Last week, yours truly Onboard Magazine travelled to the Austrian valley of Montafon for an all-new event concept called Nike Snake & Hammers. Nike and the Montafon had conjured up a banked slalom cum slopestyle course that was open to everyone who felt like a few fast turns, slow spins, and slushy transitions. The aim was to snake down course as fast as possible while dropping their best „hammers“ along the way. The course was a combination of numerous turns and banks, the park included a stairset, side by side kicker setup, big bowl, a gap through a snow tunnel to a straight rail, a creative halfpipe and a small hip. In our humble opinion, it was the laid-back park design that made the event stand out, as punters, media, and pros alike were eager to get their edges dug into the banked turns and snake pipe walls.

Stephan Maurer on course! Photo: Cyril Müller

Despite the challenging weather on the first three days (snowfalls and high fog) the vibe was outstanding, as the course was as inviting and fun to ride as it gets. On the day of the finals the sun came out, many pros and legends alike turned up and made for an unforgettable day on the mountain. Nike pros like Peetu Piiroinen, Jamie Nicholls, Kevin Backström and Spencer O’Brien were joined by an illustre crew of riders like David Bertschinger Karg, Enzo Nilo, Stephan Maurer, Nico Droz, David Benedek and Steve Gruber.

Peetu Piiroinen is attracted to big kickers. Phto: Cyril Müller

When the judging was complete on the day of the finals, Christian Haller (SUI) showed he had the best mix of balance, speed and tricks winning him a share of the $10,000 prize purse. With a race time of 01:25,10, frontside lipslide on the gap downrail, frontside 720 tailgrab off the kicker and many other tricks he claimed a deserved win. Spencer O’Brien won the women’s contest by snaking down the course with her well documented power and style with the best hammer award going to Jamie Nicholls who threw a perfectly stomped backside 1080 off the kicker.

Snake & Hammers winner Christian Haller coming out of the tunnel of doom. Photo: Cyril Müller

MEN
1. Christian Haller / SUI 2. Stephan Maurer / SUI 3. Peetu Piiroinen / FIN

WOMEN
1. Spencer O’Brien / CAN 2. Nicola Thost / GER 3. Aline Bock / GER

BEST HAMMER: Jamie Nicholls / ENG

Further information about the contest and the complete ranking are published on www.snakeandhammers.com.

A bird’s eye view of the park. Photo: Cyril Müller

The fourth part of True Color Films’ latest opus sees the crew leave the crowd behind and strike out for some solitude on their splitboards. The result? Pow, pow and more pow.

Riders: Christoph Weber, Lisa Filzmoser, Nicholas Wolken, Stephan Maurer, René Schnöller, Flo Thaler and Alvaro Vogel.

Check out the facts:

Movie premiere at Leokino, Anichstrasse 36

Doors open at 8:30 P.M.

Movie starts at 9:30 P.M.

Entrance 6 €

After party at Studio 21, Karmelitergasse 21 with DJ JUWEE – WAX WRECKAZ

Doors open 10 P.M.

Entrance with film ticket : 2 €

Without film ticket: 3 €

Have yourselves a gander at the teaser for all-Euro film crew True Color Films latest project, Day By Day. Maurer on that Fish… ooof!

The new teaser for True Color Films just dropped and it’s looking good. In one word? Powder. Featuring the riding of Stephan Maurer, Nicholas Wolken, Thomas Feuerstein, Rene Schnöller, Lisa Filzmoser, Christoph Weber and Alvaro Vogel the movie’s set to drop in autumn, so keep a look out for more news closer to the time.

Zombies and snowboarding. Can it get any better?

Hello, good afternoon and welcome to another installment of This Week in Snowboarding. There’s nothing that can’t wait till Monday, so spend the rest of your day re-living the hottest, weirdest, most chin-stroking stuff that went down in the Shredosphere over the last 7 days.

Saturday

Roope Tonteri should be proclaimed King of the Groms for life as he wins yet another Rookie event, while when cruising downtown the Helgasons get shat on – make sure you scroll down for the epic spam post. Well, we think it’s spam, but maybe Halldor’s been researching how to enlarge the size of his finger cock. Friday Stateside is pretty much Saturday over here, so that’s when we were tapped on the shoulder and told the TWS Team Shootout is coming and, though it was posted a way back, it was also Saturday that we found out not only has some kid been biting Torstein’s triple steeze, he’s used his tune, too.

Sunday

Bonfire’s Pipe-to-Pipe goes down at Windells and the YoBeaters bring it with shots and slams while the AngrySnowboarder hits rewind to drop Amp on our internets. It’s winter in Kangaroo Country and the Cattleman’s Jam wraps up in Mt Buller, and though the weather was British in its shitness, it didn’t stop the bangs going down as you can see from the photos and video. Spaziba unearth this gem of a sponsor me tape from back in the day. DANIMAL! And Terje finally gets his hands on the sport’s biggest prize.

Snowboarding: selling shit since day one.

Monday

Everyone knows skateboarders are the real duders so we tend to ignore it so snowboarding doesn’t look bad, but the tenuous link that allows us to show this solid bowl riding is it went down at the Pipe-to-Pipe. Some snowboarders are good on the useless wooden toy, like Hampus Mosesson who hit up the weirdest skatepark ever. Jordan Mendenhall‘s also knows his skateboarding onions, but it’s just guitar and shredding in this Day in the Life. It’s tune time on the interpipes as Trevor Andrew talks music and Snowboard Mag bring you some free ditties, and an awesomely bad song is used in this ad which shows companies using snowboarding to sell any old shit is nothing new. (Thanks, Spaziba, but the one on your site wasn’t working.) Bringing it back to actual snowboarding, the British Snow Tour announce the dates for their Artificial and Indoor Championships.

Tuesday

After seriously injuring himself downhill biking, shred pioneer Mike Jacoby looks to be making good progress in his recovery. Get Well Soon! Some guys make Vegas look like Covent Garden circa 95, though without Guch, Jamie Lynn et al and the guys at KnifeShow turn their Awesome-ometer to 11 as they bring Super Mario World to summer camp. Talking of summer camp, the Forum Team had fun at theirs in Les 2 Alpes (stay tuned for the video, dropping soon) as did the Head Snowboards guys when they hit up Folgefonna – check out their über-slick webisode from the trip.

Nitro rocked out in 2 Alpes.

Wednesday

In the US, it’s all-out war as the Angry Snowboarder takes offense at Tyrant’s sales banter (the post that kicked it all off is here), while down under things are warming up for the NZ Open. Like Ziggy, it seems that Chanelle Sladics also plays guitar, and Les 2 Alpes is SO hot right now as two edits come in on the same day – this one with the Nitro crew, and this one of Luka Jeromel at Demonium’s camp. At what they like to refer to as the “Sports world’s Oscars” – the ESPYs – Shaun White and Torah Bright are rewarded for being ‘extreme’. And if snowboarding in the summer bores you and you’re off surfing, be careful.

Thursday

Snowboarding’s great and that, but Extreme Sledging? Way awesome! Also awesome is how despite a total lack of snow, the Falls Creek crew in Oz are making it happen. Benedek and Weber show you what you need to do to turn your old deck into a splitboard, the Helgasons have a sad fan and you can download some of Fredi Kalbermatten’s tunes. And there’s an Airbag at Hemel tomorrow should you want to work on your triples. Like Ziggy and Chanelle, Eddie Wall also plays guitar.

Friday

Uh oh. Travis Rice talks about his new movie Flight, NZ, AK and stuff while looking worryingly like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Brothers Factory bring it with this rather dark teaser for their film, Next Level. It’s like a serial killer shot a jib flick. Less dark but still a teaser is this new one for Rip Curl’s Welcome Home Vol. II, as is this from Think Thank. Rome’s Team Shootout offering hits the airwaves and Kevin Jones (anyone else pumped to see what he’s got in Standard’s new movie?) chews the fat with photog Ian Ruhter. And finally we feel sorry for Friday as its haps are always a little glossed over in our rush to get this out before beer o’clock. Sorry, Friday.

Oi! Got any Scooby Snacks?

That’s your lot for this week. Bon weekend, bitches!

Watch David Benedek & Christoph Weber-Thoresen guide you through converting an old board into a splitboard.

With the Onboard Product Guide set to drop in a couple of weeks, which’ll might very well have you jonesing to max out the credit card on a new weapon, here’s a good way for you to put that old board to use and give yourself a project over the long summer nights too. David and Christoph sent us this short vid showing how they made themselves a splitboard, so we hit up David with a couple more questions about the process. Watch, learn, chop…

Onboard: So why should we chop a perfectly good board in half?

David Benedek: Haha, yeah. That’s a good question. I guess you might not want to chop your board in half if it’s the only one you have. On the other hand if done right it should hold up pretty good, at least mine did so far.
I’ve got so say I am not that much of an outdoor/hiking-type person so splitboarding didn’t appeal to me right away, I just kind of tagged along with everyone else cutting theirs. But once I did go out I found it to be an incredibly positive change from the crappy apres-ski touristy disco-show that most European resorts feel like. Hiking on splits is far easier than on snowshoes, and there’s obviously no extra weight to carry on the way down.

OB: How did you find yours rode?

DB: On the very first day I thought my board might have gotten a bit softer, which would make sense. But a few days in we hit a small jump and I don’t think I really felt a difference. I am not so sure if self-made splitboards are durable enough to sustain 130ft park booters but they are totally fine for everything else. And with the new Spark bindings that slide on directly on the Voilé plate you’re just as low on the board as you are with a regular binding.

OB: How much does the Voilé system you used cost?

DB: A full DIY kit is about 160 USD but you don’t really need all the Voilé insert plate so maybe there’s a way to deduct those from the price since you definitely want to go with a Spark baseplate that slides onto the Voilé plate. This way you can also just use your regular highback and buckles on the Spark binding. So I recommend people to buy the a DIY Voilé kit and then the baseplate and crampons from Spark RND, which is another 200 USD. So all in all it’s a bit pricey considering you still need to get skins and put in a day of work to cut the board and glue all the pieces. Luckily Christoph [Weber-Thoresen] has been kind enough to do most of this for both our boards.

OB: What’s the hardest part of the process? Are there major pitfalls people should be aware of if they try this?

DB: I’d say getting the inserts lined up perfectly is probably the most work. Even if you screw up the sawing part the skis will fit somehow. It’s not rocket science but paying a little more attention to aligning everything right will pay off in the end. And I guess you should make sure your inserts and screws for all the pieces are rock solid. I saw Fredrik [Evensen] rip both his bindings off his board. As we said in the video, we have no friggin idea on how to do this right and it still worked and both our boards held up and hold up fine after probably 15 days on snow.

Our French Ed Youri fired in this short report of what’s been going down on a crazy set-up in Tourmalet.

Christoph Weber. Back 180.

The Ho5 crew have constructed a pretty creative set up here in the Tourmalet area: no less than 9 lines to get rad off for the crew of riders, including these dudes: Jakob Wilhelmson, Chris Sörman, Markus Keller, Marco Smolla, Victor De Le Rue, Knut Eliassen, Kalle Ohlson, Marc Swoboda, and Christoph Weber. Plus a back on form Gerome ‘Coin Coin’ Mathieu, who opened up the big jump today (Thursday) leaving all the others a little unsure as to what was doable or not on the ‘horseshoe’ like main kicker.

Victor De Le Rue. Front 3.

Marc Swoboda.

And then the action went down. I have to say, the image of the Frenchies taking it easy compared to the Scandis is long gone. At this session it seemed pretty much the other way round, with an over-motivated Victor De Le Rrue and Coin Coin ripping on main kicker (respectively countless sick rodeos from Victor, and swBS 7 and 10s from Coin Coin), Franck Moissonnier – Nike 6.0 host and team manager! – and local new comer Geoffrey Marcou.

Kalle Ohlson. Frontside 3.

Front 5 from Coin Coin.

Everyone had a pop under watchful lenses of the Pirates filming crew, except for Keller who took a pretty hard slam on the first day decided to save his strength for that Friday that is supposed to be the best day of the week. Another local, Dimitri Biau, stayed late at the spot to kill the hip and bag up some extra shots.

Jacob Wilhelmson.

Frontside air from Francky Moissonnier.

Special props also to Chris Weber, who dominated the shark tail with some old school backside air flavour… It was then time to bag up and take the ride back up behind the snowmobiles, to La Mongie. Tomorow (Friday) is announced as the best day of the week, and some of those riders are definately decided to kill the spot once and for all…

Swoboda, Keller and Smolla.

The crew.

The battle is still on.

Now that the Oxbow Back To Powder 2010 is wrapped up and we have the videos of the jazz, here’s what went down over the five days  in Areches-Beaufort, France.

The idea of Oxbow’s Back To Powder event is a straightforward one, albeit with the übermotivational prize of a trip to Hawaii at stake. Two of Oxbow’s premier riders, Christoph Weber and skier Lolo Favre, were allowed to invite six riders each to head to the small but epic terrain of Areches-Beaufort in France to battle it out on the steeps, put it down on backcountry kickers and get their jib on in the wood zone. With a fresh dump just before the event began and renowned shaping crew hO5 in charge of features, it was bound to be legit.

For the snowboarders, Weber had recruited German buddy and snowboard innovator David Benedek, Norwegian styler Fredrik Evensen, and Frenchies David Livet, Alicia Bonnaud, Thomas Delfino and Valerian Ducourtil. Each night the crew would meet to discuss forecasts, safety and to review the day’s footage with two guys to be awarded with ‘Lines of the Day’. Here’s the haps in words and video, and a gallery of shots at the bottom…

Day 1

More Snowboarding >>

Day 1 was Freeride day with all the riders heading up to Les Tetes Rouges (which sounds suspiciously like a Frenchie nickname for the English) to rip the smoothest lines they could and mix in some creativity on the ride down. Unfortunately the afternoon’s plan of hitting the backcountry kickers had to be postponed as the big wedges were buried by the recent snowfall but a team effort saw them dug out in, well not quite no time but they were ready to be sessioned later in the week.

Day 2

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The second day saw the riders take it to the jibs with some feeling the effects of a few too many Genepis from the night before. There’s no better way to blow away the cobwebs than getting the shred on, though, so before long everyone was taking on the wood zone with Fredrik Evensen and Valerian Ducourtil standing out.

Day 3

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The third day was set aside for the highly anticipated Perfect Jump day. The 21-metre rounded shaped tabletop built by hO5 didn’t seem to cause many problems to David Livet and Fredrik Evensen, despite the long airtime and the high speed required on the in-run. Thanks to the soft landing created by the perfect shape of the jump, some solid riding went down.

Day 4

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Day 4 involved a short hike in the beautiful surroundings of Areches. When they got to the drop in zone, riders faces were split into grins that would have the Cheshire cat envious: the riding area had 6 kickers in a row on the same backountry slope, radness. An epic end to a killer week of rider-focussed competition and fun.

Day 5

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The last day was the rider’s vote day, to determine who ripped the hardest. And coming out top was…. Fredrik Evensen who got voted by his peers as the standout rider of the contest and will accompany skier Arnaud Rougier to a trip to Hawaii, surfing with all the Oxbow surf team.

See you next year for the BTP 2011.

Gallery

All Photos: Elina Sirparanta/Oxbow
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