Tonight, (Monday, Janaury 23, 2012) Bryan Iguchi will be at D&E in Aspen, Colorado for stop two of his A Back Country Awareness Tour. Over the next month The Guch will be visiting eight shops in the west to discuss back country snowboarding and the safety issues that go along with it. As Iguchi says:
To be honest my pursuit of pow hasn’t been all fun and games, I’ve had to endure a lot of harsh situations, extreme cold, frostbite, I’ve been lost overnight in wilderness with no food, water or shelter and have lived my worst nightmare suffering the painful loss of a few friends. . . I’m not trying to scare you but I think it’s important to understand the risks of backcountry riding and how to go about it as safely as possible. The mountains must be treated with respect and I hope to give you some insight of how to be more prepared in the mountains. This tour is set up as a casual “shop talk” designed to bring basic awareness to riders who are new to the backcountry and want to learn how to do it safely.”
Knowledge is power. The tour rolls through Colorado, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. Check in with Iguchi if you have the chance. Click the image above for all the details.
In 1997 Burton Snowboards was at the nexus of a storm of rumors. The rumors were so pervasive that some clever instigator at the company created an extremely limited edition T-shirt for the 1997 SIA Trade Show in Las Vegas. The shirt jokingly outlined all the outlandish, outrageous things people were saying about the company that season.
Now, 15 years later, we thought it might be interesting to revisit the T-shirt that set out to sarcastically dispel the rumors and see how many of them eventually came true. Follow the jump for the complete rumor breakdown.
After finishing up its biggest show ever at the Long Beach Convention Center, The Agenda Show lights up New York City January 23-24, 2011. Click the link for more details.
After a stellar opening party Saturday, January 7, 2012 at the LA HUF store product from the collaboration between HUF, DLX, and the Japanese wood sculptor Haroshi is finally dropping.
Haroshi is a self taught artist born in 1978 and currently based out of Tokyo, Japan. Combining years of experience as a jewelry craftsman with his long-time passion for skateboarding, Haroshi has developed a unique ability to salvage and hand-carve stacks of used skateboard decks into extraordinary three-dimensional wooden sculptures. Juxtaposing the rough, worn rails of the used decks with the polished forms of their finished product, Haroshi demonstrates and uncanny capability to create beauty out of destruction.
Click the link for a closer look at the t-shirts, snapbacks, sweats, shoes, wheels, and DLX decks that are part of this stunning collab.
Sedition Surfboards (aka Cheapsurfboards.net.au), a shop on Australia’s Gold Coast owned by Neil Rech, 34, is reportedly selling China produced surfboards for $250 a pop and has understandably caused a bit of a stir in Coolangatta, according to a post on Businessweek.
Rival retailers averse to discounts and upset about local job losses questioned his patriotism, and even threatened violence, he said. . . “It’s quite heavy,” Rech, 34, said of the backlash. After teaching for two years in China before opening a store in Coolangatta, Queensland, “I realized how cheap you can actually get these boards so I thought it’d be a great opportunity to bring them here and sell them to the public cheaper.”
The best part of the whole story is Rech’s response that eventually the China pricing will be better for everyone’s business: “It’s like sticking a fat man on a treadmill,” he said. “First he doesn’t like it, but then he gets into it.” Apparently Rech is a glutton for punishment.
New Smyrna Beach, Florida’s Frictionsurf and skate shop is using Apple FaceTime technology to “bridge the gap” between online and brick and mortar shopping. Every day, between 12 – 7 PM EST, customers with an Apple device can speak directly with sales people on the floor.
“I’d been implementing social media and in-store / online connections for about a year at my other store before opening Friction,” Friction partner and executive buyer Evan Rebadow says. “To me this is the evolution of a concept where small boutique stores like ours can compete online by offering personal interaction. It’s one thing to read about a surf board on a static website, it’s something completely different to be able to dial us up on your iPhone from anywhere you have service and talk to us one on one about what kind of surf you’re going to be riding it in and how it performs for your skill level.
Seems like a phone call would be just as effective, but then that wouldn’t have caught our attention. Follow the jump for the official word. [click to continue…]
Artist Michael Sieben (of Internet Shack fame) believes Shaun White and Target have appropriated his original designs and used them without payment or attribution on Shaun White’s kids clothing line. Yesterday he used his Vice.com column Kill the Engine to outline the similarities between Target’s clothing and his art in a piece titled Who Shaun White Is. Here’s Sieben’s take away:
As a freelance graphic illustrator, it has always been my dream to land a large commercial account that would catapult my career into the mainstream collective conscious. And I think that these t-shirts might have just done that. . . BUT… I totally didn’t have to deal with filling out a bunch of contracts, or worry about invoices, and I for damn sure didn’t have to think about collecting royalties. And what would I have done with all of that money? Seems like a huge headache to me. So I got all of the benefit of having my imagery available at one of the largest retail outlets in the United States without having to deal with any of the financial benefits. Total win for me.
Milosport worked with Jared Strain and photographer Andrew Miller to create a limited edition Milosport Crowbar goggle.
A goggle inspired by Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons in Utah. Two canyons that receive an absurd amount of the greatest snow on earth, and have molded and shaped the snowboard culture of SLC and beyond. . . Check it out at all Milosport locations TODAY!!
Looks like this things are going to be popular in SLC for sure.
Seems like only yesterday (Spring 2008) that kids were lining up along LA’s Melrose Avenue to get their chance to meet the DC skateboarding team at the grand opening of DC Shoe’s LA Flagship store.
Apparently, those heady days of Melrose ego retailing are over for Quiksilver’s footwear brand. The phone has been disconnected, the store is no longer listed on the DC store locator, and according to a DC retail employee the flag has been down “about a month.” We must have missed that press release.
In a deal announced with PacSun’s earnings Wednesday, Golden Gate Capital will receive the option to buy up to 19.9% of PacSun’s shares at a price of $1.75 in exchange for a five-year $60 million secured-term loan expected to help PacSun buy out leases and shutter struggling stores. Golden Gate will also receive two seats on PacSun’s board.
Sadly, this is the best news the street has heard from the company all year and it sent the company stock price rocketing up 37 percent in after hours trading to a whopping $1.85 a share, according to the story. Just think if they closed 400 stores.
Tonight, (Monday, Janaury 23, 2012) Bryan Iguchi will be at D&E in Aspen, Colorado for stop two of his A Back Country Awareness Tour. Over the next month The Guch will be visiting eight shops in the west to discuss back country snowboarding and the safety issues that go along with it. As Iguchi says:
