le roast beef

 

 

Forget Olympic size kickers and gnarly rails,  this stuff is amongst the most fun you can inside resort boundaries on a snowboard!

 

sunset sands....

Not sure I ever posted this before since it predates this blog. Filmed by Ben Haworths dad in 20 minutes as the sun went down in Woolacombe, I think in 2007 ish. The board is one of the original few Gulfstream Saunton Foils and was my favourite board for quite a few years!

Konstructor

 

So i just got my first film developed from my Lomo Konstructor . Like all toy camera's the first few rolls are all about working out the idiosyncrasies and there are always hits and misses. On the whole i'm pretty pleased though.

memoir.....

Seems a lifetime ago in some ways but it's only 6 or 7 years since I made a surf film with my mate Ross. Things have changed a lot since then and I think the internet has made the business model we used a little obsolete while the advent of go-pro HD cameras and cheaper more powerful editing software has raised the bar significantly.


I'm still quietly proud of it though.....

travelling light

 

Anyone that knows my family will know that my girls dont really travel light. Although they love camping it's definately the making camp for a while and getting it comfortable type rather than the fast and light feral missions we are all supposed to lust after as surfers. Of course i'm all for sleeping in a tree and drinking rainwater - actually i'm not, i like being comfy too! Hence the embarassingly large tent for three people! 

Actually we got it online half price and we didnt really realise quite how big it was when we ordered it! 36 guy ropes, it's the opposite of feral!

Anyway, this pic kinda harks back to posts i've made in the past, namely that a "workable travel quiver" for me is definately a fish and a log. In this case it's a 9'4 if6was9 and a 5'8 larry mabile fish but there are a few variations on the theme. Of course the only thing you can't pack - (the kitchen sink will fit if you pack well ;-) is waves and as this trip proved, it doesnt matter what boads you've got if it goes flat afer 3 days!!

flags

 

 Of course this is what you really want to see when you round the corner on a surf trip. Three foot and reeling

#selfie

 

take a load off

 

This could be one of the most photographed seats in the county. 

mountains

 

It's the winter olympics, Yay! I must admit to generally geting more excited about the winter than the summer games and this time with snowboard slopestyle in the schedule as well as halfpipe and the carnage of boardercross it should be a fun watch. The slopestyle was pretty cool already despite some suspect judging in the early rounds that got the internet in uproar.

Questions on at least someones lips include....will shaun white take a third gold, has anyone got a triple cork in their pipe run, will terrorists blow anything up and how much can Ed Leigh subvert the normally staid BBC sport commentary with his brand of excited rambling?

 

 Compare and contrast Clare Balding with the man who once won the world air guitar championship under his stage name Whoppercock! This year he's ably abetted by the UK snowboard legend that is Tim Warwood. It's great that the bbc (in contrast to some US networks) have properly knowledgeable as well as entertaining announcers.

 

If FIS run snowboard gymnastics isn't your bag let me redress the balance with a clip of Gigi Ruff ripping a 50 degree powder field in Last years Red Bull ultra natural contest:

 

 

 

the way we were...

Sweet little clip from a sunny summers afternoon at my local from Pete Hill. Makes you realise that the logging standard here ain't bad for a surfing minnow like Devon. Even I managed to sneak a couple of waves in at the 0.50 - 1.12 mark!

I'd love to roll down to the beach in the sun right now but the recent storms have left it looking like a different place with cliff falls and the demolition of Jules's Beach hut Office. How the massive sand movement affects our high tide wave remains to be seen. We are all hoping the zippy left into the corner has survived!

tonic water

Cornish Tonic from Ruwac Productions on Vimeo.

Beautiful little clip of James and Rich filmed by Simon and Joel in Gwenvor, a beach thats always worth the rudge down the cliff even if your tired legs are cursing lugging a heavy glass job back up later on!

James just landed in California with his freshly stamped green card. It's gonna be great to see him continue to fly the flag in the epicentre of cool over the next couple of years.

micromute

 

 So, back from a cold but very snowy Geilo in Norway and a few thoughts on the new Lib i rode as promised.

 I've ridden a lot of snowboards over the years and seen some massive  changes in the technology and thinking behind board design over that time. When i started, the cheap stuff really was pretty rubbish but now things are at a point where there arent really any truly bad boards at any price point. In fact i stoppped reading catalogs a while ago since if you believe what you read, every board anyone sells is perfect for everything! Lib have always stood out to me for their slightly counter culture stance and their willingness to do something different.

Just to recap, it's a 153 Lib Tech attack banana 2014 model sporting classic Mike Parillo Lib graphics. Its got what Lib call their EC2 banana tech which,if you strip off the marketing BS, means there's rocker between your bindings then camber from binding to tip with the apex of the camber moved towards the binding a little to mellow it. Lots of companies produce some kind of variation of this now and it is supposed to offer a mix of the forgiveness and "butterability" of rocker with a bit more of the edge hold and torsional stiffness to cope with speed that traditional camber board gives you. The board has Lib's "magnatraction" serrated edge which i definately feel gives better edge hold on icy piste from my experience.

Bottom line (first!) i really liked this board.

 It's a twin shape thats a little narrower and more freeride oriented than the 156 skate banana that i had before.  Despite being shorter and having less nose width it still floated plenty well enough in the pow although it definately needed to maintain a little more speed to keep the nose up compared to the skate banana. That said, it's only a 53 and at a comfortable off-piste pace it was happy to float and slash without inducing undue back leg burn. the slightly narrower width definately helped to change direction more quickly and it was easier to thread through the trees than my old board as a result.

On piste whether corduroy or crud, it held a really good edge at speed with plenty of pop. This is the camber working for you as well as the greater stiffness in the flex. An oft quoted criticism of the rocker only boards is their floppiness at speed or with big landings and that has been my main gripe with the skate banana. Lib seem to have got the flex just right with the ec2 banana, stiff enough to hold and inspire confidence blasting along the piste but flexy enough to butter around and enjoy popping off stuff at the piste edges. It certainly got me hitting some bigger jumps than i've done for a while.

 It's a good compromise for the type of resort riding most of us do most often, alittle bit of everthing. Lib's more freeride oriented boards like the dark series are stiffer and feel amazing at full speed but need quite a bit of pace to wake them up, more pace than you might want to have if you are learning things or cruising with family. The skate banana is real fun in the park but shows it's limitations at speed and off piste. The attack banana sits in the middle, good enough at everthing to put a smile on your face and progress!

Super big thanks again to Stentiford Snowboarding for sorting it out and to Phil for the shamelessly self promoting pics of "dad awesomeness" ;-)