Issue #2
dec 10/january 2011
www.0910snowskate.com
EDITORIAL / 02
Through this second issue, you’ll see how snowskaters can explore their environement. Indeed, streets and glaciers are two diferent aeras where riders can evolve. Same goal, same pleasure. E N J O Y !
Slope / the snowskate magazine
Cover : Rider : Alan Gerlach pic : Cameron Foster
Contents : Rider : Franรงois Fevrier pic : Slope
Slope the snowskate magazine. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without permission is stricly prohibited. Slope the snowskate magazine is not responsible for unsolicited submissions including but not limited to manuscripts photographs and illustrations. Disclamer. The activities described and photographed herein are performed by trained athletes. Attempting anything contained within these pages could result in serious injury or death. Slope the snowskate magazine is not responsible for any injuries sustained by readers or failure of any equipment shown herein.
Slope / the snowskate magazine
CONTENTS / 02
LE CHALET BRAND NEW !!! THE SESSION ITW : Alex Blais RESORT : Les diablerets FRAMES THE SNOW STORM
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LE CHALET «Slope the party !» We celebrated the launching of Slope, at the «The General Lee» bar in Annecy. A lot of pro skiers, pro wakeboarders, and of course snowskaters attended to share a great moment. Thanks to everybody!
P l a y g r o u n d
«Unrestricted» Sick tricks, nice footage, looking forward to watch more... The new movie from Strapless Ent.
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Playground is a snowskate and powsurf video project. A really good project where the environement is the key . Half way between a documentary and an action sports’ movie , Playgroundwill try to reflect the passion of a group of riders. We will follow them along their project.Stay tuned on our website.
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BRAND NEW !!
Pack BILLABONG
MATIX headphone
KREW / the halo black
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MATIX headphones
BURTON / bandito
NIXON watch
ASHBURY / day tripper red
DC shoes / southside bi-fold wallet
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THE SESSION : Back to basics
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November 2010, a month and year we will remember as we rarely had so many snow in the Alps. All towns are white, even the ones where usually there is no snow. It’s the first time and verw early in t h e s e a s o n that we can see this marvelous layer covering the mountains. The phone started to ring, all the bros are waiting for the week end.... Just 2 days to go before the first ride of the season. Unfortunately, the rain came too ! What a nightmare, it was too hot and it wiped almost all the snow away up to to 2200 meters high... We had planned to go to a small resort which had not yet opened. Our friend Jeff called me on Friday to tell me that he had checked the weather forecast and also the webcam of the resort... The news weren’t very good. According to him we could find some small patchs of snow. So, on Saturday morning, we decided to go there. We were so motivated, we could not imagine staying in the valley. and the boards were already in the car. We just picked up the hand rail that we built last season and hit the road to the spot. There, we met some snowboarders who had built a scary set up with some plastic pipes and wood. We, on our side, tried to do better. Usually, there are loads of snow here but this day, the place we discovered was completely different. Anyway, here we were so motivated that we buit the set up at high speed. The weather was very nice, we at least had the
chance to have a beautiful sun with not one single cloud. The patch of snow that we used was so thin that any fall would have been unforgivable We just had 3 meters long of snow after the rail, but with the speed, it was a little bit short. Still we jumped on our boards and started t o do some tricks. We began with some boardslide s and front boads and the feeling was just so nice. A small set up , good friends, good weather, everything was there, even with little snow. The goal was to share some good time together but also to get the first feelings of the season. After 6 months without s n o w it was just too good. .
Riders : Djef Ferré and Florent D’amico
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Florent D’amico stylish man ever
ITW : Alex Blais
Bjorn R-G drop at the Olympic park pic : Alan Gerlach
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pic : Max hilty nose press
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Hi Alex could you introduce yourself ? envision snowskating. Momentum is definitely on our side, as we’re exposing My name is Alex Blais. I live in the the legit side of our sport and every year beautiful province of Quebec in Canada. I’m surprised by how much potential We’re lucky because we get dumped with snowskating has. There’s a lot of room snow every year, and that is somewhat for us to grow and I’m happy to say one of the reasons I started snowskating everyone participating right now is doing back in the days. I’ve always been an amazing job promoting the sport. into boardsports, and I really catched onto snowskating because it was new and just felt right for me. I am a very In terms of action ( tricks, spots,…) simple individual, always down for new projects and just into having fun Obviously with better products you get with my friends. I try to live day to day better riders. I feel as if there are two and make sure I enjoy every moment. waves of riders; one wave that was there when we first started Ambition and have been ripping for years. The old timers have pushed snowskating beyond what What does snowskating mean to you ? we could’ve ever envisioned, and now some new riders are popping out from To me, snowskating equals fun. It is nowhere and busting insane tricks. It’s such a smooth and easyly accessible really good to see such a progession sport, and that’s what I like most about and considering the small amount of it. Kind of like skateboarding, you can snowskaters worldwide, imagine what snowskate anywhere without a lift the level could be if skateboarders got into ticket, or dedicating your whole day to it etc. That’s where we’re going slowly... it. Grab your board and you’re ready to go. Snowskating’s also like freedom to me, considering the bindingless According to you the diference aspect which opens up so many between flat decks and bi-decks is possibilities. Nothing feels like it, and just about the shapes or it’s also about once you have a group of friends into it style and the way riders use them? as well you can share amazing times. I almost feel flat skates and bi-decks are two different sports. Some would As the owner of Ambition, could you say single level boards tend to ride describe the snowskate scene today ? more like skateboards, whereas biIn terms of business ? levels will be more like snowboards, which is pretty much true. So in a way I believe we are somewhat lucky the style of riding influences the choice, because Ambition started at a perfect but then again that is not to say one timing. Other brands had marketed the or another are limited in any style. We sport a couple years earlier but it just personally like flat decks more because felt like the wrong image was given out they are easier to use and function and product performance wasn’t like anywhere, anytime in any conditions. you’d expect. We randomly jumped into the game and since then other big players have joined and we’ve been constantly changing the way people Slope / the snowskate magazine
They also feel much more like skateboards so they’re easy to adapt to. I’ve always been into flat decks way more than doubles but I always enjoy riding down the mountain with my bideck. Depends what you want to do. What’s the best trick that you’ve ever seen ? I’ve seen a lot of sick stuff go down, but I think our memorable session at Mont Royal’s (Montreal) big 16 handrail is my top 1. Phil Smage stuck a sick bs 50-50 on its third try, just before getting hurt trying the kickflip in, and Alan Gerlach landed a bunch of fronside boardslides with the amazing style he’s known for. Definitely a sick night because the whole team was there chilling around the fire. Good memories. How did you make your first team ? Well, before selling snowskates Ambition Snowskates was actually called Ambition Snowskate Apparel. Hence we first started by selling clothing and snowskate specific items, and since I was pretty involved in the community I already knew all the top riders and they were stoked to join in the project. The first Ambition team formed, and many of these riders are still on today.
How important it is to have a good team ? At Ambition, we really believe team is everything. Sure you need good boards, but once you got that it’s really important to have people that can expose what’s possible on a snowskate, and that’s the team’s all about. They are the ones showing the world what we’re all about, and the momentum we have in the industry is the result of their hard work. What’s the best way to communicate about it? videos , photos, events…. Media in general is great, because it can be seen by so many people with internet these days. That’s why we try to release a full-length video every year, and it’s free on our website so anyone can have access to it. Thanks
Alex
Is there some new players for this season ? pro ? AM ? Yes, definately new players in town such as David Engerer, Taras Ryabokon and Chancellor Hughey. They’re all extremely talented and I’m convinced we’re going to see awesome footage coming from these guys. As for Pro/ Am we somewhat changed our team format, and put everyone in the same bassin, though Bjorn R-G, COSD and Josh Seguin now have signature models along with Phil Smage and Alan Gerlach.
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!!!!
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Alan Gerlach riding the vert wall ride pic : Ambition
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RESORT : Les Diablerets
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Autumn is here and finally brings us the northern cold weather systems we are expecting for months. No doubt, snow is in the air ! These first decent dumps above 2000 meters allow alpine top resorts to open their glaciers areas, which is great news ! Mike Steinhauser (0910 snowskate owner), who was continuously checking snow forecast and resort opening status for days, called me precisely one second after the first snowflake landed in Switzerland ! No later than the next morning,` I picked him up in Geneva heading Glacier 3000 in Les Diablerets, famous swiss ski resort. I havent been there for years and have forgotten how picturesque is the drive to get there. You drive through the vineyards on the shore of Leman lake, up to the heart of the Vaudoises Alps and its typical wooden villages. It was about 7 am, the morning soft light reflecting on the lake and Autumn’s thousand colors spreading all over the mountains offered us a magic scenery.
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An hour and a half later we reached the bottom of Glacier 3000, the atmosphere was electric, everybody was eager to board and waiting for the first cable car run. It was the first session of the season so we took it pretty easy, After a few warm up slopes we were getting more confident, and threw a few small airs on tabletops. Most of the time we were the only snowskaters around and kids were stocked to see us shredding the park. So we gladly lent our decks for a run. The clear sky allowed us to admire the entire Swiss Alps all day, and being there on a empty week day was just perfect. We went back down in the valley both happy faced and pumped for the coming season...
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Rider : Mike Steinhauser pic : Florent D’amico
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Slope / the snowskate magazine
THE SNOW STORM When there’s 45 centimeters of fresh snow in the streets it ‘s a nightmare for a lot of people but it could be also a dream for others. We will follow two friends riding in the streets of a small town in the Alps : Annecy. During almost three days, the snow didn’t stop falling at high speed in this part of France. It was a complete snow storm and real panic for inhabitants who are not used to have so much snow on the roads and in the streets. For us, this amount of snow in the city was offering thousand of spots. The first one was a huge cathedral, This spot was mystic with two large sets of stairs in front of the building : a really good playground for us. We used the first set for the speed and we cleared the second one. After severals runs, we decided to shred the rest of the city. The city is dominated by a beautiful castle on top. There’s a lot of streets with a good slope from the castle to the city. It’s like a maze... We met a lot of people with snowboards, skis, sledges,... We spent the rest of the night riding the city , slashing the snow on the pavements, grinding , and clearing some set of stairs. A pure evening that we won’t forget.
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Adrien Barat exploring every spot.
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THE STUNT
Rider : Franรงois Fevrier pic : Slope
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FRAMES
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Rider : Adrien Barat / switch boardslide big spin out
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Rider : Florent D’amico / indy grap
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