Photos by: Danny Burrows

THIS ISSUES TRICKOLOGY IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE GOOD OLD BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE WHO RESIDE IN MAYRHOFEN’S PENKEN PARK DURING THE WINTER AND INCLUDES THE LIKES OF JAMES CARR, GARY GREENSHIELDS AND THE VISITING JAMIE NICHOLLS.

James Carr – Frontside 360

RUN-IN
Approach the jump with the correct speed, you can judge this by watching other riders. Its always good to test your speed with a straight air fi rst, Remember this speed if you get it right! Don’t make speed checks too close to your take-off – you want to be set-up, ready and confident

TAKE OFF
As you ride up the take-off of the jump you what to be relaxed and ready to pop, not digging your edge in like your going to be doing a 1440! It’s a 360, so you should not have to carve up the jump at all! Once at the top of the jump POP; turning your shoulders and the core of your body to start the spin.. your legs will follow.

IN THE AIR
Now you are in the air and your rotating get hold of that grab and tweeeeek it, you want to keep an eye out for your landing, remember the grab will slow your rotation down and you don’t want to end up doing a perfect frontside 270! You want to keep the rotation smooth – it shouldn’t be a 180 to 180 like the old snowboard computer games!

LANDING
Spot it! Make sure your body is ready, you don’t want to be all twisted up stuck in rotation when you land you will just revert. Once you land HOLD IT and ride away solid!

Gary Greenshields – Switch Backside 540

Ok here is how I do a switch backside 540 stale/melon

RUN IN
It’s all about your take off so having the run in speed right helps – jump the kicker a few times to test the speed and get it right. You’ll be heading towards the jump with a flat base aiming for the middle of the take-off nice and relaxed, knees slightly bent and looking at the lip.

TAKE OFF
Now you’re fl at based, eyeballing the lip of the jump, bend your knees a little more and pre-wind your body the opposite way from your spin (here I ride in right foot forward so I wind clockwise). As you start to climb the kicker you’re going to time it so you unwind this momentum and put your weight onto your toe edge ever so slightly. When your front foot is almost at the lip of the kicker let this pre-wind go and pop your ollie off your toe edge as you hit the lip. Make sure to keep light on the toe edge while this happens. You’re also going to be turning your head back towards the run in making sure not to look down or up to much.

IN THE AIR
When you’ve popped and started to rotate your spin you wanna start reaching down to grab your board (here I grab melon/stale) continuing to look round in the direction of your spin at the same time. Now you have a good hold of your grab it’s time to tweak that leg out as much as you can and keep looking round so you can spot the landing. You will see the landing in the fi rst part of the rotation but you need to keep spinning and you will have a slightly blind landing here.

LANDING
Keep looking round and as you come near to the end of the spin you will start to look down so you can see the landing under your feet. Now just relax and let your strong legs do the rest for you. Keeping your weight not to much on your back foot catch the landing fl at based bending your legs
and riding away stoked you stomped it.

Jamie Nicholls – Backside 720

RUN IN
Approach the jump with enough speed to clear it to the landing, meaning the sweet spot. Watching other people hitting the jump before helps you to judge the speed.

TAKE OFF
When you’re on the jump and on your toe edge it’s important not to spin too early as this scrubs your speed and might result in you landing on the knuckle. Make sure you try to leave the spin till you’re just starting to ride off the jump, then turn your head and shoulders backside.

IN THE AIR
Reach down and grab: this helps to keep you stable in the air. You need to keep your head looking round and turning your shoulders to ensure that you get the 7 round.

LANDING
When you spot your landing put the board down on the snow with a flat base and then claim it and go straight to the bar!

On British Snowboarding

“Yeah, Gary has a good part in Isenseven, got some good tricks, and couple of bangers, and then Pleasure ran a bunch of him this month, Tyler’s in Pirates is cool too, with a pretty funny nollie backflip attempt, did you see his interviews last year? and yeah have a look at this of Jamie Nicholls we filmed in Norway, cab 10s, back 10s, he had a pretty good year especially getting top 10 at NZ open, he just mailed me to say he has a checkout in snowboarder mag US.”

So these words came out of my mouth, and I thought “how blase can I sound?” I mean here we are, with British riders, part of the furniture in many of the world’s best print and video titles. A few years back, having a British rider in anything European let alone world wide was amazing. We had my own personal hero Danny Wheeler to look to for a long time, but no one really made a big push, until James Thorne came out and filmed with Yeahh, and took on Europe, but then had some bad injuries along the way. Apart from that though it was always fairly thin on the ground. Then all of a sudden, much like buses we have a whole grip of guys just on fire. Take Ben Kilner for example, making the Olympics, in an amazing field Ben stood to toe with everyone, and without doubt will continue this season where he left off last year.

Tyler Chorlton is a live wire. Photo: Matt Georges

Tyler Chorlton has been putting down amazing video parts with the Pirates – one of Europe’s premier crews for the last few years, and getting more coverage than many top level pros, with interviews and pictures across Europe, English mags, French, Spanish and all the Germanic ones, too. Tyler has been taking it onwards, and seeing snowboarding in his own personal way. He also managed to pretty much nail frontflip shiftys as a signature trick. That’s one of the signs of a great rider, if they can just find their route and follow it, which you see Tyler doing on a daily basis.

Tyler with a Switch Back 5 in Meribel. Photo: Matt Georges

Then Mr Gary Greenshields. After a couple of years with the Yeahh crew, Gary was ready for a new challenge, so after last year’s amazing interview with Whitelines it was time for Isenseven. So now we have two of Europe’s big movies taken care of. And Gary straight away got in amongst it, filming, picking up riders, organising, killing it and just becoming one of the regulars. They have even given him a lockdown style intro to make him feel at home. The thing with Gary is you feel that he is only just getting started, too. His riding is progressing so much each year, and you really feel that when he gets into some proper pow he can unleash yet more.

Even the filmers. Tom Elliot, who came from his bread and butter roots, through some Hungerpain, into some Tearoom, and then finally onto the big stage with Isenseven, has his name on the box. Who knew three years back that he would be one of the main reasons 3000 german kids would come out, drink all night, fall in love with snowboarding all over again, and have a whole new crop of heroes. Yes the kids love Isenseven. Me too.

Jamie Nicholls double-grabbing on a back 7. Photo: Danny Burrows

Of course that’s all not forgetting Jamie Nicholls. He of the Bendek movie “In Short” a couple of years back. It’s amazing, most people don’t even realise it’s the same kid, they just see someone who has come along, and within a year gone from UK based shredder, to European and global threat at any event. He went through qualies at BEO, to finals, same in NZ, and I would bet my house on it, that he will be podium at a big event this year. You see him ride and you can see why. If you have never entered an Open, you can’t begin to imagine how hard even qualifying through to semis is. 140 guys to 40, then the best 10 go through. That is one of the hardest things to do, and to do it time and again takes a great deal of composure.

I dont think I have ever seen a British guy that consistent, damn there’s not that many guys full stop as consistent as he is right now. Watch his edits from dryslope. Yes. He still rides dryslope, whilst you were in Bali, and he loves it still.

Jamie was on a couple of end of season shoots this season and really stood amongst the world’s best, and showed what he is made of. Wait for the D pad video to see what I mean.

Enough of all this British love in stuff. These guys are flying the flag round the world, and the preconceived image of a dryslope is gone, it’s just guys who can stand up and be counted wherever they are from. and it’s my pleasure to get to try and kick out a method with them all once in a while. Winter’s nearly back. The UK kids have been riding it all year though, and have probably already learnt half what most of the pros already have in their video parts. Get after it!

Jon will return in (roughly) two weeks time with more thoughts on European riding. In the meantime head over to his blog under www.the-goodlife.co.uk!

Peter König filmed his epic opening of the season in Hintertux on 1 September 2010. Watch him and his mates Gary Greenshields and Tom Klocker score some late summer pow-pow. We can’t wait for the winter to arrive, and you?

Alex Schiller aiming the lens at Alex Tank.

Getting the Skinny on Isenseven’s Latest Film, ‘Don’t Panic’.

IsenSeven premiered the teaser for their latest movie, Don’t Panic, last week so we had to catch up with main man Alex Schiller to get the lowdown on the movie, the new recruits to the crew and what the hell that name’s all about. Read on…

Onboard: You guys just had a premiere in Munich. For a teaser. And it was rammed. That is pretty crazy. What is it do you think that you tap into that gets the kids so pumped?

Alex Schiller: People generally like IsenSeven parties. No matter if it’s for the movie, a trailer or just to have another excuse to party. I think over the years we have established quite the musical and lifestyle image for IsenSeven and it transports directly to the parties. Also, in the past movies, we had a lot of party footage in the DVD bonus… so maybe people hope to experience that kind of mayhem with us.

OB: You guys can throw a good party, that’s for sure. Thanks for the hangovers by the way. You’ve decided to call your film Don’t Panic this year. Is there a reason for this or are you guys just big fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

MPORA Action Sports >>

AS: The idea for the name actually came from Tom Elliott, our new filmer that started working on the project with us this season. We, the producers, are all big fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide and it’s kind of cool to have a little reference to a book/movie that is just so brilliant.

But aside from that, “Don’t Panic” has a lot of meaning to everything we do. It’s Tom’s first year working for a crew-snowboard movie like ours and he expected things to go a lot better. For instance, he would go to a shoot and have these great expectations and in the end it didn’t turn out as super epic as he’d hoped. But that’s just how snowboarding goes. The weather will suck, the snow will suck, riders won’t stick their tricks, the kicker won’t work right, you get busted by the fuzz and on and on and on. But in the end, looking back it all looks pretty good and you always manage to get the shots and edit a movie which people will like. So “don’t panic!”….it all turns out well in the end.

OB: So true. We had such a frustrating season here, too. I wish Tom had told us of his mantra…

AS: It took him a while to realise it as well. He put a lot of energy in getting shots with our riders. But you learn to deal with it.

OB: As you mentioned, you’ve now got a new guy behind the scenes but there’s also some new riders to the Isenseven roster this year. Who are these guys, and how was it to shoot with riders you maybe didnt know so well before?

New recruit Colin Frei sends a switch back 9.

AS: Yes, we tend to change up our team a little bit every year. It’s important to have the guys in the team which everybody knows and loves (Marco Smolla, the Strauss twins etc) but it’s also good to introduce new faces and talents to people that they might also learn to love as much as the rest of the crew. The new guys are Gjermund Bråten and Sindre Iversen from Norway, Colin Frei and David Bertschinger Karg from Switzerland (our first Swiss team riders ever), Simon Gruber from Italy, Gary Greenshields from Scotland and Benny Wetscher from Austria.

It was so much fun filming with this new crew. Everybody is just such a character and that’s something super important for the IsenSeven team. We don’t want to have just random rider X that can huck a double cork over a jump. People need to be able to relate to the riders. They should watch their part and say “Damn, I want to hang out and shred with those guys!”. I really enjoy working with new people as you learn new things, hear new stories, get to film new styles of riding. It brings a bit of fresh air in to the whole project.

To clear a few things up officially though since we’ve been getting a lot of slack for it on the internet….We don’t tend to kick people off the team. The likes of Zirngibl, König, Kuhlmann etc are riders we love to death. But a lot of times we need to play along with the industry’s decision when it comes to selecting the team or deal with the consequences of season-ending injuries of the riders.

OB: That really comes through the films I think. The personalities. I think that’s a huge part of why you have an almost cult-like following. Just dont go all Waco, please. And, yes, the industry is what it is.

AS: I think that the “people can relate to our riders and movies” factor is one of the secrets to our success. We have over 10.000 fans on Facebook. That’s insane!

Alex Tank pressing shit up.

OB: For sure. And how has it been having a new face in the edit room now that Tom Elliott is aboard? Has it changed the dynamic or had you thinking in directions you hadn’t been before? And most importantly – what happens if England play Germany in the World Cup? Will your film be delayed because of editorial fisticuffs?

AS: Well, we had a little restructuring in the company this year. Vincent [Urban] and Felix [Urbauer] are still working with IsenSeven but wanted to distance themselves a little bit from the project to pursue some new ventures. So I needed someone that would focus 100% on the new movie with me. And I needed a young and motivated filmer. And Tom Elliott is young, über-motivated and more than capable in handling every kind of filming equipment you can imagine. Vincent, Felix and I have been working together for a long time and I’m stoked to have a new guy in the production crew, bringing new ideas and a fresh cup of motivation to the project.

If England plays Germany things might get a little dirty. I mean, I don’t care cause Germany will win. But I don’t know how Tom will cope with the defeat. I guess he’ll have to learn to deal with it… don’t panic, Tom! Hahaha!

Ludde Lejkner noseboning.

OB: Hahah. You hinted that last winter was not without its problems, but there were some shoots that worked out epic, I’m sure. Which trip or shoot you went on were you most stoked with (for whatever reason), and what else from the rushes you’ve seen got you pumped?

AS: For me, personally, my two favorite trips where California and Russia. California was so much fun and I couldn’t really call it work. I got to ride all day, just doing follow cams with my riders, hang out in the sun, eat junkfood, drive huge cars and living in sick cribs.

Russia was the total opposite, but in a way equally awesome. We went to Kirovsk, which is on the most north-west tip of Russia. Everything is dirty and ghetto, nobody speaks English, the food is weird. But the weirder and broken down the towns look, the better it is to film there. We got some great alternative street footage and had a banging time living the Soviet life. Oh, and the women in even the shittiest parts of Russia are breathtaking and everybody up there knows how to party.

OB: Sounds sweet. As well as the snowboarding, your movies are well known for the quality of the intros and the music selection. Without giving too much away, what can we expect this time round?

Basti Kuhn gets the old school invert on in Bear Mountain.

AS: Last year we kept it kind of simple with the intros (at least we see it that way) but we are planning to step it up another notch this year. We need to make some intros where people will be like “No freaking way! They made THAT?”. I also think the music will be a little more mixed than last year. All kinds of different genres. A little bit for everyone’s taste. But in the end the movie will be one big party.

OB: Party on, Wayne! And when is the movie schedlued to come out and do you have a European tour planned?

AS: The world premiere will be in Munich on September 17th and the location will be anounced soon. We are currently planning the Euro tour which will include all major German cities and selected cities in Austria, Switzerland, UK, Scandinavia and the eastern Euro countries.

OB: Well, we certainly look forward to that Alex. Keep us posted on the tour dates and any new teaser-type stuff, and thanks heaps for your time. Good luck in the edit suite!

The good Germans (well, and now one Englishman) at Isenseven have just dropped the first teaser for their highly anticipated movie Don’t Panic, and here it is in all its glory.

As ever the filming and production look to be sharp as a razor, with hammergeil riding from some of Europe’s sickest shred talent. Taking a leaf out of Arthur Dent’s book, they repeated their mantra ‘Don’t Panic’ as they hit up powdery Euro resorts, snowed-in German and Scandinavian cities, slushy California parks, Russian ghettos and all kinds of other fun places.

With a bunch of new riders, familiar faces and new additions to the production team, they’ve regrouped to form a snowboard movie super-alliance which even the United Nations couldn’t mess with. In fact, in Bavaria they’re so popular that we’re certain they could easily start a cult if they wanted. The Isen Family or something. They held a ‘Teaser Premiere’ the other day in Munich and the place was packed to the rafters – for a frickin’ teaser!

Starring: Fredrik Evensen, Christophe Schmidt, Ludwig Lejkner, Fips & Tobi Strauss, Alex Tank, Tom Klocker, Marco Smolla and the new additions of the swiss connection Colin Frei & David Bertschinger Karg, Austro kicker machine Benny Wetscher, Norwegian viking Sindre Iversen, Italian supermodel Simon Gruber, Scotland’s real Braveheart Gary Greenshields and Norwegian super-kid Gjermund Bråten.

The movie will be released mid September and the whole gang can’t wait to show you their new baby.

MUSIC:
Salem Al Fakir
“Twelve Fingers”
myspace.com/salem

The crew is now a truly European one: Apart from the Isenseven regulars Fredrik Evensen, Ludwig Lejkner, Alex Tank, Fips Strauss, Tobi Strauss and Tom Klocker, the upcoming movie will feature a recovered Marco Smolla as well as Nordic riders Gjermund Bråten and Sindre Iversen, Switzerland’s David Bertschinger Karg and Colin Frei, Italian Simon Gruber, Benni Wetscher from Austria and Mr. Gary Greenshields from Scotland.

Check out the video for some glimpses of their hard work in Stockholm, Ruka, Hoch-Ybrig, Zillertal, Andermatt, Dresden, Winterberg and many other snowy places!