by The Editors on February 19, 2009
Shayne Pospisil (right) follows up his win at the Redbull Snowscrapers event with a tie for first in The 2009 Oakley Arctic Challenge Highest Air competition with Norway’s Daniel Josefsen, Terje Haakonsen was third.
Riders dropped down a 130m in-run at speeds of over 80km/h, launching themselves off the scientifically shaped 10.6m Quarterpipe. Josefsen and Pospisil came like freight trains at the giant wall of ice, consistently hovering over 6m. Pospisil was pumped after becoming the joint winner with Josefsen and looking forward to the main event. “I hope it will just turn out as good as last year but today was a good start to the Arctic Challenge and I am really looking forward to Saturday”, he said.
The big event is tomorrows Quarterpipe which has $100,000 in prize money on the line. Follow the jump for the official press release.
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by The Editors on February 19, 2009
So what ever happened to Fall Line Films’ founder Jerry Dugan, one of the guys responsible for some of the most iconographic snowboard films of the 90s (Western Front, Critical Condition, Riders on the Storm, Roadkill)? According to a story in the Reno News & Review he is still running FLF Films.
Today, FLF Films does a variety of projects from advertising for big-name clients to documentary films to art pieces and music videos. The permanent staff at FLF Films is fairly small, considering some of the projects they take on. Dugan almost always does his own camera work even on larger-scale projects—he directs and composes the shots and the look of everything. . . The size and scope of the projects vary. Over the past summer, the company shot a series of commercials for Disney’s Hannah Montana. The commercials were shot in Reno, and they daily had about 50 people on the set, including stylists, clients and extra camera operators.
Oddly, this story left out any mention of Dugan’s days in the Reno “private entertainment” industry, but we’re glad Jerry (pictured right with Erika Frick) is doing well.
[Link: Reno News & Review]
by The Editors on February 18, 2009
These are the avalanche stories we like to hear: A 100 foot-wide slab of snow broke loose on the Slide Mountain side of Mt. Rose in an out-of-bounds area. The search was called off at 2:20 PM after crews searched the area for several our they finally called off the search after deciding that it was unlikely that anyone was caught in the avalanche, according to a story in the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
In all seven search and rescue personnel and four search and rescue dogs from Squaw Valley Ski Patrol and Washoe County Search and Rescue combed the site for about 3 hours by ski and snowshoe for any potential victims. . . .Regan said rescuers did not receive any type of transceiver signal coming from beneath the snow.
Would be nice if all avalanche stories ended like this.
[Link: Tahoe Daily Tribune]
by The Editors on February 18, 2009
When the Whiskey Militia site rolled out sometime last year we thought it was one of the coolest concepts to hit online retailing in a while. The site simply sold one action sports item at a time at a ridiculously low price until they were all gone. It mixed a little of the Home Shopping Club with a pop-up closeout store. It’s a model that seems to work well for Backcounty.com.
On February 19, 2009, Whiskey Militia is launching a site that will do the same thing with snowboard gear. The site is called Brociety.com.
Brociety is the new snowboard-only one-deal-at-a-time (ODAT) store, slinging everything from split kits to steezed out one-pieces to buttery jib boards–all at face-melting prices. It’s the pow-lovin version of Whiskey Militia, with one ridonkulous steal after another (50-80% below retail). And it’s strictly for snowboarders. Nothing but endless winter. Whiskey Militia can keep the warm months.
Kind of goes back to the old art as business adage: do one thing and do it well, over and over and over again. Follow the jump for more.
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by The Editors on February 18, 2009
Apparently Shaun White’s little 90 day test run of clothing in Target stores last summer went pretty well because the uber box retailer is announcing that it has signed the Red Hot Flying Tomato to design a year-a-round collection for the company.
Shaun and Target decided to collaborate again to produce a fashionable line of apparel inspired by Shaun’s life, along with his interest in music and travel. These influences will be reflected in the hand-drawn art and humor infused throughout the line and is epitomized by the return of the skate monster that debuted in the limited edition launch. The collection will be filled with reasonably priced pieces including: denim, hooded sweatshirts, jackets, graphic tees, wovens and shorts.
Maybe this will bust him up past Tony Hawk on the Forbes list, and maybe get him a little more helicopter time for quick trips to his top secret training halfpipe in Silverton.
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by The Editors on February 18, 2009
Brendan Shoemaker, 23, of Fullerton, California was riding Mt. High Resort Tuesday afternoon February 17, 2009 when he slide down a 40-foot ice chute and ended up spending the night out-of-bounds, according to the LA Times.
Rescuers in a helicopter spotted Shoemaker about 7 a.m. today and lifted him to safety, Bonsall said. Shoemaker told KTLA-TV that he made a “wrong turn and just ended up way out of bounds.” He told the TV station he tried to light a fire to keep himself warm overnight, but his lighter was out of fluid and the brush was not dry enough to ignite. So he dug a cave in the snow and huddled up inside his jacket to keep warm.
Digging a snow cave: smart. Getting lost and having to spend the night in a snow cave: not so smart.
[Link: LA Times]
by The Editors on February 18, 2009
The USC crew at Quiksilver got a little deeper recently when James G. Ellis was added to the Board of Directors on February 13, 2009.
Ellis is the dean of the Marshall School of Business at USC. He began his career with Carter Hawley Hale stores and rose to vice president of Merchandising for the Broadway department store chain. . . . Later, he became president and CEO of American Porsche Design and has been involved in several other entrepreneurial ventures. He held leadership roles in several apparel manufacturers and action-sports companies.
Sounds like Mr. Ellis has all the skills necessary to help pilot Quiksilver into the storm.
[Link: OC Metro]
by The Editors on February 18, 2009
The more we follow the financial press and see the way they operates the funnier stories like this become. Forbes has released a list of the highest paid action sports athletes and they base their numbers on completely on “interviews with industry experts.” In other words, your guess is as good as Forbes.
The experts are saying that Tony Hawk made $12 million last year and that put him in the number one position. Shaun White was number two at $9 million, Ryan Sheckler was number three at $5 million.
As Skateboardworks.com says: “Suspiciously missing from the list is Rob Dyrdek and BAM, who both make at least $1 mill per year.” Makes us wonder what “experts” they actually talked to.
[Link: Forbes]
by The Editors on February 18, 2009
Sure, the Dew Tour Winter Championships has skiing events in it, but we’re not going to let that stop us from checking in on the web every so often this weekend to see how the finals at Northstar-At-Tahoe are going.
We’re going to guess that Shaun White is going to win slope and halfpipe (and the overall titles in both), we’re not sure on women’s slope and Kelly Clark will win in the women’s pipe.
Those who still watch network television can check it out the slopestyle event on USA Network Friday, Feb. 20 9-10 PM PST and the halfpipe on NBC Sunday, Feb. 22 12:00pm-3:00pm PST. Crazy to think that anyone would plan their media viewing around a broadcast time, but the TV networks still think people do.
For all the details of the upcoming weekend of extreme action sports television programming follow the jump for the entire official press release.
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by The Editors on February 17, 2009
We still don’t understand why designers want to take a perfectly simple sliding device and make it more complicated.
Take Sunnyvale, California’s Todd Belt for example. As a skier he wanted to snowboard, but he thought snowboards scraped too much of the good snow off the mountain, according to a story on Onthesnow.com. So he built an articulated platform that allowed him to ski standing sideways.
Because of its unique design, you ride the Deuce like a snowboard but enjoy all of the benefits of two shaped skis. The skis flex and carve like short shaped skis and can accommodate a 47 degree inclination into the turn. Unlike a traditional snowboard that limits the rider to carving on one long edge, the Deuce lets the rider crank out quicker, more responsive turns on two sets of edges.
Unique design? Wonder if anyone has had more success than the guys on the BomberOnline forum in explaining to Todd that this idea was pretty bad the first time it came around in the 80s when it was called the Swingbo.
[Link: Deuce Snowboards via On The Snow]
Shayne Pospisil (right) follows up his win at the Redbull Snowscrapers event with a tie for first in The 2009 Oakley Arctic Challenge Highest Air competition with Norway’s Daniel Josefsen, Terje Haakonsen was third.
