Archive for the “BrOADER[view]” Category

Snowboard manufacturing is not something you can read a lot about in the snowboard mags or even on the Internet. Strong brands spend a lot of money in marketing, communication, sponsorship, events, and team riders to make sure that when you go out to buy that new board you will choose the right brand with the right image, but sometimes they tend to omit the fact that a nice “Made In the Alps” can also be a strong purchasing argument.
We wanted to know more about snowboard production so we asked John Colvin from the Elan Snowboard Factory, one of the major snowboard production facilities in the world.

In the interview below, John gives us an overview of snowboard production facilities worldwide, and tells us which snowboard brands run their own facilities, and which rely on OEMs. We then discuss the work processes at the Elan Snowboard Factory to better understand how each brand is treated for the production of its boards. John also shared a cool video that details every step of a snowboard’s production at the Elan Factory. Finally we tried to make him tell us what will be the main innovations on our snowboards in the winters to come but hey, he would have to kill us after telling us, so we’d rather wait and see!

It’s a pretty long interview, but you’ll definitively learn a lot about what is happening in the backstage of snowboarding and honestly it’s really interesting to have a better feel of from which production line your board is coming out…think about it the next time you buy a board and maybe you’ll add “eco-friendly factory”, “quality” and “innovation” alongside brand, design and camber profile in your list of criterias.

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When we published our ISPO post featuring our coverage of 2010 outerwear, we mentionned we’d focus on HOLDEN with a dedicated post and an interview with founder and owner: Mikey LeBlanc!
So here it is! No need to introduce Mikey, we all saw him do gnarly bomb drops in lots of videos
Mikey talks about all the exciting things around his brand: the new 2010 collection of course, which offers something different than the other brands in terms of cuts and look, but also the video project he is backing: Videograss.
Videograss will feature some of the most progressive riders out there with the support of some of the freshest brands like Ashbury, Airblaster, or Signal. Stay alert coz teasers should hit the net really really soon. Videograss will surely be a must see next September.
Enough words, click for our interview with Mikey!
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“Don’t miss the opportunity to talk to Jeremy Jones when it presents itself!”. I guess that’s what Mr. Burrows told Mr. Copsey…hence the extensive two part interview with Mr. Jones on Onboard TV!
Well I told myself the exact same thing and took advantage of the Happy Hour on the O’Neill booth to zip a couple of free Corona’s and meet up with Jeremy Jones! After this damn long interview with Onboard, Jeremy was still kind enough to give me 10 minutes that ended up being way over half an hour! It’s pretty sick to sit down with Jeremy Jones and just listen to him. So many words of wisdom…Seeing Jeremy at ISPO is funny tough. That’s definitively not the kind of environment where you’d expect to hook up with him; I was envisioning places like AK, Jackson Hall… But in fact he is super comfortable with it and takes the opportunity to share his opinion and deliver his messages. It’s the same with the internet. I wouldn’t expect Jeremy to spend much time online. But it’s completely the opposite: Jeremy is maybe one of the only big guns out there having a blog and actually really writing the stuff publiushed there! Also he truly understands the power of social media to make more people aware of what he is doing, what his organization POW wants to achieve, and why freeriding has to be looked up to!
So in our interview, Jeremy talks about his short term agenda which is the Big Mountain Pro, the development of his new Rossignol 2010 board, the ultimate freeride weapon - remember it’s ISPO -, and…that’s when my camera decided to go on strike like the Munich railway. So all the part about POW, and most importantly his film project DEEPER due to hit the screen in Fall 2010, are lost…and that’s when Onboard saves the day.

Stoked we met Mr. Jones. Huge respect! Now watch our video!

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Signal snowboards is THE brand getting the most positive vibes and buzz in the US. I heard that at the SIA in Vegas, their booth was the most crowded and visited. Signal is a young brand getting in it’s 6 year and growing steadily step by step, so much that in 2009/10 Signal will launch a sick outerwear collection created by Chris Miller.
Behind this success story is ex-Lib Tech  prorider Dave Lee. Now is the time for Signal to grow in Europe and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to meet Dave at ISPO.
So here is our interview with the man! Dave comes back on how he went from employee at Mervin to prorider for Lib and now proud owner of a sick snowboard brand. He also presents the Signal 2010 snowboard line and outerwear that you should be able to find in European shops next fall!
Just seeing how stoked Dave is when he speaks about his products, shows the love and dedication that his crew and me are putting into into Signal!

Click for our video interview!

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Here’s a post live and direct from ISPO to make you wait for all our reports! It’s hectic with partying and scooping around all the brands but we hope to have stuff online soon. Enjoy this cool interview with one of Slovenia’s most talented rider in the meanwhile!
While our bros over at Onboard had some words with the most famous slovene rider and Burton team rider Marko Grilc, we have a few images of him shredding his local mountain Vogel. Marko is coming back from a pretty early season injury, so during this session he was taking it pretty easy. We met him at ISPO and he told us he was back at his best level of form after intense rehab. When we were in Vogel over Xmas, we talked to Matevz Pristavec, THE local rider of Vogel. Matevz is riding for Elan, 686 and 32 and basically the Elan Park up in Vogel has been built for him. He definitly rules the spot
By the way he is shreeding with a 2010 Elan Inverse..for the full Elan + Elan Chicas collection go here!
We asked Matevz to describe us his park, tell us who are the big names riding there and how the Slovene snowboard scene is developing in general. Check out our video interview with the man who stomps 7s way better than Chaz Michael Michael. That’s what you call home advantage.
Here is BrOADER TV ep. 72 for you! Click to watch!
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Last friday in Les 2 Alpes, the Snowboard Collective held its second award ceremony to reward the achievements of the best among the French riding scene during the past season. Mat Crepel got the award for the best video part for his section in the Standard production. Earlier this fall we had some words with Mister Crepel. Mat is for sure one of the friendliest rider out there, always ok for taking some time to answer some questions. At 24, Mat has the maturity and experience in running his career that is the trademark of the very best. Add to this a serious amount of talent and a list of titles that even football players would be jealous off, and what you’ve got is definitly a role model for younger riders in France and the rest of Europe.
So when we met Mat we talked about his program for the coming season of course, but also came back on his event the MC Invitational that was held last year. A really cool event, rider driven, in which Mat invested a lot of time and effort and that ended up with Arthur Longo stomping his first ever double backflip! Check out our video interview!

Two Americans Bros were representing in Zurich during the Freestyle.ch. Tim Humphreys and Scotty Lago. These guys are real nice dudes. I think they had a blast during the few days they stayed in Europe. Scotty definitly turned it up during the contest as well, winning his qualis on the saturday and riding very solid during the finals. You can see plenty of Scotty in this season’s snow movies. Just a signal that the kid has a growing reputation as serial spinner and booter killer.
Tim is a bit less lucky because he should have been riding the Air&Style with the big boys in December since he won the rookie event last year. But sadly you know the rest of the story…Nokia out, bye-bye A&S. We hope Tim will have his chance next year!
Check out this short video interviews of the Bros filmed in the FLOW booth during freestyle.ch. It’s all about US elections, world economy, and global warming. Aight!