On the pic: Travis, Mark Landvik and TITA’s director Curt Morgan celebrate!
We witnessed TRAVINSANITY. Superlatives are missing after you see That’s it, That’s all: biggER, bettER, slowER, fattER, powdER, helicoptER, …
I’m speechless, the movie is just mind blowing. It pushes the limits of snowboarding into new dimensions. The filming and photography is just soooo perfect shot after shot. The riding is wow: massive, technical, fluid and you get to see riding from legends like the Guch and Terje!
Sometime ago we interviewed Axel Pauporte about his movie Lines and he was stoked on how kids like Travis and Nico Mueller were bringing freestyle into the lines and really pushing the progression. TITA is that to the next level. TITA goes right next to Subject Haakonsen on my shelf. TITA is THE snowboard video of this decade. And Travis is a rock star so here he is for you:
With DC entering the board market this season, we wanted to know more about those decks and how they were really riding. So why not ask one of the team riders who helped design the boards? We met Torstein Horgmo this fall and had a couple of questions for him about DC, and his coming season. The 2007/08 Rookie sensation really turned in on last winter, tearing up the comp circuit and earning respect from riders the world over. Probably the highlight of his contest season was his gold medal at the 2008 Winter X Games XII, after first beating Travis Rice in the semifinals, and then Kevin Pearce in the final.
Torstein already started this new season with a high note and a win at the Burton Australian Open earlier in September.
Check out our words with the man!
We met up with Hampus Mosesson during Freestyle.ch a couple of weeks ago coz we wanted to know more about the Swedes where abouts. Hampus had a busy winter last year and suffered a bad back injury. But the man who stomped sooo stylish shifties during the Freestyle.ch finals managed to come up with one of the most fun and innovative movie of the year - Pony Tale -, invested his money and dedication in one of the most promising rider driven board companies around - Omatic - and still had time to grew a mustache that would stoke mustachios and serges all over Europe.
Check out our video interview with Hampus, right here, right now!
Aleksi Litovaara was ruling the ISF pipes back in the days with huge frontside airs and frontside tailgrabs. After a great pro carrier and 3 pro models from Rossignol snowboards, injuries pushed Aleksi towards the exit but not at all out of the scene!
He started his own production company Laidback productions ltd with a show called ALS - Aleksi Litoovara snowboarding, that was a big success in Finland. Now he works at PMA Pulp Management Agency, where he is working as an athlete manager, helping dudes like Heikki Sorsa, Eero Ettala, Antti Autti and Risto Mattila to name a few, take care of their careers…something that didn’t exist when he was a pro-rider…
If you liked our BrOADER[view] with Seth Neary and Jesse Hyväri, you’ll like this new one as much as Aleksi likes writing with the caps locked Hey Aleksi, if my memories are still correct I first heard about you back in the early 90ies. You just had spend a summer destroying camps with one of your finnish bro and if I’m not mistaken you were always wearing a yellow sweat and your friend a red one - or the other way round…Remember about that or am I completly wrong?
If you watch Absinthe videos - which you did for sure if you read this blog - you must be familiar with Scott Sullivan’s music.
We met Scott at the Popcorn Wallride where his band and him gave a couple of shows.
It was great to hear the songs live and have a talk with Scott. Check out our video interview to discover more about this inspiring BrO who was just coming back from Alaska and some awesome shooting days with Nico Muller and the rest of the Absinthe crew: “Best Alaska ever” is the message to recall…
We were running after Tonton Holland since the beginning of the season and never really managed to meet.
We finally did in Saas-Fee last week-end and asked one of the most talented Swiss rider what he had been up to this year film-wise and with his new board sponsor Imperium.
Tonton is one of the most respected riders on the scene because : 1. he has the siiiickest style 2. he has build his whole snowboarding “career” with only one thing in mind: respect. Respect for himself and for the people he chose to work with because he believed in what these people/projects were bringing to snowboarding.
That’s why today he’s part of the Imperium team, and a safe source told us Tonton was getting his pro deck next winter…
This week-end’s Snickers Classic was the last event on the 2007/08 TTR calendar and it was definitly one of the most laid-back and fun!
The contest was marked by the presence and victory of Shaun White (check our video of how he ruled the contest), who knew that he could beat Kevin Pearce’s ranking if competing in the last 4 star TTR event….So Shaun did just that, and created quite some confusion in the TTR ranking system.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really make a difference, Kevin is the 2008 Tour Champ, Shaun will start the 2008/09 season in the lead, they both got 50 000$ and snowboarding is still as fun!
We took the opportunity to come back on the TTR season with legendary Swiss rider and TTR president, Reto Lamm to get his feedback on how the TTR has grown and will continue to mature in promoting our sport the right way, protecting the riders and pushing the progression to the next level!
After Seth Neary, we bring you another BrOADER[view] with a rider who marked the early years of European snowboarding. Jesse Hyväri was amongst the first scandinavians to conquer the Alps, and he really ruled them. He and his shred friends Joni Makinen, Ami Voutilainen, Joni Malmi and Timo Hypponen got hooked up with Hammer snowboards and were quickly known as the Finnish connection…killing every spot with lots of style!
But then from one day to the other, Jesse dissapeared from the scene and we were eager to know what he was up to today.
Specially because Jesse is the designer behind one of the most promising street wear brand to emerge in Europe: Makia clothing….
Greeting Jesse!
How are you?
Really good! I have been on a vacation with my family here in Lapland. I had a couple good days of riding and I’ve been cooking at our cabin and just relaxin.
You were one of the first scandinavian to come to the Alps and charge them with your freestyle moves.
What are your best memories of these times?
There are so many good memories! The first one is from my first day riding for Hammer snowboards. Me and Joni Makinen went to Verbier for one day with Vianney Tisseau to shoot some pictures.
From that day everything started. There were one meter of fresh powder and it was the first sunny day! We got few magazine covers, lots of other pages and posters published from that day. Then there was couple trips to Chile and some amazing trips to Japan where we were riding perfect powder runs with Joni Malmi. There are so many good memories…
Brand new BrOADER[view] for you and this time we explore the PR/marketing aspects of snowboarding with this Q&A with Muck Müller from munchie Konsilium.
Muck has been involved on the snowboard scene since years: first as a team manager for Heavy Tools, then as a Product manager for Salomon, after that as an editor in chief for snowboarderMBM mag and finally as his own boss in his PR/marketing company.
Muck is a pure player, he lives for snowboarding, he is true to its lifestyle, and is also a hard and passioned worker.
Check out his words!
Hey Muck! Can you please tell us a few words about you so that we get an idea of who you -really- are?
My name is Muck Müller, I grew up in Linz/ AUT. That is the 3rd biggest city in Austria. About 1.5 hrs away from the next good mountains. By being there I was a rider for Heavy Tools snowboards back in the beginning of the 90ties and then I worked for them as a teamcoach and in marketing. That was great as Heavy Tools was not only based in my hometown but also by bringing in my enthusiasm I brought riders such as Steve Gruber, Friedl Kolar, Stefan Gimpl, Klaus Hole, Tex Steinhardt, Bernd Egger, Mone and others to the Team. After some years working for HT, I got hired by Salomon and did the Snowboard Product Launch in AUT. That was mid 90ties and the time when Wolle Nyvelt and Björn Hartweger signed for Salomon Austria.
Cyril Neri is one of the most accomplished European freeriders and we are proud to have had the opportunity to meet him and make a nice video interview with him.
(We’d like to thank our BrO Blaise for making it happen and editing the itw).
In some way we are fortunated because Cyril lives in our home resort of Leysin
We wanted to meet Cyril, because:
he is a freeriding legend!
he just won the Xtreme de Verbier for the third time. And his first win came exactly 10 years ago! So Cyril is still in the game and capable of holding back the new generation of freeriders symbolised by Xavier De Le Rue.
he is also involved in the organisation of the Freeride World Tour so we wanted to get his feedback on how it all went on in 2007/08, and what are the plans for next year’s tour to push the recognition of professional freeriding even higher up.
we were curious to get his opinion on the new generation of freeriders in terms of progression
he has a new board sponsor - Hammer snowboards - and a favorite powpow stick
as we said he lives in Leysin…so we want to know where are his secret pow spots are
Enjoy this 10 minutes video interview. It might seem long, but that is how we visualise freeriding: peaceful, dedicated, and in perfect harmony with the mountain…and the pow!
During the 08 ISPO, Bataleon presented its 2008/09 board range and they have a board out with a smiley…I thought hard and remembered that a few years back - like 14 years back! - 2 Nitro riders had their pro decks with a smiley..the Seth Bros right? I know, you are thinking you have to be pretty old school to remember that kind of stuff, but if you were riding in the 90ies I’m sure you would too!
It’s quite cool, coz Seth Neary dropped us a comment on our Bataleon post and we got in touch. A Good opportunity to know wassup in his life after his long carrier as a snowboard pro!
You will discover that Seth has been really active on the design scene and worked on some siick product design projects with major snow/skate artists through his design studio Driven. Seth has also an interesting and positive point of view on the levels our sport has reached today and some really gooood advice for you kids who want to live out of your passion!
It’s been a while since we gave you a BrOADER[view] to read.
That means an opportunity to get an insight of someone from the snowboard industry working behind the scene to bring all of us the possibility to follow our favorite snowboarding events live on the internet from our couch!
You might have noticed that we have been taking advantage of the amazing webcasts, freecaster has been delivering during the whole season. We wanted to know more about the way freecaster works and who are the individuals behind it.
Meet Peter Meyers from Belgium, part of the freecaster.tv team and check out his words below!
It’s been a while since we gave you a 
