Archive for the “BrOADER[spot]” Category

It’s a short one, but it goes straight to the point: one minute to discover and cruise through the massive snowpark from Les Grands Montets.
Big respect to the HO5 park crew for building one of the best parks in the Alps!
The 800 m long course offers all sort of possibilities. Build in a natural bowl, the design of the park takes advantage of the terrain and delivers perfectly shaped kickers of all sorts and sizes: 6 and 10 m gaps, 6 m box, followed by a 12 and 6 m kicker, then it’s a 9 m hip on the left size, keep the speed and throw a late 180 on the step up. Get your act together and hit the rails, then finish it up it the bottom part of the park on the massive 15 m gap and stocked everybody with a last skate trick on the wall. That’s it!

Thanks to Nico Watier from HO5 for building up such a progressive park in the middle of 4000m high pics!

As the Rossignol Air Tour cancelled its snowboard stop in Chamrousse, we decided to switch our contest report into a BrOADER[spot] check! Great idea coz we’ve discovered a little jewel…

Sunset Park! This name sounds like a beach resort!! But the location has nothing to do with sea side…
Chamrousse and its park are located just next to Grenoble in the middle of the French Alps. It will take you only 30mn to drive from the center of Grenoble to the resort and you’ll have to spend 14 Euros to use the park’s dedicated lift. Fast & cheap could be their baseline!!

The park is not very wide, not very long but really well organised and really well shaped. You’ll find some kickers from 8m to 15m, some huge hips, a real pipe to use as a wall and, several rails and a boarder cross area.
Got a young brother or an active girlfriend (yes we’re just Macho man ) ? no problem! while you improve your skills on fat kickers, they can have fun in the Kid Park where two mini kickers and oops will be their playground!

We regret the fact that the rotations with the dedicated lift are too long (5 to 10 mn), the transitions between the kickers are too long even if it is due to the flat terrain. And finally, a half-pipe is really missing!

Finally, Sunset Park is the perfect spot if you want to have a fun, fast & cheap snowboard day next to Grenoble!!

Many of you will be heading to the mountains for Xmas and let me tell you something: the conditions are great!
There are tons of snow (at least in the Alps) and it has been bluebird this whole week. Good point this week was that the resorts were still empty. That’s bound to change for the Xmas break…

Anyway, here’s a new BrOADER[spot]!
We went to cruise in Avoriaz yesterday. Damn this resort kicks ass! Freeriding options are all over the place, and this is a freestyle mecqua!
The park in la Chapelle is perfect and includes a nice kicker line, a rail line with a lot of different set-ups and good vibes on the spot. The big park in Arare is not quite ready yet but it looked like the shapers were preparing something huge…
Then there’s the Superpipe of course. It’s perfectly maintained, and the walls are huge.
And finally what you have all been waiting for: The Stash.
The Stash is awesome, no other word. Natural snpwpark build in the woods, with natural set-ups every where. Really fun and massive!

This is solid stuff that Avo is offering to riders, so our BrO advice: go shred Avoriaz this winter!

Here’s a short video from yesterday, just to make you wanna go! Peace.

We don’t only spend way too much time in front of the computer, we also try to ride as much as we can!
And if you had told me at the end of the last season, that I would be riding my first powpow lines on the 17th of November, I would have laughed out loud for sure!
But the conditions right now in the Swiss Alps as well as in parts of Austria and France are amazing!
It’s snowed over 50 cm, the air is fresh, and it feels like February! Lots of resorts have opened this week-end.
But we are in November and warmish weather is expected next week again…however it’s a great start.

So regarding the Glacier 3000 - probably one of the best spots to ride in Europe this time of the year - well, the park is fantastic. The classic huge lines of kickers is well groomed and offer possibilities for all levels. A rail line is also there and on the other side of the ski-lift, the fat pipe is shaped as well as the monster gap. Only problem when it’s a bit windy like it was yesterday is the lack of speed to hit all the kickers, but hey, that’s life!

Check this short video of a nice day of ride at 3000m!

Check out our short - and not soo great, sorry - review on what Tignes has to offer to freestylers!
From now on, we’ll try to produce - better - short reviews like that on snowparks and nice freeride domains around Europe.
Contributions are welcomed! Remember also that if you want, you can add resorts where you go usually ride on our BrOADER MAP and put descriptions, pics and videos there directly!

[youtube]youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdAFW8rQ8Xg[/youtube]