For Locals April 1, 2010

For this blog, I wanted to write a little bit about my local skateparks. There are several good ones if you happen to live in the Bay Area, and I’m going to talk about my top 4.

Note: Although I will be using a little biker to mark these spots (they don’t have a little skateboard!), many of them are not BMX-friendly. If you do choose to ride your bike there and the police come (which happens a lot, actually. You’d think they might have better things to do…) they’ll most likely just ask you to leave. They might, however, give you a ticket which totally sucks, so be careful.

First, my fave, is Millbrae skatepark. It’s pretty basic so if you’re an advanced skateboarder, you may not be interested, but for someone like me it’s perfect 🙂
Millbrae is a very open skatepark, with transition along the western edge. The rest of the park consisted mostly of wooden pyramids and banks, and nothing is too steep or too tall. It’s not the most respected park in the community because of these things, but they are what make me as a less experienced skater prefer this to many other skateparks in the area.

My second favorite would probably be Redwood City Skatepark, or officially known as Red Morton Park. Aside from the great community (if you spend enough time there and meet a few people, you’ll always run into someone you know), it’s just an overall nice park. It’s all cement, and has a nice big bowl for slightly more experienced skaters. Bikers also frequent this park, even though like Millbrae, they’re not technically allowed.

The next park is one of the largest in country, located in San Jose.

Lake Cunningham Skatepark is 68,000 square feet, with a little something for everyone from beginners to experts. It’s brand new, so everything is still incredibly smooth. It costs $5 to get in, and they require you wear a helmet, elbow pads, and knee pads. If you don’t have any I believe they rent them too, but… personally, I’d bring my own. They have BMX only hours, too, which are posted on their website.

Finally, I want to mention Ramp Rats. It’s a bit of a drive, but it’s the only indoor park around so in the winter, sometimes you don’t have a choice.
It’s not terribly huge, but it’s got variety. They have a pretty big box which is good for bikers (who are actually allowed here, all day every day), and a small halfpipe for less experienced skateboarders. Overall, the vibe is chill (they have couches on the top of their big drop in!) and it’s a cool place to spend an afternoon. There’s even In-N-Out and Subway within walking distance.

Now that summer’s on the way these are all great (free!) places to hang out and have fun! So check them out.

Check out these parks and a ton more at the Cali Skatez link in my blogroll!

DEW March 15, 2010

Well, like I said before the Winter Dew Tour was overshadowed this year (at least for me) by the Winter Olympics and the X Games. Admittedly, I didn’t watch much of the Tour. I think it’s important to cover it, though, because a lot of athletes I’ve never mentioned before (and some I hadn’t even heard of before) were involved and deserve some recognition!

The reason behind the absence of the better known pros at Dew Tour is the “non-compete” clause in Team USA’s contract. When athletes join the Olympic team, they agree not to compete in any other events before the Olympics. Some may feel that this is a negative thing for Winter Dew Tour and in terms of viewership, they may be right. But for the sake of the sport, maybe Shaun White not showing up was a good thing….
For the last several years we’ve seen the same few guys on the podium for nearly every major competition. This year at Dew Tour, there were some fresh faces as well as some veteran competitors who needed to remind the general public (non-snowboarding fanatics) that they’re still… you know, alive.

The prime example of this is the winner of the Dew Cup, JJ Thomas (a fellow Coloradoan!). A medalist in the 2002 Olympics, this guy has been around a long time. Instead of competing the last few years, however, he has recently invested his energy into making snowboarding videos. Seeing him compete again at Dew Tour was a special treat for long-term followers of the sport.

A little background on the competition and how it works…. This is only the second year of the Winter Dew Tour, and it consisted of 3 stops in Colorado, Utah and Vermont. The events at each stop include men and women’s snowboard/ski superpipe and men and women’s snowboard/ski slopestyle. At each stop on the tour, the athletes gain points in their event depending on how well they do. Whoever has the most points at the end of all 3 stops wins the Dew Cup.

After getting 3rd at the first stop and only 6th at the second, Thomas pulled out the big guns at the final stop at Mount Snow. He wasn’t doing double McTwist 1260’s like Shaun White, but he did put together an overall clean and well put together run which I think is just as pleasing to watch. In his final run, he threw in a 1080, 900 and a McTwist for a final score of 96.75.

Thomas (28) is almost an entirely different generation from the girl who won Women’s Superpipe. Only 20 years old, Kaitlyn Farrington claimed her first Dew Cup this year, earning at 90.75 at the last stop at Mount Snow. She’s someone I expect to see on Kelly Clark and Gretchen Bleiler’s level in a few short years.

Next time, I’ll talk about the skiing portion of the Dew Tour and try to find some sort of legitimate video… everything I’ve come across so far seems like it was shot from a camera phone.

Lago on Kimmel! March 3, 2010

I just wanted to post something really quick about Olympic bronze medalist Scotty Lago on Jimmy Kimmel.

Totally awesome.

Finally… Some Skiing March 2, 2010

I said a long time ago I’d cover some skiing and I realized I never really got around to it… So, here’s some skiing.

There are two things I’d like to fuse together in one post for this skiing segment: the X Games and the Olympics. The two events showcase different kinds of freestyle skiing, but they’re both very cool.

In the Olympics there are several different skiing events, but I’m going to be talking about the aerial event.

The trick that won the USA its only medal in this event is called the Hurricane… And I’ve pretty much never seen anything like it. It’s 5 twists fused with three somersaults and it’s only done by Jeret “Speedy” Peterson.

WordPress doesn’t allow me to embed videos from anywhere besides Google Video or YouTube (ahem… that sucks by the way) so I can’t show the direct video of this trick done right at the Olympics… But I can link to it. And below is a video of the trick but not the landing 🙂

In the Olympics, this trick earned Peterson the highest score for a single trick, a 128.62 out of 147.00. His combined score of 247.21, however, was 1.2 points shy of the gold medalist’s from Belarus, Alexel Grishin. Peterson was satisfied with the silver, however, and his success with such a difficult trick.

As for the Winter X Games, I was a little disappointed to see my favorites Simon Dumont and Tanner Hall (out because of injury) weren’t on the podium like they usually are. Instead, we saw 2 guys from France and one from New Zealand take home the medals this year. Not to say they weren’t well deserved. Below is some footage of Kevin Rolland’s winning run:

Note: It has come to my attention the above video doesn’t work… but if you click on the link it gives you can go watch it on YouTube

Final
RANK	NAME	RUN 1	RUN 2	RUN 3	SCORE*
	Kevin Rolland	91.00	95.00	30.00	95.00
	Jossi Wells	90.33	54.00	92.00	92.00
	Xavier Bertoni	87.66	87.00	90.00	90.00
4	Simon Dumont	89.66	48.33	89.00	89.66
5	Duncan Adams	84.00	88.33	88.00	88.33
6	Tucker Perkins	23.66	85.00	82.00	85.00
7	Colby West	19.33	81.66	35.00	81.66
8	Peter Olenick	9.00	40.66	10.33	40.66

I’m still looking for footage of Bertoni, because not only did he get a medal this year, but he won the gold last year, pushing Simon and Tanner out of their usual spots.

And I’m still working on writing about the Winter Dew Tour… It’s a little overshadowed this year by the Olympics!

Extreme Snowboarding February 26, 2010

As I said in my last post, I have some video of Shaun White’s “secret halfpipe” (somewhere in quaint little Silverton, CO…. I ❤ it!) and him learning many of the tricks we saw him do during his Olympic run. It doesn't say anywhere that this is where he learned the 1260 double McTwist, but I'm willing to bet that it is.

The thing that’s really unique about this halfpipe is the gigantic foam pit at the end. While the use of foam pits has previously been reserved for things like motocross and BMX, it seems that the level of progression in the sport of snowboarding is demanding it.

While the standard tricks for the halfpipe were once 720’s and rodeos, riders quickly saw that doing these tricks would not guarantee them a good score for long. The new standard rotation became 1080 (3 full spins), and that was a couple of years ago. Judges are looking for something fresh. Now, as the stakes rise in competitive snowboarding, the pro’s have to figure out how to deliver new, exciting runs without killing themselves trying.

And voila, Red Bull built a halfpipe leading into a foam pit. Needless to say, practicing a new trick into foam is a little less nerve-racking than practicing with a very good chance you’ll fall into hard packed icy snow.

Here is the video I have as a little intro to the project:

Here you can see White really employing the use of his new foam pit. The following two tricks are ones he did in his winning Olympic run… and now you can see how one might learn something like that 😛

And here’s the double McTwist, the variation of which he did at the Olympics to blow everyone’s mind. (Even though the title of the video is double McTwist 1260, it doesn’t really seem like he completes the 1260 in most of these hits. A regular McTwist is an off-axis 540, meaning a double would only be 1080 degrees of rotation. The last 180 degrees is what he adds to this in the final video to make it a ground-breaking trick.)

…… And just in case you can’t picture what an actual 1260 double McTwist looks like (landed in the halfpipe rather than foam), here’s one more video for you:

I have to say, he pulled it a lot cleaner there than he did at the Olympics.

For more stuff about Project X and the secret halfpipe, check out the official site. And now I’m done posting about Shaun White for quite a while…. He gets quite enough coverage as it is! And I think he makes everyone forget about all the other great snowboarders out there… I’ll pay them some tribute next time.

Men’s Olympic Halfpipe February 25, 2010

The Men’s Olympic Halfpipe event was more unpredictable than I would have thought. Not because of who won (snowboarding legend Shaun White… Of cooourse!!) but because the crrrazy tricks that were thrown down (again… Mostly by Shaun White. Don’t you just hate that guy?)

Since he got first place in qualifiers,
White had the enviable position of going last in the two rounds of finals. Not surprisingly, he had a terrific first run, throwing in back-to-back double corks. The second round started with White’s score being a whopping 46.8.

By the time his turn came around again, no one had beat his score. This gave White the option to take it easy during his second run, since he had already secured a win, but he decided to give the crowd something they could really go wild about.

After consulting with his coaches, White decided to put together a run during which he fused together two of the hardest tricks in snowboarding. He threw a trick he had only done in competition a handful of times, his already near-perfected 1260 double McTwist. White received overwhelming approval from the audience AND the judges, who awarded him a 48.4 for his final run. That’s a damn near perfect score.

The US earned two medals in this event, with White getting gold and Scotty Lago earning bronze. Lago’s run is not to be overlooked; he is, like White, a phenomenal snowboarder. He also has mastered the double cork, working in THREE variations of it in his run. For a more detailed account of the winning runs, visit this article from Transworld Snowboarding.
I also have video floating around of Shaun White learning “the Tomahawk” at his own personal halfpipe (again, don’t you juuust hate him?!), I’ll be sure to embed it (if possible) or at least link to it once I track it down.

That’s all for now!

Vancouver!! – Women’s Halfpipe February 23, 2010

We’re now in the middle of the Winter Olympics, with two of my favorite events behind us: Women’s and Men’s Olympic Halfpipe.

First I’d like to talk about the ladies. We had many great competitors on the US Olympic Team, including Kelly Clark (a past Olympic gold medalist in this event), Gretchen Bleiler (totally awesome, and the gold medalist in Superpipe at the X Games two weeks ago), Hannah Teter (recent Sports Illustrated swimsuit model… haha), and Elena Hight. Gretchen Bleiler was favored in this event (by many people besides myself), but she wasn’t able to put together a winning run. During her first, she got hung up on her signature move the Crippler. She landed it in her second run, but hit the deck on a Cab 720 on her next air.

Hannah Teter was one of the few athletes who was in good standing after the first round of finals. She had already secured a score of 42.4 with a run that included a Cab 720 and a 900.

The winner of the event was in last place at the end of the first round, and was in the least desirable position in the second. She was going first.

Torah Bright from Australia suffered two pretty gnarly falls in the first round, and went into the second with a score of only 5.9. But for me, it really was the comeback of the year. She started off her run with a huge backside 360 right to a switch McTwist 720. Delivering her next 3 tricks with ease, she earned a final score of 45.0

No one could catch her in the second round, and the event ended with Bright in 1st, Teter in 2nd and Kelly Clark in 3rd with a 42.2.

Here are some pictures from Transworld Snowboarding to help you visualize.

Torah Bright:

Hannah Teter:

Kelly Clark:

Vancouver!! February 13, 2010

The 2010 Winter Olympics are upon us, with many of promising American athletes competing in snowboarding, skiing, and tons of other events. Mainly, I’ll be paying attention to the snowboarding and skiing, but I’ll try to report a little on everything. The Olympics only happen once every four years, after all!

I would like to address the incident that occurred today involving a young Georgian luge competitor. In a tragic accident, Nodar Kumaritashvili veered off the course around the last turn in his training run and hit a steel pole at 90 mph. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
An investigation of the area where Kumaritashvili lost control is taking place, and it has been decided the wall next to the turn will be built up as a “preventative measure”, according to the International Luge Federation and Vancouver 2010 officials.

The rest of the Georgian team made the decision to stay in Vancouver and compete, in honor of their fallen teammate. To get the whole story (and watch the video… yikes) check out the NBC Olympics website.

Catch Some Air January 31, 2010

After Women’s Superpipe last night, there was the Big Air contest. Only one American made it to the finals, but the foreigners definitely held it down for their respective countries.
Big Air works like this: Riders hit one big jump and are scored out of 50 on a single trick. They can hit the jump as many times as possible in 20 minutes, and their two best scores count.


The obvious highlight of last night was Halldor Helgason from Iceland. He got a perfect score of 50 on his very first 2 runs, with a total score of 100 before the event was even half over.


I FINALLY found some video! Check it out:

Women’s Snowboarding

Well, I’m watching the replay of the Women’s Finals and so far, it’s been CRAZY! After watching most of the girls mess up their scores by falling during the 1st round, Gretchen Bleiler came out with an incredible 1st run, throwing a 900 right off the bat and boosting the halfpipe over 13 feet. She scored a 90.00, which put her in the lead by roughly 50 points.
Kelly Clark’s run came immediately after, and was even more impressive. She threw some really clean tricks and was airing higher than anyone: 15 above the top of the quarter. That is HUGE! Kelly’s run earned a 94.66, but she wasn’t in the lead for long. In the 2nd heat, Gretchen pulled off a super clean and unique run, fitting in a 900 and a 720, and she wound up in the lead by 2 points. Kelly’s second run didn’t go as well…. She tried a 900 and ended up falling.

Gretchen Bleiler’s signature trick, the Crippler

Kelly Clark
Note: These pictures of Kelly and Gretchen are not from Winter X this year
This time around, Gretchen Bleiler won the Gold in her hometown. But, we’ll still see these ladies in the Olympics and I can’t wait to see what they come up with 🙂