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17/07/2011 Issue 53 |
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 Snowlinx's Ryan shows off his new toy. |
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Im sure everyone knows someone who, when given a new thing, picks it up and becomes proficient very quickly and more annoyingly, far quicker than you. For the slightly more elderly Im sure you spent hours with a rubix cube only to give up after completing two sides and then to have a friend pick it up and with the dexterity of a monkey juggling coconuts manage to solve it within 10 minutes. For the younger readers I guess the same could be said when a pheotus noob pwns your arse on your favourite online playstation game. Then there are snowboarders who try skiing, skiers who try telemarking and snowboarders who try snowskating. Now snowskating, to the uninitiated, is basically a skateboard attached above a small ski. The rider has no bindings and is only loosley connected by a tether. So if the board hits anything larger than a divot there is very little to stop the rider and board from being separated, apart from maybe crazy skill. At the last 3 valley rally Ryan(Snowlinx), my fellow checkpoint judge turned up at the start with a snowskate in hand instead of his snowboard. This wouldnt have been a problem if the checkpoint has been close by but ours wasnt. It was on the other side of Meribel and would require a descent of the Saulier towards Motteret down several cut up heavy red runs. My initial thought was, even though we were at the third checkpoint, that by the time Ryan had fallen, sorry snowskated, down the mountain the first teams would have probably beaten us there. Oh how wrong I was. While traversing slushy moguls, other skiers and boarders Ryan made his way down the mountain at a decent speed maybe falling every couple of hundred meters. By the time we got down to Motteret you could have counted his falls on two hands and this is after only 3 days on the board. Then the real test, to get to the checkpoint required travelling up a long a steep poma drag lift. Again anyone who knows about drags knows that some older ones give you a hefty tug as you start. Fine if youre firmly attached to your equipment but on a snowskate? Would the lifties even let him on the lift? Luckily they did and as we waited, cameras ready, for a comedy moment that would have happily graced Youve been Framed Ryan just proved how good he is and made it to the top unscathed. Not only that, after an afternoon of drinking champagne and abusing the teams at the checkpoint he still managed to return to Courchevel, through even heavier afternoon slush, with sickening ease. The editor |
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Jess (who some of you will know as she works for New Gen in Courchevel) runs Brownstock Music Festival on her family's farm in Essex in September. Started as a small affair - but now its a fully formed boutique festival with 4000 visitors heading down to the farm during the weekend. Click here for more info |
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