play it again

i got asked to repost the board designs from the recent ride snowboards art contest, so here they are. i'm still suprised about the win, but still hyped that folks backed the work

what to do in reccessionary times

the good people at Faceshots are having a sample sale this upcoming weekend, and that means its your last chance for the season to score some great deals on serious shred gear.

another must have

after mentioning scotty wittlake in my last post, i got thinking about another board that i wish i had bought; the OG M3 scotty pro model.

i loved this board, but was broke as AIG when it came out. this was the same year that scotty destroyed his face in the classic whitey flick "happy hour." oh, those were good times indeed. In the last few years i have scoured ebay, craigslist, etc.. etc.. to find this board, so if you have one that you want to sell drop a line below
(scotty portrait by jake stangel)

oh ten again.

as i have mentioned before, i love snowboard stuff. from the hardgoods to the outerwear, i just dig it all. the other day i came across these super cool 2010 burton exile binders in the reverse colorway (with the T9 Scotty wittlakes being the originator). these things are easily my favorite looking bindings for the 10 line, and are supposed to be the nice and mellow flexing vs. stiff and super responsive. You may remember in my pics of the year post i asked burton for a mission est; well it may not be the mission, but from what i understand should be the next best thing. stay tuned for my test review this weekend.

cafe life

while working in van yesterday, i stumbled across these 2 cool cafe racers;


the BSA was super cool, and was fully restored - kick start and all

sounds like a deal

so i go into a harley dealer today to get the numbers for the iron 883 that i want to buy. to my suprise the dealer actually has the bike for me to check out and it honestly looks pretty rad in person. in a second of walking in the salesfreak is on me, using all sorts of slang to guage my persona, droping classics like "pretty dope machine eh?" "rad pipes man." all the while trying to talk me into getting a $2500 power upgrade on the bike, etc... etc... Tired of hearing the nonsense i say "i am just looking for the bike as it is, no extra stuff." i see the bike's price tag says $9900 on it so i ask how much would i be looking at per month for the bike, with $0 down? he asks, "for 6 years?" "sure" i say, as i primarily want to know the finance rate and payments per month. he runs in the back to "talk with the manager." when he returns dood pulls me into his office and states that the cost per month would be around $350 per month. "$350" i ask, "for how long?" "thats for our 6 year finance term" he says. well, lets break that down $350 per month for 6 years is $25,200. Yes, $25,200 for a $9,900 bike, so $15,300 of intrest! i laugh and say i'll get back to him, while he's all like "better act fast man, it's not gonna last."

$15,000 of intrest, its a deal!

oh yes!

i've been trying to tone down my sneaker fascination as of late. although that is the case, i am really feelin these adidas skateboarding kicks. classic style, that even tight panters can rock. gotta give it to the 3 stripes, their attack on the skateboard world looks good so far.

thanks to hypebeast for the pics

old men and skateboarding

while hangin out, skateboarding with the boys, i attempted to recapture my youth by poppin some good ole ollies. i guess i weigh alot more than i did back in the day and ended up snappin amrits deck. youngblood was not too happy, so i'm on the search for a replacement. i guess i should stick to snowboarding

dang. i gotta lay off the cheeseburgers

roots!

back when capita just got started, i used to write for the now defunct vancityriders.com. one of my first gigs was to interview one of capita's founders, jason brown. now, this was a seriously nerve racking process for me, as i was (and still am) a huge JB fan. luckily JB was awesome to deal with and a super guy overall. i remember seeing him around mount seymour and he was always super friendly and eger to talk about capita. when the first line hit the stores i ran out and first bought his promodel (anj joked that i should have slept with the deck as i was so into it), then the OG board of death, it was awesome. one deck that i regret not buying is this star wars series JB signature board. the r2d2 graphic was bonkers, and i just should have bought it instead of cheapin out

i'm currently scouring the land in the search of this deck, so if you have one you want to sell leave a comment. thanks

1st blog banger

from the blackhorse blog comes this bmx inspired ride.


this thing is built by rouserworks and is as clean as it gets. takes me back to the days of ridin bmx all over the place. i remember nan had a cool zeronine number plate on his ride, it was awesome. back to the bike, not sure of the buildup, but it reminds me of these super cool detriot brothers moto's.

choices, choices

yeah, i know i've been back and forth on this harley iron 883. i called it out, then i love it again, it's true love hate. nevertheless, i'm pretty close at pullin the trigger for one of the these things, the choice now is which color. i love black,

but this silver one has been growing on me, whatdaya think?

maybe i should screw em both and get this killer sucker punch slim ,such a cool bike.

OG's

check the date on this photo, 98' son! a decade ago the fellas and i were heavily into the local vdub scene. instead of being into chicks and partin' like we were supposed to, we would obsess over the wheels, suspension packages, exhausts, etc.. etc.. nevertheless, those were some fun daze for sure. here's a classic shot from the ol north van v-dub show n' shine. the funny thing about this pic is the styles; johhny boy in golf attire, bobby d looking like an esse', nan looking like he's in cypress hill, and aj and i looking like preppy geeks. check in the back, its "mindfreak" jheera pre rock star, while bobby D looks like he's throwin up gang signs too. dang we were tough! hah hah

can't stop, won't stop

the snow continues and it just keeps getting better and better. mount seymour got 32 cm's in the past couple of days and there is no sign of slowing. just like me, the handful of people on the hill all had smiles from ear to ear, it was awesome. classic mount seymour, shit visibility, slow lifts, puking snow, powder everywhere, and super fun terrain. can life get any better? i submit, it cannot!

here i am throwin up the peace sign like a japanese tourist! by the way, i finally had an opportunity to test my burton ak goretex stuff on some classic wet coast snow. how did it do? you ask, brilliant my friends, just brilliant. jumped in the car after 4 hours of snowboarding; dry as a bone. thumbs up

fookin finally

after a season with zero powder days, we finally got pounded with snow this weekend. mount seymour got 65 cm's in 2 days and on sunday we hitup the best day of the year. super light, super fast powder, it was amazing. i took up the camera but was having waay too much fun to take any shots, i'm talkin knee deep in spots, sick! we are supposed to get snow all week; better late than never!

pics of the year

It saddens me to say it, but we are indeed coming close to the closure of another snowboard season. Instead of grieving prematurely, I thought it would be cool to feature my “favorites of the year.” And yes, you may agree with me, and you might think I suck, but you know what they say about opinions, enjoy!

Board tech of the year – yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it all before, and it comes in a variety of different names; “rocker” “banana” “reverse camber” etc... Etc… whatever you call it, this whole reverse camber thing is everywhere, and you’d be hard pressed to find a brand that is not doing a version of it. Yep, some say it sucks, and some say it’s the best shit ever. Me, I dig it. I rode 2 “rockered” boards this year; the burton hero and the K2 WWW, both of which were fun as hell. The WWW was a soft as a pillow, and I think my large girth definitely pushed past its limits. That being said. I could see park kids lovin this thing. So soft and easy to ride, super fun and definitely a good time on the hill. The Hero, while also fairly soft held up better for my weight and size, and thus was ridden a hell of a lot more. Both “rockers” rode similar, but I found the Burton’s pressure distribution edge setup on the hero a little better for harder snow conditions.
Do i think rockered boards will become the standard? Nope, while fun to ride and definitely more forgiving, I think that Dave Downing summed it up perfectly when he said that he likes a “more lively board” and that rockered boards fall into the “quiver board” category. Nevertheless, they are still fun as hell; so get out there and give one a try.

Bindings – I love Burton bindings, but I have to give it up to Union this season as they delivered some seriously quality binders. I saw more Union Forces, and contact bindings on the hill than any other brand this season (second to Burton, of course). Additionally, everyone that I knew riding them all just loved them. What’s behind the success; good product, pricing and promotion. Shit, this sounds like a marketing class, but in this case I have to say that union nailed it. My pick for binder of the year, (on a completely design/ promotional/ feedback perspective) the Union Contact.
Hopefully, Burton will hear my pleas to make a Mission EST binder, as the highbacks on my cartels are killin me.

Boots: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the Burton Jeremy Jones pro model boots are my pick for best boot of the year. Sooo unbelievably comfy and supportive + no break in period makes for a good time on the hill. Additionally, the clean styling and price point of these boots makes them accessible to almost everyone; bravo Jeremy, mission accomplished.

On a purely aesthetic point of view, my boot of the year choice goes out to the all black 32 team 2 boot. Now this could be that it takes me back to my trusty pair of tm’2 from back in the day, or it could be the tone on tone construction, whatever the case I love the design work on these things. Now the combat/ yellow 32 peter lines from back in the day win my best boot design of all time, but these things come in pretty close.

Outerwear: Burton’s revamped AK line. Now I know, real mountain climbing dudes are saying “what, that shit shouldn’t be AK, it should look like Arcterkyx” and sure, I’m certain there is a market for that shit, but thank god Burton designers did not take that angle.
With new fits, colorways, and tech the AK line really put burton’s flagship line back on the map. The Jussi Anorak killed it, and already you can see several copy cat designs in other brands o ten lines (cough bonfire, cough). Bravo.

Video of the Year: I wanted to say Stack Footy, but I have to admit the best flick of the season for me, was MD People’s “down with people.” This flick was well paced, well filmed and showed some great riding. The soundtrack was solid, and the fact that there was no slow motion footage was a huge bonus. Speaking of bonus’s “down with people” has so much extra footage that it ensures consumer satisfaction. Saying that, all the other film companies should really learn from this, “kids want more for their money.” If they don’t get it, they will simply go elsewhere, or download the shit from the internet. One example of this was OG MDP’s “double decade” which was great on footage, but with little extra stuff was a bit of a let down.

Close behind “down with people” was the Burton movie “its always snowing somewhere” which featured tons of rad riding, a shwack of bonus footage and 2 discs of shred action, all for the price of any other flick, now that’s just smart. Yep, there is a bit too much slo mo, but the soundtrack, and extra footage more than makes up for it.

Breakout brand of the year – Ashbury eyewear and goggles. Nice work Nima, & the Haakers; these guys took an idea, and through good marketing + signing some seriously influential shreds have developed the brand into a heavy hitter. + this year they are teaming up with holden to make the videograss flick. if it does the same as love/hate did for holden, look for asbhury only to get bigger. Now if they would only sign some gangsta’s I’d be backing them a little more.

wasting time

Yeah, I know I should be working but I downloaded the “old camera” application for my iphone and have been goin kerazy with it ever since. I wanted to make a cool star wars diorama like Capita’s Jason Brown used to do, but I only had boba fett around, so it was a solo photo shoot. Next time, I’ll nerd out completely.

dang it

i was all excited about the newly released HD sportster iron 883, that was until i saw this pic of one. the guy at the HD dealership old me that the canadian version of the bike would feature a regular sportster rear fender, rather than the chopped version on the US version. now i see its true, lame

good eats

i love bbq, seriously, i love the stuff. luckily vancouver is home to the Memphis bbq house; which produces some of the best pulled apart pork, brisket and corn bread this side of the south. todays meal included a pulled pork sandwich and fries, and ohhh was it good. the pulled pork sandwich is served in a super soft bun with slaw, and bbq sauce, killer.

is it weird to say i love you to a sandwich?
word on the street is that they are also setting up shop in south surrey, oh yes!

ch ch changes

yes, avid blog followers will notice some changes with the blog, most notably the name and the layout. i felt it was time for a change, and as they say change is good. so tune in frequently as i unleash random shit talking, which is perfectly acceptable, as this is a place for shit talkers. enjoi