thing we knew Jeremy Thompson and Tim Humphreys stopped by our office, and we forced them to play a game of Knowledge. Pat Moore captured Shaun White’s best pipe run ever, the Frontline Rail Jam went down in Sweden (and marked the first European comp of the season), Erin Comstock presented herself as a gnarly rider in the Roxy Refreshments episode 1, Seth Huot presented himself even gnarlier in his full Cheers part, and the Helgason’s Cha Dang! immediately becomes a modern classic. But after seeing all those clips we decided it was time we did something on our own and sent our new filmer Will to Saas-Fee:

Then we learnt that the Air&Style will return to Munich, and that the Gothenburg Rail Battle was also quite a success. Mario Käppeli joined the ranks of online video part publishers, and Mikey LeBlanc those of the chosen few that dare to make a drop like this. Finally Torstein Horgmo kicked his wicked webisodes off with his take on tall tees, Mammoth saw 7ft of snow, and Mac Spedale went nuts in his Commotion remix.

And that was November’s haps and we’re nearly hitting the present day. In fact, writing this before Christmas as we are, we’re wondering how the hell we’ll get round the Space-Time continuum to figure out what happens at the end of December. All will be revealed tomorrow!

Today is December 27th, usually the worst day of the year, as everyone is pretty messed up from the days before. Also, it is the perfect day to awkwardly return all those unwanted Xmas gifts. However, you might have escaped it all, travelled to the mountains, and sit in a chalet after an epic day of riding freshies. But then, why would you read this? Before it gets more complicated read on to find out what was going on back in September (aka the ‘full movie month’)! Voilà, it’s yet another month of This Year in Snowboarding!

September

First of all, we continued our Most Influential Riders of the 00s list with White, Jones & Dakides, de Marchi, Rüf and Maas, and Rice, Müller and Clark. People started flocking to the glacier resorts, just like Greenshields, König and Klocker. Or they went to Turkey like the Ride crew. What are you saying? You have a headache and can’t concentrate on my writing? What the hell, here’s the full bHappy flick ‘Happy Thoughts’! (See you in 2o minutes…)

A little late we received the sick Treats teaser and an interesting edit of the ‘Marco’s Mansion‘ project in Sölden, featuring Mr. Smolla and a bunch of other Nike 6.0 riders. The Norwegian Government finally approved the location for the World Shred Championships in 2012, … and Absinthe kicked off their new season of Flipside episodes. Also, Flow Snowboards dropped their Witness the Sickness full movie, and Relentless their second episode of Lives of the Artists. Danny Larsen faces Stian Solberg in yet another Knowledge battle. Two final HCSC clips marked the end of the summer shred edit frenzy. The Nitro team flick was presented in a slick teaser, but, really, the Ducksjen teaser is still a pleasure to watch:

The AK-based Bear Cubs full movie kept us off work for a while (and featured Gus Engle and Chris Brewster, among others), and so did the Icecoast flick Numskull, we spent two quality minutes with Dan Brisse and JP Solberg, and we almost creamed our pants when we saw this 9191 sneak peek and the Cheers trailer. Hot Dawgz & Hand Rails was the first competition of the season. And we visited Basti, the Pirates‘ captain, at home. And when our chief editor walked past me while I was watching the Gremlinz teaser, it should change his outlook on snowboarding for good (more about this in his myline in our print mag #120):

Where to go from here? Well, we convinced our homie Jon Weaver to contribute to a bi-weekly column called Gossip from the Good Life. Then we went to the Swiss boozefest called freestyle.ch. Peetu Piiroinen was flashing his brand new Nike 6.0 gear, and fellow team rider Gjermund Braaten won the event. Of course we posted the highlights video. At around that time Burton launched their successful theliftline.tv site, and we countered this effort with our terribly successful Change of Scenery weekly wallpapers. Isenseven, however, took us to California in this short but classy edit:

September was a month of sad news, too, as Torgeir Berre sustained a serious back injury while filming in New Zealand, and the Euro Roxy Chicken Jam got cancelled. And we closed the month with a nice chat between Joni Malmi and Niki Korpela on back in the days vs now.

Now pop that aspirin, go back to bed early, and check back tomorrow for a light-hearted review of October’s haps!

2010 has been quite a year. From the brain bending rise in riding level across the board, to a contest season that saw Peetu claim his second TTR title and Shaun his second Olympic gold, to Torstein boldly going where no man has been before with the triple, a whole bunch of awesome went down in snowboarding over the last 12 months and so as 2010 approaches its final curtain call we’ll be recapping the highlights of each month. Starting with January. Today. Enough waffle, here we go…

JANUARY

With the last part of 2009 being dominated by the insane level of progression that was sweeping the sport, the year kicked off with a nightmare dose of reality check as snowboarding was stunned by the news that Kevin Pearce sustained a severe traumatic brain injury practicing double corks on New Year’s Eve. Inevitably, being an Olympic year, there was some bullshit banter from mainstream dullards like Christine Brennan, but the outpouring of goodwill from the shred community was representative of how highly KP is respected as a person and a rider. Thankfully despite some sketchy times he is making smooth progress in his rehabilitation, as this recent video shows…

Early Jan was also when another teaser for the at-the-time mysterious Jeremy Jones 2-year project, Deeper, hit the pipes. Warm up runs? Yeah right. Of course, now we all know it was a whole bunch of awesome as it came free with Onboard 117. We caught up with Antti Autti as he was getting back on it from injury, and in contest land it’s game on in Davos as the O’Neill Evolution gets the TTR underway for the new year. Marko Grilc has the bookies slashing his odds for the Tour title as he follows up his December Air&Style win with 1st in the Slopestyle. Ursina Haller takes the women’s pipe, and it’s eyes on the double corks in the men’s pipe, with Iouri Podladtchikov coming out on top.

Despite Ursina Haller’s Evolution pipe win, the Women’s TTR is all about young Finnish rookie Enni Rukajärvi as she nets another 6-Star win by continuing her stomp fest to take the Roxy Chicken Jam Europe title. Few had heard of her till she won the 2009 Horsefeathers Pleasure Jam, and yet here she was, sat atop the pile of women’s finest snowboarders. What a mental image that is.

After two banging teasers, the elusive Norwegian Ducksjen crew releases their movie in its entirety and we’re pumped at what kids are churning out of their MacBooks these days. Ahead of the looming Olympic Games, Onboard (being a well-respected international publication and therefore on some spammy PR database that regular brands only look at once every 4 years) receives the first random press release with Olympic association, and we lap it up.

The BEO rolls in to Laax, and by the time it rolls out it’s all change in the Men’s TTR tour. Having nabbed 3rd in Slopestyle & Pipe at the Evolution, Peetu Piiroinen wins his first ever 6-Star event, taking 1st in the BEO Slopestyle, and then bags his second by winning the pipe too. The women’s tour is still all about Enni as she nails first in the Slopestyle, with Paulina Ligocka taking the pipe crown.

Alas, January brings yet more bad news as we get word that Danny Davis injured himself badly falling off a snowmobile after some late-night revalrie following shortly after he put down one of the best pipe runs of all time. Head Snowboards kick off the first of what would prove to be a pretty awesome season of webisodes by following Fredrik Evensen from the Air&Style to Korea, and we get inside Markus Keller‘s head for a lap in the Laax pipe. We were gonna link to it, but just watched it again and it’s so rad we’ve taken the executive decision to post it here. So, enjoy…

January winding down meant that the Olympics was on many people’s lips, and the US announced their team of badly dressed ambassadors, and to counter all that contest guff about medals and that, Standard Films release Halldor Helgason‘s sterling full part from Black Winter, which everyone who likes snowboarding should take some time out and watch now. That’s your cue to press play below then…

Media companies circle jerk themselves into a frenzy of new media opportunities as Lord Jobs drops the iPad on the world, and we at Onboard are no different so we show off our new touch-sensitive, zoom-friendly ‘magazine’. And to finish off January 2010 in style, Snoop Dogg gets the Neff hookup.

So that was January in a not-insignificantly sized nutshell. What were February’s highlights? Check back tomorrow for another Brandy-fuelled stroll down memory lane…

The obstacle was actually made for filming works of “Die Bergwacht” by German TV (ARD/ZDF). However, after the filming was over the QParks team prepared the obstacle a bit and made it ready to ride.

„All the riders pushed it hard and had a lot of fun. Wallrides, gap jumps, waterslides, gap to box transfers and all at once, it was just really cool to shoot. One of the funniest sessions in a long time for sure“ says Simon van Hal, who shot the pictures…

Click here to find some awesome pics…

Xaver Hoffman runs through the big hitters.

Check out Nitro’s team rider Xaver Hoffmann talking you through some of their highlight products for the 2010/2011 winter season.

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Where: Brighton, Utah, USA

In the true tradition of the Nikita Chickita, that is combing girls, shredding and fun in the best possible way, the US leg of the event went down in Brighton, Utah last weekend.

Slightly different from the European events, this one held two contests divided into the categories Amateurs and Pros, to give all Chickitas a chance to show what they got and compete against equals. In the end it turned out a bit different than expected with one girl winning both categories – being an amateur! Make sure you stay on the watch for Miss Jessica Jensen and her super clean back 5s. With only 17 years at the moment she is very sure to impress us even further in the future…

Other riders making an impression were Nikita Team rider and NC USA regular Colleen Quigley, who took 3^rd again in the PROs category, and Paige Rainear getting tech on the rails with front board back one’s and gnarly nollie back tails.

Results

Winner AMs:

1^st Place – Jessica Jensen, Idaho

2^nd Place – Midori Oatari, Japan

3^rd Place – Ranae Palma, Massachusetts

Winner Pros:

1^st Place – Jessica Jensen, Idaho

2^nd Place – Lynn Neill, Utah

3^rd Place – Colleen Quigley, Massachusetts

nikitaclothing.com

Stellar list of riders set to face off in the new Slopestyle format.

Postponing the Oakley Arctic Challenge due to inadequate snow conditions in December did not have a negative impact on the riders’ list. Joining this year’s slopestyle dominator and U.S. Winter X-Games gold medal winner Eero Ettala, will be Ståle Sandbech – Oakley’s 16 year old super talent – who just came back from Vancouver . Also confirmed to compete from 5th – 7th March in Oslo are top riders Niki Korpela, Torstein Horgmo and Mikkel Bang.

Starting out as a small pilot project back in 1999, the Oakley Arctic Challenge is now established as one of the greatest snowboard events in the world. It is the only TTR 6 star event owned by a professional rider. 10 years after the first riders where invited to Norway by Terje Haakonsen, “TAC” still experiments with formats, arenas, judging systems and TV production in an everlasting search for perfection. Accepting no compromise throughout his whole career, Terje still makes life hard for his crew by pushing the limits for possibilities in a snowboard event.

With the re-introduction of slopestyle, “TAC” wanted to take the variation score a step further. Slopestyle contains per definition more variation than a quarterpipe as there are multiple obstacles in one run and rails, kickers, hips and corners varies in shaping. So the Oakley Arctic Challenge looked in another direction. The ambition was to create something progressive and new, to stay true to the sport and be fair to the riders – and create something exciting and easy-to-grasp for the fans. By judging every obstacle and displaying each score in every riders run, there is no hiding for the judges. Everything is out in the open, giving rider’s instant feedback on their performance.

Check the complete Rider list, Details on the “green” Event and more on www.t-a-c.no

Jamie Nicholls crosses the river.

The fourth edition of Burn River Jump has come to a close with Yale Cousino (USA) winning the super final for the third time at the Spoel River in Livigno, Italy.

The crowd went nuts for Yale Cousino (USA) who bagged his third win in Livigno at the 5star Burn River Jump. Gjermund Braaten (NOR) took second place and Marc McMorris (CAN) third.

After seeing great conditions for the first two days, the weather took a turn for the worse with strong wind and frigid temps making for challenging riding during the qualifications of this afternoon.

Then the weather changed again and the super final took place with perfect weather condition in a sick slopestyle course set up downtown by Doors Snowpark Structures: a 19-metre straight jump and a huge River Jump gap of 12 meters ending in the jib arena full of Burn cans, stairs, butter boxes and 1 wall ride at the end.

Yale Cusino’s winning run featured backside 1260 on the straight jump, cab 540 on the Spoel River gap and backside 270 on the Burn can. He also won the “Best Jibber by Burn” thanks to the backside 270 on the can of his winning run.

On the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour, Gjermund Braaten, who came second today, made a huge jump into third place on the world ranking list. “This is a dream come true to me”, he says after the prize giving. Janne Korpi now sits in World No. 5 while Eric Willett entered the Top 10. The Burn River Jump is a 5Star event on the Tour and gives out 850 TTR ranking points to the winner.

If you did not make it to get in Livigno be sure to watch it on www.riverjump.it

Podium

RIVER JUMP FINAL RESULTS

1 Cousino Yale USA Burton 550,0
2 Braaten Gjermund NOR Nike 6.0, Nitro, Oakley, DBN Nor, Swag 542,0
3 McMorris Mark CAN O’neill, Class 5 snowboards, The Source 546,0
4 Willett Eric USA O’neill, Omatic, Vans, Smith, Breckenridge resort, Celtek, Boa, Flux 535,0
5 Tonteri Roope FIN Burton, Anon, Red, Etnies, Onboardtv 485,0
6 Nicholls Jamie GBR Redbull, Quiksilver, Nike 6.0, Salomon 475,0
7 Kinnunen Matti FIN Battery, Meatfly, Amplid, Aitikin, Syotekeskus 469,0
8 Korpi Janne FIN Kissmark, O’neill, Smith, Level, Ogio, Vans 460,0

[Video courtesy of Eero Ettala's website. Party must have been a good 'un, boys.]

Peetu Piiroinen adds another hunk of metal to his bulging trophy sack.

The contest schedule is rolling on as riders found themselves in Sapporo, Japan for the Toyota Big Air over the weekend. Guys like Peetu, Markku Koski, and Markus Keller had sacked off the chance of VIP seats at the ice blading in Vancouver and joined up with those of a more snowboard inclination for a chance to throw down in front of an always amped Japanese crowd.

There were five Finns in the 16 starting spots and when things had wrapped up, with Peetu Piiroinen’s backside 1080 late cork judged to be just a smidgin more impressive than Eero Ettala’s (by a mere 7 points, no less), there were four of those five in the top five. Belgian rookie Seppe Smits was the man to gatecrash the sauna party throwing down into fourth behind Piiroinen, Ettala and Antti Autti, but knocking out Koski in the process, however Ettala’s bang was too much for the flatlander.

Here’s the results breakdown: