We always liked the idea of a snowboard brand that only sold direct online and through a company-owned shop. And that is exactly what Lance Pitman did with Illuminati snowboards.
Earlier this week, however, Lance Pitman announced that “We are shuttin ‘er down!” And as the final act of closing the snowboard business Lance is throwing an Illuminati Snowboards End Game Sale which begins on Friday, February 6 at 9:00 AM at 517 Village Way in Victor, Idaho. Here’s how Lance explains it:
I met with our investors and explained to them that I am not committed to spending 5-10 more years selling snowboards. I then thanked them for their trust and willingness to invest in the project and kindly asked for their blessing to allow me to close it down. Over a year and a half ago we started this process with the closing of the Ill23 Shop.
What is next for Lance? He’s not going to spill it just yet.
One could say I had a calling to show up in the world in a different way. I have been putting all my efforts for the last year and a half into trying to unravel (without throwing away) what I have created with Illuminati Snowboards. The company is not done in the sense that we are closing the LLC, or going bankrupt, or something. We are simply not producing snowboard products any longer. I can’t say fully what it is that we are transitioning into, but I will leave the product selling to those who do it best, so that I can spend more time going snowboarding
We’re pretty sure whatever Lance is getting into now it’s going to be something mysterious. Check out more on that in this interview Lance did with Planet Jackson Hole.
Former pro snowboarder Brett Johnson was responsible for some of the funniest stuff ever seen in snowboard movies: there were several installments of the Snowboard Bikers with Dana Nicholson from the Creatures of Habit series by Jon Freeman, there were all the little clips from Snowboarder TV, and then there was the epic GI Joe vs. Ski Fun Ken.
Writer Colin Whyte catches up with Brett Johnson and gets the back store on the entire clip in a story on ESPN.com/Action. Here’s what Brett says:
I was doing some traditional animation for Doug Palladini and their Snowboarder TV project in tandem, but all in all we spent about 8 months on it. We shot it in two weeks, sent the cans off to the developer and had no clue what it was going to look like. At that point, I’d never shot 16mm before, or done really any stop-motion animation. Artie picked me up at the airport and just gave me a headshake and a long ‘dude’. I thought the footage was totally bunk or something. The whole way back to Truckee, Artie held me at ‘dude’…
Where is Brett now? Oh, he’s creating web strategies for Forture 500 companies and wearing a suit to work every day.
We hung out with Tim Humphreys at the Flow booth at the SIA Show last week and the kid definitely has his shit straight. We didn’t watch the Winter X 13, but got to see his runs right here thanks to Sessions.
Two snowboarders and a skier were reportedly in the Gore Mountain Range when they triggered a “Class 3 Avalanche” on January 16, 2009. All three men were buried for at least an hour before one managed to dig out, according to a story in the Aspen Times. They survived thanks to a device called an Avalung.
According to the report, the longest and deepest burial lasted 2 hours, 15 minutes (determined with the aid of digital photo time stamps) under about 7 feet of snow. . . . Other than a guardian angel, Sawtell believes one thing the men had going for them was preparation. All were equipped with the standard backcountry snow tools of avalanche beacons, shovels and probe poles. . . . But perhaps equally significant was they all had an AvaLung, invented in 2000 by Denver psychiatry professor and backcountry skiing enthusiast Tom Crowley. Black Diamond spent a half-million dollars making the design practical, and the version on the market now — AvaLung II — came out in 2001.
We’re not the biggest fans of the super-extreme RedBull thrill-fests, however, the Snowscrapers event is looking pretty legit, especially since Fuel TV is going to webcast it live and in HD this Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday, February 5th, 17 of the world’s best snowboarders will compete in New York City for their piece of the massive $100,000 prize purse at Red Bull Snowscrapers. Riders will rip against the majestic backdrop of the NYC skyline in the East River Park from 6-9 pm and it’s all being webcast live in HD on FUEL.TV. Don’t miss this one!
Plus, if it’s on the web and in HD, we’ll pretty much watch anything.
A 17-year-old Japanese exchange student who went missing at Idaho’s Bogus Basin Recreation Area on Sunday was found at 11 AM on Monday by a motorist. The kid had walked approximately 20 miles during the night.
“It appears he is fine. As far as I know, there was no medical attention needed,” said Rogers, who noted that the boy could have easily suffered hypothermia from exposure to sub-freezing temperatures all night . . . “He is extremely lucky to be alive,” Roger said.
Austrian rescue crews are losing hope in the search for a 31-year-old snowboarder who went missing on Saturday in the Upper Austrian Krippenstein, according to a story in the Austria Times.
The man, 31, from Gloggnitz in Lower Austria, was snowboarding with friends but failed to appear at their pre-arranged meeting point in the afternoon. The other snowboarders sounded the alarm. . . . Rescuers have been unable to look for the man because a warm “föhn” wind from the south has raised the danger of avalanches in the area. Rescuers would face too high a degree of risk if they went up the mountain.
X Games Senior Vice President Rick Alessandri, is pretty happy with the “cross-platform” ratings of the Winter X 13. “The continued growth across all our multi-media properties is a testament to the passion, athleticism and drama the X Games athletes deliver each event.”
But according to a story on TVbythenumbers.com the TV ratings really weren’t all that strong, though it’s hard to tell with all this “best ever” lingo:
Television: Winter X Games 13 was ESPN’s highest-rated and most-viewed Winter X Games in history. The eight telecasts averaged 942,000 homes, up nine percent from 2008. Young male and people demos were up double digits from last year. Three of ESPN’s eight Winter X Games telecasts, delivered over a 1.0 rating this year –Friday prime time, Sunday afternoon and Sunday prime time. Sunday night’s 1.3 rating and 1,242,210 homes makes it the highest-rated and most-viewed Winter X Games telecast ever. ABC’s Winter X Games 13 telecast on Saturday averaged a 1.2 household rating and 1,376,481 households.
Just for comparison sake nearly seven times as many people watch Extreme Makeover on ABC TV and 14 times as many people regularly watch American Idol. The Portland Summer Dew Tour event that aired live in August (albeit with the Olympics for a lead-in) got a 2.7 rating.
No matter where we were on the floor at SIA it seemed like our conversations were constantly being drowned out by the music pumping from the Skullcandy booth. The Omatic Snowboards booth was right across the isle from Skullcandy and here’s how Todd Richards was taking it. . .
We always liked the idea of a snowboard brand that only sold direct online and through a company-owned shop. And that is exactly what Lance Pitman did with Illuminati snowboards.
