Get ready for the 2013 European Peanut Butter and Rail Jam Championships on the Saturday 30th March, in Avoriaz, France!

The qualified riders from all around Europe in the four gang categories (15 and under, 16 and over, Girls, and Open) will brawl for the 8000€ prize money plus the 500€ Electric “Gooeyest move” prize.
On top of the mad rides and good times, there will be as always giveaways for all and some extra prizes from Volcom, Electric and Nitro!

Qualified riders only to compete in this event, but supporters and spectators are welcome!

For complete PBRJ tour info, video, photos, results:
pbrj.volcomeurope.com

SCHEDULE

Saturday, March 30:

10h: Riders check-in at the Piste Dromonts (center village in front of the tourism office)
12h00-15h00: Free BBQ
11h30: Qualification heats, live webcast
15h15: Finals, live webcast
16h15: Prize ceremony, live webcast
17h00: Après Ski in Avoriaz
21h-Late: After party in The Cavern, Morzine

Watch the teaser here. This year the event will be broadcasted live at this address.

Use the GO-SHRED platform to save gas money. Log onto www.go-shred.com to share or find a ride to the Euro PBRJ Championships.The Peanut Butter and Rail Jam is Volcom’s amateur snowboard contest series. The goal of the series is to give something back to the kids. (Beware of copies out there, this is the original!) Deviating from the established way of running snowboard contests, we came up with a fresh format. Instead of having three rails in a row, we put them side-by-side to create a rail zone. This boosts the energy level and fun nature of the contest because everyone is together, riding, hiking, and watching in a big group.

There are 4 divisions: Girls, 15 & under, 16 & over and Open. Winners from every division go home with loads of prizes while the Open division winners receive prizes as well as cold hard cash. The contest runs in a jam format so there are no scheduled runs. You can hit each of the rails as many times as you want during your 20-minute heat. Judges only score tricks you land, so you don’t need to worry about falling. The event is absolutely free to enter, on a first come first served basis, and boasts tons of free prizes, free drinks, free food and Peanut Butter & Jam sandwiches! Also, Everyone who enters walks away with some prizes!

Per Loken, Handplant, Avoriaz, France © Matt Georges.

For this new Behind the Shot, we welcome for the second time our beloved senior photographer Matt Georges, who’s not only good at taking epic photos, but also pretty handy at explaining how the magic works – to a certain extend, a piece of mystery and randomness is always good innit!

Per LOKEN – Handplant – Avoriaz, France

Aperture: f/3,2
Speed: 1/160th
ISO: 320
Camera: CANON EOS 5D MARKII
Lens: Fisheye CANON 15mm

3 Flashes connected with Pocket Wizards Radioslave

When shooting I often think about how it could work well as a spread in a magazine.

THE TECH

When shooting I often think about how it could work well as a spread in a magazine. I really enjoy shooting pipe cause there are lots of lines and symmetry to play with and it’s even better when it’s puking snow.
To make this shot I have used 3 flashes: One down the pipe to light both walls and snowflakes in the foreground, one on the top left to light the rider, the right wall and also more snowflakes in the air, and the last one close to rider to light him up from the lower left side. I have over-exposed the pipe because I wanted to have a monochrome style image and not much details in both snow walls.

THE CONTEXT

We were shooting for the Rip Curl movie few years ago and planned to do a night pipe session with tons of lights, few generators and a pretty big crew. Unfortunately it started puking snow like crazy and in less than half an hour we got 10cm in the pipe and couldn’t do anything due to speed issues. The session was already pretty much over before it even started and we had to re-pack everything and wait for ages in the snowstorm. Luckily for me, Per was keen to do few handplants so we set it all up quickly and get the shots in few minutes. When shooting a handplant it’s absolutely necessary that the hand has to be on the coping of the transition, but as Per is really good at that, it only took couple of tries before heading to some warmer environment.

Check out Matt’s website.

Find the previous Behind The Shot here, and especially Matt’s first explanation here.

Photo: Matt Georges

Jazz up your machine by downloading this free desktop wallpaper of OG French boss Nico Droz. Links to a couple different screen resolutions are below…

If anyone’s name is synonymous with the resort of Avoriaz it’s Droz’s, and the man knows the spots there like few others. On a Videograss trip there, the crew relied on his local knowledge to secure the goods and, predictably, they scored. But being a sly old dog Nico managed to snag a couple of keepers for himself, too…

You know the drill – click the resolution you need below, “save as” and set it to your desktop. Bang!

1920 x 1080

1024 x 768

The 2012 Volcom Stone European PEANUT BUTTER AND RAIL JAM Championships was once again a blast. It went down on a sunny day at the bottom of La Chapelle snowpark in the now notorious fishing town of AVORIAZ, France.
With more than 140 riders gathering from all around Europe, from Greece to Norway and Spain to Latvia, the day was full of action, and the gnar/tech setup proposed by the shapers got assaulted and conquered.

Anglers in the four divisions didn’t disappoint and the energy of the jams stimulated everyone to reach new levels. The 15 and under manned up and set the standard level for the day, the 16 and under battled fiercely with style, the Girls showed they ride way better than you and with class and the Open division was the icing on the cake with a superfinal that kept everyone jaws down.
We won’t go through all the action that went on, check out the photos and video to get a better idea. The Finnish riders showed once again they master the metal pieces, Switzerland was also well represented so as Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

At the bottom of the setup, everyone watched the action while Volcom’s Foggy Bottoms Tavern was serving free food and drinks all day. The fish market was giving free stuff until the horn of the last jam blew to come back to port.

Everyone regrouped then at the Stone harbor to crown the 2012 European PBRJ Champions. 12000€ in prize money got dispatched as well as tons of prizes and products from VOLCOM, ELECTRIC, NITRO, BANSHEE BUNGEE, and Seventyone percent. The top 5 riders of each division couldn’t walk away without help to carry all the stuff they won.
The day ended with a free Après-ski at the Changabang in Avoriaz. Thanks to BURN and the ultimate warriors finished the night at the Cavern Bar in Morzine.

And, hot off the press, here’s the latest WhatWeWantFilms ep that’s just now squeezed itself through the internet’s colon of awesome.

Here’s how they break the episode down…

Early January, it’s been snowing pretty much every day so we headed to Avoriaz to shoot some pillows in the forest. The crew consisted of Le Serge, Tyler, Coincoin, Lil Jo Baisamy (new aka: BoB) and Vannessa photoging.

Having now put aside the banger shots here is a little edit of what was left…

The first stop of the Burton Park Jam Tour is on this weekend! In partnership with Red Bull and supported by MINI, this first stop will take place on the 14^th of January in Avoriaz, France, in a one-day Slopestyle Jam Session format.  Being a 2 Star TTR event, it will allow riders to earn points for the TTR World Tour and the WSF World Rookie Rank.

All amateur riders under 18 can register through Burton Rider Service, info@burtonparkjamtour.com or 00800 287 866 13 (toll free), or directly in Avoriaz during the training session on the 13^th of January. Registered riders will be divided into two groups, Girls & Boys (14 years and younger) and Women & Men.

The 15,00 € registration fee will include the lift-card for the day and the official Burton Park Jam BBQ.

Event Schedule:

Training Day: Friday, 13th January 2012 

Registration Opening: 12:00

Slopestyle Training Session: 13:00 – 15:00

Registration Closing: 18:00

Contest Day: Saturday, 14th January 2012 

Riders Meeting: 08:30 – 09:00

Qualification Session 1: 09:30 – 10:45

Qualification Session 2: 11:30 – 12:45

Finals: 13:30 – 14:30

Prize Giving and Farewell: 15:00

https://www.facebook.com/BurtonEurope?sk=app_4949752878

We had our filmer hook up with Billy last week in Avoriaz to take advantage of the slush-filled funtimes, but we weren’t expecting them to come back with this. Alongside travel bud Andy Nudds (whose online part we just posted), Morgan’s been quietly going about his business, honing his skills to the point that now it’s looking like he can hold his own with the Euro elite.

And it showed at the recent Ride and Seek pro contest at Snowbombing, where he was unlucky not to take the top spot with his back 9 and deeeep double backie just edged out by Peter König’s double front and back 9. We also found out it’s wise not to wind him up after the vodka’s taken hold. Our filmer’s bloody nose would agree.

Have to say, while the back 10 double, double back 180 and the rest of his techness are awesome, it’s the early nose/tail grab hit that had us bugging out most. He even holds the grab on the landing. What?

Watch it, homies.

As you’ll know, Analog ran a pretty darn awesome contest this winter – Design Unlikely Features. The deal was that Joe Public were offered up the chance to design the park obstacle of their dreams, with whichever one the Analog crew deemed to be the best being made up in real life to be shredded the hell out of in Avoriaz.

After some sick entries, Sylvain Vidal’s skate-inspired stairset got the nod and on March 19 it was unveiled in the Avoriaz park for an am session/throwdown/brodown with plenty of good times to be had and free shit to be nabbed. If words an pictures are your thing, you can check the full report and shots from the DUF that we posted earlier.

Even the weather couldn’t put a dampener on the fun as a good crew of locals rocked up to throw their carcasses off Sylvain’s creation.

Our filmer, Lord William Nangle, was on point to document what went down. Check it out.

Just a quick reminder that the European edition of Analog’s Design Unlikely Features contest will be going off this Saturday in Avoriaz, and that if you’re in the hood you should head there to shred as it’s a FREE am contest with a bunch of goods to be won!

Regular readers of this website will know that Analog wrapped up their Design Unlikely Features contest a month or so back, with Sylvain Vidal’s stairset setup selected by the judging panel as the one that would be made in real life and sessioned the hell out of at the DUF contest on March 19. Check the info…

If you’re looking at Sylvain’s setup thinking, “Dang. would be fun to hit that up!” then you’re in luck. On March 19 it’s gonna be dropped into Avoriaz’s Snowpark de la Chapelle where Analog will hold a free amateur jib contest. If you’re in the area and want a pop, you gotta sign up at 09.30 and not only will you be able to send it on the stairset, there’s plenty of stuff to be won and a BBQ to feed your stoke. There’s also going to be a demo from Analog’s Euro team – Wojtek Pawlusiak, Ludwig Leijkner, Neils Shack and Kike Carcelen – that’ll get you pumped, and when all’s said and done there is, of course, an after party at The Place, kicking off at 22.00.

If you’re in the hood, swing by to be a part of this bad boy.