Justo8484

one of my friends used to go to castleton. i stayed with him over my spring break and skied killy for the week, but once we were done skiing for the day, there was absolutely nothing at all to do besides play video games and drink. he said until november when the mtn opened, there was nothing to do there, which seemed pretty much true. i love taking trips up to vt, but i could never live there unless i lived in burlington or something.

you could do it that way, but then its not so much one shop team, as it is two teams from the same shop. you're not depending on each other as much in a setup like that. and no, thats not like what blue's doing tuesday nights. blue's as far as i know is not a team event.

if you have access to proform, check out the scratch bc. its wide, soft enough to be maneuverable in trees, but stiff enough in the tail for full speed bombing lines.

last time i checked, redbull sponsors skiers as well as snowboarders. keep trying.

doug, you're not helping my cause here. to the parklogic guys, can we get a real reason as to why you dont want skiers competing? saying you have to judge skiers against snowboarders is not a good reason, because as long as you have the same number of skiers and snowboarders per team, you dont have to judge them against each other. it sounds a lot like a cop-out to me.

like i said, there may be fewer of us, but the talent level of the skiers in the area is easily on par with that of the snowboarders. in fact, at most of bear's comps last year, the skiers easily outshined the snowboarders. i'm in no way trying to put one above the other, which i feel is what boulder is doing with the shop comp. there's plenty of talent on both sides, now come on guys, let us showcase that, please?

god dammit boulder lets me down every time. you guys just shat in the face of skiing, exactly like you did at creek, and exactly like boulder did at the oakley rail jam last year. discrepencies in judging? thats a pretty beat excuse. if its teams of four, why not two skiers, two boarders? judge the skiers against the other skiers, boarders against boarders, and total the score up that way. its not rocket science. i thought this industry was beyond the point of excluding half of the possible participants because of the way they choose to ride down the hill. the level of skiing is easily at the same level as the best snowboarders around here, and i'm sure i'm not the only one who finds it retarded to not showcase some of the best talent in the area, or the entire east coast, because we have two boards under our feet instead of one.

kiss should go die.

you guys had to go and make the battleship one foot longer than blue's huh? ha it looks sick though

jeff you're the exception. i wax my gear maybe 20 times a season, and thats still a ton more than most people. you're right, to really soak a base with wax, it takes a few wax jobs, but for most of us, we dont need 20 ha

if it comes straight from the factory, its ready to ride. some skis/boards might need a wax job (line in particular is notorious for dry bases) but other than that, the edges and structure should all be ok.

are you really that dumb? my guess is they are testing the site to make sure it the flash works with the new trailmap...

stepdowns suck

only for the woodkit

bait and switch deals like that i am pretty sure are illegal, but i'm not positive. you might wanna look into that. maybe i should have paid more attention in my personal selling class... and doug, brick and mortar shops can compete with online retailers very easily. after shipping is accounted for, there often isnt much of a price difference on in-season gear. also, online retailers dont tune your skis, or check or mount your bindings. can we let the brick and mortar vs. online retailer thing die now? both have their place.

woodkit mine! yeah i said it. woodkits are sick.

that hurts. its cool though, we're all gonna have sick parks to ride this year. on another note, i thought he was gone for good, guess not...

trevor definitely has the right idea. go for it man

you got some connections over there, dont you jeff? i've tried offering them my services in the past, mostly just for the video stuff cause i wasnt too familiar with web design then, and i offered to do it for no pay either, and pretty much got shut down. basically, blue mtn management hates me, but everyone who's been here for a while knows that story.

you've taken personal attacks of your own...

so it took me about half an hour to read through this whole mess, and if i put as much effort into my schoolwork thats due tomorrow as i am about to into this post, i'd have a 4.0 right now, but regardless... lots of good and bad points made here. i guess i kinda set things off on a bad note ripping on USASA, but thats how it is. i agree with some that there should be some sort of level playing field for skiers/boarders across the country to compete on, but USASA does not provide that. for me, my brother, and miller, who all did USASA together to see where we stood against others from the area over a season, we didnt really get anything out of it as far as feedback or recognition goes because the talent pool for our age group was so small. there were even fewer skiers in the younger age group. nips and a kid named jesse were the only two to compete. i'd assume they did it for similar reasons we did, to see where they stand and because, hell, winning and getting a gold medal that you can hang on your wall and show your kids 20 years from now is pretty cool. i know i thought it was pretty cool when my dad told me about how he used to race and was highly ranked in the state at one point. some day i'll be able to tell my kids the same, that back when i was in college, i was one of the top freeskiers in the area winning medals and having fun with my great crew of friends going from mountain to mountain representing our crew and what we do. the problem with USASA though is that winning isnt always based on merit. while this wasnt really a factor in my grouping, it was very apparent with the snowboarders. the kids who had been doing it for years and got to know the organizers and judges consistantly placed better than kids who were equally talented but didnt have the name. also, as DH has said, its very spin-to-win based. there were snowboarders who were super styley on everything, pressing the crap out of every box and rail and spinning slow smooth grabbed 5s who were losing to kids tossing sloppy 7s and 9s with no grab. its a flaw in the system and format of it, not necesarily in a national competition itself, if that makes any sense. as far as the whole schwag/prize thing goes, obviously its not the intent that getting free stuff drives the sport, until you reach a certain level where you are trying to make riding your livelyhood. if you look at any of the top pros, they all started out freeskiing because they liked it. most of the top pros came from race or mogul backgrounds, and just got burned out with it and started tossing heli's off any little lip they could find or started sliding handrails and whatnot. however, once you get to a certain point where you are dedicating a large amount of time and money into the sport, getting something besides intrinsic value back from it is huge. again, using myself as an example, i love to ski, always have, and always will. i'll be sliding rails and tossing myself off jumps, cornices, windlips, and whatnot til my knees cant take it anymore, cause its the most fun thing on skis to me. as far as comps go though, i'm not going to bother with a comp that has shitty prizes going to riders that arent necesarily the best, like USASA. Paying upwards of $100 after comp fees, lifts, and gas and food is accounted for and then not getting anything out of it besides maybe a crappy trophy that they melted the tails of the skiers skis up so it almost represents freeskiing is just not worth it to me. you sit around waiting for your two attempts at a course to show that you are the best, are forced to sometimes learn new tricks and progress far to quickly and sometimes, like my friend and i did last year, come away with injuries that looking back on it, were definately not worth it. if there's money on the line, i'm much more inclined to launch myself 10 feet into the air, spin around a little bit, then land on a 3 inch wide piece of steel and ride away from it. i deal with race kids and parents in the shop coming in for new gear, and i guess i dont understand why they need new skis every year, because til i started hitting rails, my stuff definately lasted more than one year. for freeskiers though, most of our parents dont give it the full blind faith backing that parents give to racing because there is no ultimate standard or goal for us to meet, and therefore we have to pay for more of the gear on our own. having an extra incentive, such as a pair of new skis or some cash, to do well in a comp helps us out. i dont think that free gear is what is motivating the younger kids in our sport to do comps at this point. ultimately its up to the parents whether the kid does the comp or not, but a lot of kids, like nips, just like to show off and tell everyone that they won this contest, or that race, or whatever. like trev said, blue's program didnt use free gear to get kids to do something, it was just an added bonus at the end of the day, and i think that just makes it more fun for the kids. if you can have a kid tell their parents on the car ride home that they had fun with their instructor that day, thats what matters. if the instructor is making it fun for the kid, they'll want to go back the next weekend, whether they had fun because they progressed their ability, made new friends, or just like skiing for what it is. and to ski about the 300% markup thing, you worked in a shop before, you should know that no ski shop makes that large of a margin on anything of substantial value. the gear given out at comps, like skis, bindings, helmets, goggles, that sort of stuff isnt even 100% for the most part. stuff is given out to promote the shop and give the competitors a sense of good will towards the shop, which the shop hopes comes back to them when they need some other new gear, or they tell their friends they got a cool new helmet from whatever shop it was at a comp. its all advertising, but it benefits everyone.

is that from a snowboard boot outer or a rollerblade trs skin?

trevor nailed it. with a frames, go for either HI blue, HI persimmon, or clear. clear is obviously clear, the other two kinda brighten things up a bit and increase contrast, which is nice for the overcast days too.

papa, i'm sure you already know this, but usasa is a huge load of shit. it may mean something elsewhere in the country, but in eastern PA, its a joke. kev, miller and i all did it last season. we placed top three in every comp we did, without really trying. i'm not trying to talk any of us up or anything, but to place that well in a comp without giving it your all really says something about the level of competition. i think it's headed in the right direction in the sense that to be viewed as legitimate and have some sort of larger scale funding come to our sport, we need to have an organized series that is judged on the same criteria nationwide. however, there are problems with the system too, as there are with any sort of competition. with usasa, the only draw is nationals, and its really unclear as far as what going to nationals gets you, besides an expensive plane ticket and hotel stay somewhere out west. it costs $25 per event, plus lift tickets, and there are really no prizes given away at the events. out of the entire series last year, i came away with a stick of chapstick and a dakine pack that i won in a raffle. after the second comp, i really wasnt motivated to finish out the series because there's really nothing to gain. the talent pool is so limited and the prizes and sponsorships just arent there. i wish camelback luck, because the more kids who actually know how to ride a park safely, the better, but i dont feel that the association with usasa makes the program any better than what blue, or bear this year, is doing, besides that its structure in the manner in which the race programs are, that their is strong parent backing with fundraisers and the whole "team" aspect of it, but that may not be a good thing anyway.

nosebutter 5's comin out to play!