Snowboarding

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Forever the Olympic Weedhead: Ross Rebagliati, the first snowboarder to ever win Olympic Gold, is apparently the goto man for any Olympic weed smoking story. And when swimmer Michael Phelps was photographed blowing the glass trumpet Reuters’ Allan Dowd picked up the phone and called Ross.

Ross Rebagliati said on Wednesday he is not surprised by the controversy that erupted after a photograph was published that purports to show Phelps smoking marijuana, but said the public and media need to put the incident in context. . . . “I think Michael Phelps is an incredibly talented athlete and it’s a shame the media is choosing to focus and scrutinize one photo taken months ago at a private college party. The guy has 14 Olympic medals,” Rebagliati said.

Then again, Ross has one gold medal and that hasn’t stopped him from participating with the media in this story, now has it?

[Link: Canada.com via Celebstoner]

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We’ve been fans of Rome Snowboards‘ co-founder and snowboard engineering wizard Paul Maravetz for years, but when we saw the camber menu on the side of the Rome booth it was a little hard to process. Then Paul walked us through “hybrid camber” and discussed how it works on the Rome Anthem SS. Here’s what he said:

“As you know as someone who turns a snowboard. The camber gives you a nice crisp initiation it helps initiate the board and guide the board into where you want it to go. It also helps you exit with a really crisp, poppy, snappy feeling.

“Reverse camber has its benefits. You loose a little of that crisp initiation; you lose a little bit of that exit where you’re snapping out of your turns. What we do with our reverse camber is we’re adding stringer technology to help increase the pop and stiffness torsionally in very targeted regions in the board so you get some of that crispness and back.

Follow the jump for the rest of the story. . .
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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.

[Link: Illuminati]

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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.

Sounds a little like a Black Diamond ad to us.

[Link: Aspen Times]

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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.

The student was described as a “rank beginner.”

[Link: Idaho Statesman]

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