Saturday, March 5, 2011

How I fixed my Boa laces on my snowboard boot

I made this tutorial on how to replace broken laces on a Boa system. Not difficult but you just need the replacement parts which can be orders for free from Boa.

Overcooked my steak, gotta make sure it's more bloody when I turn off the heat

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Sweet Snowboarding vid

Pretty sweet vid... if everything could be in high-speed...

Hispeed camera snowboard contest by David Coiffier



Hispeed camera snowboard contest from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Chinese Riders

I was browsing some snowboard videos and I found some clips of a Chinese rider. And you know I have to give them a shout out!

Here's a clip below from the recent Burton Asian Open. It's the first run of the women's half-pipe, the second rider is Xu Chen. And before she does her run the commentators are commenting on how uniform the Chinese team looks in their sweats, since snowboarding isn't really known as a "team" sport, most people are trying to be more individualistic. But I am totally not surprised.



I'll put some more clips when I find them.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Flo Rida - Right Round

<a href="http://www.joost.com/082sqdu/t/Flo-Rida-Right-Round-US-Version-Video">Flo Rida - Right Round (US Version Video)</a>

Thursday, March 12, 2009

New England Resorts

The riding/skiing season is winding down and this year I have done a lot of riding mostly because if you didn't already know I was a snowboard instructor at a local resort.

I did a lot of research this year on which resorts would be fun to go to and I found Google maps to be a great peek at the different resorts. You can always get stats from the respective websites but you can't really get an accurate picture. I've compiled some images from Google maps with different resorts I went to or wanted to go to. All images are screen shots taken at the same zoom (when the key of google maps indicated 2000 ft, this shows up on some of the larger resorts )

Good source for snow reports and mountain stats:
onthesnow.com

Masschusetts:

Nashoba Valley - Ah where I worked and where I'd like to call the ultimate beginners hill. Honestly, if you're just learning why go 2 hours away up north.

Wachusetts - Pretty decent mountain for MA. Only an hour from me and it has 2 high speed lifts. Unfortunately, it gets crowded pretty easily. I didn't buy a park pass, but there were a ton of features jammed in the terrain park.
New Hampshire:

Ragged Mountain - Mellow place. Great deals! I got a lift ticket there for $12 online at liftopia.com and quite often you can get a lift ticket for $24. They only have one good lift and there's no separate lift for the park, so the main lift gets pretty crowded.

Mount Sunapee - Decent size for being less than 2 hours away. Pretty good deals on Mondays ($40). I went twice this year and had a great time. Second time I was there, I spent most of my time in the park (see previous entry) and I was pretty content except when I hurt myself. They have a pretty stacked park that's separate from the main lift so it wouldn't be so crowded. There's a variety of features for all skill levels, but most are for intermediate and advanced.
Gunstock - Looks really tiny compared to Sunapee's area but I just think it's more condensed. I went in January and conditions were very hard packed, so I'd want to go again when conditions are better. Also their park wasn't complete when I went and they had features more for intermediate to advanced at the time.
Crotched Mountain - Thought about going here but a bit too small and would rather drive a little more north to Sunapee or Ragged.
Waterville - Wanted to check out there park but never got around to do it. Well, there's always next season.
Loon - On the list for next season.
Cannon - On the list for next season.

Maine:
Sunday River - A more spread out resort. On the day I went, not all the trails were groomed very well. One had golf ball size ice which made it an unpleasant trail. Overall, big and lots of options, just spend the day exploring the trails.
Sugarloaf - On the list for next season.

Vermont: Significantly bigger than NH and MA resorts. Never got to go to any but def need to make a trip next year.
Stowe - Almost went this year.

OkemoKillington
Mount Snow

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Getting Air

So been riding on my new snowboard and it’s pretty awesome. My knees don’t feel as tweaked afterwards which I might attribute to the fact that the board is a little lighter than my old one.

So in the last few days I’ve been working on going of jumps. On Saturday, I attended a park clinic at Nashoba but I think it’s just an excuse for the older folks to get to try some of the park features without the yun’s to judge them. I did learn a few new things but nothing that I couldn’t have gotten off the terrain park safety website. After the clinic, I hit the jump with a little more courage since the landing was really soft due to the warm weather. By the end of the day, I finally did my first grab (indy)! I def worked up my confidence and I wasn’t scared to pop off the lip as hard as I can.

Sunday, brought another warm day, so more soft landings. The bigger jump was open and I knew I had to hit it. The jump had only been open on Friday night for the big air comp so it still maintained most of its shape. It was about a 15’/20’ step down. I was so scared going off of it but by the 4/5 time it was smoother, I still haven’t fully gotten comfortable getting a solid pop off of it but after this kicker, the smaller jumps seem like nothing. It was a great rush getting air and feeling so relieved when landing it, I didn’t really care I wasn’t doing tricks. By the end of the night I got a couple solid landings on it and called it night.

Monday, it snowed again and snow was continuing the entire day, so my friend and I took a hike up to Sunapee. We spend 75% of the time in the park and I had a great time until my last run (more about that later). They had 3 small sized jumps in the park so I just cruised it and worked on more grabs. I went on some of the boxes and the smaller rails but I still psych myself out and fall more than I want to. But I was really feeling the jumps and I got better at my indy and got a couple melon grabs in, still need to work on getting some spins in (next season). It was snowing all day so even if I fell the landing was soft and giving. The only time my fall was not so giving was on my last run. I’d been cruising the park several times so by now got pretty comfortable with the jumps. On my last run though I landed the second jump and was carrying a good amount of speed so I just went straight into the third jump which I usually checked my speed and prepared myself a little for. But I just decided to go for it, but something went wrong and my nose was lower than it should have been and then my mind just freaked and I just crashed my landing. My upper right half of my torso took in most of the fall, it was a good thing I had my helmet on, I really think I would have gotten a concussion. Anyway, I laid there for a second but I was ok to get up but as soon as I got up and turned on my heelside I felt a pop in my ribs and a pain and I just collapsed. Then I was hurting too much to get up on my own so I laid there until ski patrol came.

My diagnosis is I got a contusion in my ribs. How I got this I’m going to blame my phone that was in my pocket. I think the phone was between my ribs and arm in the fall so enough to push my ribs in a bit. Luckily, nothing is broken and all internal organs look in good shape. Moral of the story careful what you put your pockets when you’re riding/skiing. For now I’m prob going to take it easy, I still want to ride again before the season ends but who knows.

Little guide to grabs:

Friday, February 27, 2009

Ragged Mountain

Yesterday, I went to Ragged Mountain cuz I found a sweet deal for lift tickets on liftopia for only $12. Over the last week it’s gotten over a foot of snow and most recently it snowed on Sunday so there was still some powder to be ripped through.

I found this one black diamond trail where pretty much no one was going on and they didn’t groom it so there was a lot of left over pow. It was awesome it took me a little bit to get used to riding in powder because it’s so different than hard packed. I had to shift my weight back to make sure my nose didn’t get buried in the snow which happened quite a bit initially. There were def a good number of spills but it was like landing on pillows. I had one straight on face plant that I just laughed at myself afterwards cuz if anyone was watching it would haven’t looked ridiculous. I’m sure I looked like a snowman afterwards and I had snow stuck in the crevasses between my goggles and helmet.

Such a good riding day :)

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Sunday River

Yesterday, I took a day trip to Sunday River for my b-day and it was a beautiful bluebird day.

Conditions could have been better but we found some good trails. Towards the end of the day it really became the ice coast except for the trails where they were making new snow.

There were a couple times where we accidentally got ourselves stuck in moguls (which i kept calling mongols), they def should put up larger warning signs. It was an adventure trying to make it through on my snowboard. It was a good thing the crests of the moguls were powdery, since I ate snow a few times.

Around Vortex trail

Bright and early 6 am on the ski bus

Who's that mystery person next to kt?

Oh yea that's me

Bball joke...