Photo: Danny Burrows

Our boy Jamie just nabbed third at the Pleasure Jam in Dachstein, so we thought this was a great time to ride on the coattails of his modicum of success by posting the Liftline chat we had back in issue 132. Read on…

LIFTLINE – Jamie Nicholls

Jamie’s well on his way to making the successful transition from supergrom to established pro. He’s also one of the handful of riders who’ve come up in snowboarding despite having grown up in a country bereft of alpine terrain, so with this in mind we cornered him on a Montafon download to pick his brains.

England’s famous for its lack of notable mountains but, look at you – you’re a professional snowboarder. How does that happen?

Not sure to be honest! It all started on Halifax dryslope when I was 7 years old. Back then that’s what I thought snowboarding was… I went to ride dryslope everyday straight after school and rode for at least a few hours. It never mattered what the conditions were like so I got a lot of hours practicing. Then the Snowdomes came a long, like Sno!Zone Castleford – this was amazing; the closest feeling to riding a mountain because it was real snow, just imagine it’s like riding in a giant fridge! I always went there twice a week, which meant that not only was I riding dryslope everyday, practicing on the jump at Halifax, I was also riding rails on snow indoors. It was just a perfect set up to get were I am today.

Can you describe what makes the UK scene so special?

Everyone supports each other and knows each other. Sometimes this can be a bad thing because everyone knows what you’re doing all the time but sometimes this is a good thing too. I love the UK scene and I think if it wasn’t for everyone’s support back home I wouldn’t be sat on my sofa at home answering questions for Onboard. I also think that the UK scene is also special because it produces a lot of bosses in snowboarding, including Jon Weaver – he has come a long way from being a UK snowboarder to now been the big boss at Nike. It’s amazing to to have him coming from England and being my team manager, and also just to look up to him and maybe one day I can take a role like this too. He is someone I really aspire to!

Though you travel extensively round the world, both winter and summer, you still ride Halifax when you’re home. Can you explain what’s so rad about dryslopes or, for that matter, snowdomes?

I am glad you asked me this, because it is really something I look forward to in summer. For me all my good memories are from the dryslope days. It’s special because it’s something that’s a big part of the UK, there is so much history from dryslope. I’m sure every UK snowboarder has amazing stories to tell about their time on it. Recently I went to the Go Big or Go Home comp at Bearsden dryslope which the McCormick family put on. It’s the best dryslope comp going and it brings back some good memories when I used to ride comps like this. What pleases the most is that the scene at Bearsden is amazing, just people are so stoked and just love snowboarding! I took my Austrian girlfriend there and she couldn’t believe how many young kids were riding, she said “I think there are more kids at this dryslope comp than there would be at a comp in the mountains. This is crazy!” This made me smile because it’s true! Its’ so fun to go up to this comp and ride with everyone because I think its really important to never forget your roots!

How did riding dryslope affect your development as a snowboarder?

It’s amazing because you can’t do eurocarves on dryslope, you have to what I call slip-and-slide around like you’re on ice. So when it comes to riding jumps you have to take off the jump flat base or you slip out and land on your face. This is never the prettiest thing as dryslope is like a big toothbrush! I still have some scars on my arms from dryslope burns, haha.

Finally, a two parter: who’s your favourite British snowboarder of all time; and who’s you favourite snowboarder of all time?

That’s a really hard one because there are so many British snowboarders I have looked up to, but currently I would say I love to watch Tyler Chorlton because he has a really good style. But then also Scott McMorris was another rider who I really looked up to and had amazing style too. For favourite snowboarder of all time I think Ian Thr Ashmore because he is FAST AND DANGEROUS, he is English and drinks Yorkshire tea…. enough said!

Photo: Matt Georges

On-lift chinwag with Lisa Filzmoser getting her thoughts on how competition fits in with snowboarding.

In the mag this season we’ve been hitting up riders as we share a lift ride with ‘em to pick their brains on a number of subjects in snowboarding. As ever, the print mag only has so many pages whereas the web… well, it has deep guts and so when it became apparent that we had no space for this chat we had with Austrian Artec ripper Lisa Filzmoser in the mag, we decided to post it here for you to enjoy online…

COMPETITION

Onboard: Look at the eagle!

Lisa Filzmoser: Look at the little fat skier down there!

Ah, let’s spit on him! Erm, on a scale of 1 to 10 how competitive would you say you are? 10 being like Shaun White and 1 being, er, me.

LF: [Laughs] Probably a 5.

Middle of the road, eh? Do you find yourself getting competitive when you’re riding with you buddies, or is it just when you ride contests?

LF: No, I think it’s more often that the competitive side of me comes through when I ride with my buddies. I think that’s my competitive side because I’m pushing myself with the others.

No so much to win but just to improve and be better than them?

LF: Yeah, something like that.

How important do you think contests are to snowboarding on the whole?

LF: For sure they are really important, I think, because I also started my “career” when I did some competitions. That’s how I got recognised too, and it’s how I got into the scene and it’s how I got my sponsors. And I really loved it at the beginning because it was a different form of competition [than I was used to]. I competed in gymnastics when I was little but I didn’t like it, and also in skiing. But snowboarding was something different, it was just fun for me to do. But then as I improved more and more I didn’t like doing competitions any more.

And now when you do do contests, how seriously do you take them?

LF: I find I really have to find my ‘zone’, but I haven’t really found my zone. I don’t like to compete any more, but I do it if it’s a fun competition and all the girls are there, then I like to do it too actually, but I think I’m not a good competitive person.

That leads on to my next question: when riders say ‘I’m just here to ride and have fun,’ how many do you think are lying?

LF: [Laughs] No, I think it’s true in snowboarding that it’s fun to ride in the competitions too because most of them are your friends and you can push eachother in the competition too. But for sure everyone wants to win! [Laughs]

Have you ever done something that you weren’t really feeling, just because you were at a contest?

LF: Yeah. When it was super bad weather and I would never ever ride on a normal day in these conditions, and then just I overshot this kicker because the wind was so strong and I thought to myself “What the fuck, why…”

Were you pissed at yourself?

LF: I was pissed at everyone, myself and everyone else because it’s so stupid to do that.

If you were organising a contest and had unlimited budget and could do whatever you wanted, what would your contest be like?

LF: I would build the best obstacles because I would have so much budget I would get the best shapers in the world and build the best park. Build all kinds of obstacles, just to make it really really good. Perfect obstacles, perfect kickers, hips and quarterpipes… yeah, everything. And then do a big jam session for like 4 days and just bring all the best photographers and filmers so it would not be like a contest, it would be more filming and a photo session.

Ok, but would you have a winner?

LF: Maybe everyone’s a winner, I would say but you could do like best trick or something like this. Best this, best that…

Just finally, would snowboarding be better or worse if there were no contests?

LF: I guess there wouldn’t be snowboarding that’s improving so much if there were no contests, but I think it would be better if snowboarding wouldn’t be in the FIS, so that would be better for snowboarding.