Girl Gets SoCal » snowboard event

Pillow Fight: Recap

Bekah — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 05:31:12 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-92lmOjqczE

Molly from Evo filmed the Pillow Fight weekend at Stevens Pass this past February and the video weekend recap is up. Take a look and, ladies, be sure to come next year!

Get Over It! Stevens Pass Photo Contest

Bekah — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:46:16 +0000

Submit your best photo to the Stevens Pass photo contest for a chance to win a season pass for the photographer and rider!

How to win:

Submit your photo to marketing@stevenspass.com between April 1st, 2010 and April 30th, 2010
Include name of photo, photographer name and skier/rider name
If your photo is chosen the photographer and skier/rider will win a 2010/11 season pass to Stevens Pass!
Judging will be based on originality and creativity

Simple Rules:

Photo must be awesome and taken at Stevens Pass
Photos must be submitted as a JPG (max 5MB)
Photos must be G-rated
Only one photo submission per rider/photographer combo
Submissions may be used by Stevens Pass on www.ridestevenspass.com or www.facebook.com/stevenspass

See entries submitted so far

Get on it!

Day 20: Shred and Big Air Fiesta

Bekah — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 21:13:12 +0000

Unknown rider at Stevens Pass Big Air Fiesta

Last Saturday I was up at Stevens and met up with some of the guys from the motor-home lot. It was sunny, spring conditions and lots of fun cruising around with the guys. I think we were setting speed records down the mountain. Off groomers was soft and poofy on top with sheets of ice underneath…so we ended up staying on the groomers. It was great to meet the crew.

Stevens Pass had been busy setting up a big air jump and a wall feature for their Big Air Fiesta. It was for pro and am skiers and snowboarders and was fun to watch in the afternoon. Two ladies represented in the snowboard category: Megan Ginter (1st place) and Shasta Smiley (2nd place).

Megan Ginter hits the wall at Stevens Pass Big Air Fiesta

It was pretty rad watching a comp in just a hoodie, instead of all bundled up in my gear.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsCXx-Zgc7c

Big Air Fiesta Snowboard Results 2010

Women

1st- Megan Ginter

2nd- Shasta Smiley

Ams Men

1st- Marvin Pingesa

2nd Matt Christie

3rd- Tony Richards

Pros Men

1st- Matt Penny

2nd- Andy Bergin-Sperry

3rd- Derek Lever

Ride Shakedown

Bekah — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:01:53 +0000

Friday Night

Izzy Lalive, Friday night's female Rail Jam winner.

Friday night Austin and Izzy won the Rail Jam. By far, the best feature to watch during the rail session was the totem pole. Riders were airing over it, landing on it, doing fastplants. The other features were a downrail and a straight rail with a squared-off end, they were good, but it seemed like the riders were able to be the most creative with the totem pole.

Austin Hironaka took it home with a 360 Miller flip tailgrab transfer.

Saturday

Saturday we got up to the Ride Shakedown in the afternoon, and driving up it was pouring rain. But, like it does in the mountains, a couple more miles up and it was nuking. The qualifiers were going on and riders were having a really hard time. The snow was sticky and slow, fog had moved in making it hard to see the jump and the landing, and the flying snow made the visibility worse.

While the snow forced the quals to slow down, I headed over to the vendor tents to see what was up. Ride had a big tent with a heater (yes!) and a couple of games to play for swag, Evo’s crew was there and had a game and more swag, Contour HD was doing helmet cam demos, and SnoCon was there too.

Hana Beaman, 2009 Ride Shakedown champ, and Izzy Lalive, 2010 Rail Jam winner.

Before the main event started, I got a chance to talk to Hana Beaman and Izzy Lalive. I asked Izzy how it felt to win the night before. She said, “Its my first big win, and it was a real cool surprise to win.” It is only the second year that women have been invited to compete in the Ride Shakedown and I wanted to know what it was like. They said that most of the guys at the event are really cool and supportive of them competing.

There were five women competing in the Ride Shakedown final, four of which were Hana Beaman, Izzy Lalive, Megan Ginter, and Megan Whiteside.

Seventeen men competed, Austin Hironaka was a crowd favorite.

By the time the competition started, the sky had cleared and it had gotten colder so the snow was fast and the visibility was good. Shay of Shayboarder.com was hanging out and it was fun watching the riders throw down big airs. One of the first jumps, someone called a 1260, and after that it seemed like it was game over. Riders started really pushing themselves and there were lots of falls. Once done with the big air, riders played it a little safe in the rail section–not doing anything too technical, but just riding solid.

The format of the competition was a lot like a game of pool, requiring the riders to call out their trick and then hit it. They had to be accurate and there wasn’t any room for faking it. If they called out a 1080, but didn’t get in all of the rotations, they would get a zero for the jump section.

2010 Ride Shakedown Winners

Results:

Women-

1st Place- Megan Ginter
2nd Place- Hana Beaman
3rd Place-Megan Whiteside

Men-

1st Place-Matts Kulisek
2nd Place-Manuel Diaz
3rd Place-E-Man Anderson

Ride Shakedown 2010-Qualifiers

Bekah — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:30:20 +0000

: Manuel Diaz, Tanner Davidson, and Colin Clarke- three ams going on to compete with the pros in Saturday’s Shakedown.

I arrived at the Ride Shakedown with the qualifiers for the jump portion of the Shakedown going on. Ams were spinning frontside and backside 7′s with a few throwing down Rodeos.

Manuel Diaz (from Wild Card’s How the Northwest Was One video), Tanner Davidson, and Colin Clarke placed in the top three spots and will be competing with the pros in Saturday’s main event.

: Three of the nine women competing in the rail jam quals, Megan Middleton on the left and Raelynd Tarnove, center.

It was great to see the ladies representing during the rail jam qualifiers. Megan Middleton landed hard on the downrail stairs half-way through, injuring her shoulder and was out of the rest of the competition. Raelynd showed solid riding and moved on to the Friday night Rail Jam.

: Raelynd in the quals. She moved on to compete in the Rail Jam finals on Friday night.

The ams pulled out a lot of huge air during the qualifiers. There was also a lot of carnage.

Ride Shakedown: Today!

Bekah — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:04:57 +0000

Austin Hironaka winning the Rail Jam Friday night.

Ride Shakedown is happening today at Summit Central from Noon – 9:30. I’ll be there covering the event on Twitter. Come hang out and see all the action. Its free!

The after party is at the new Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle. Doors open at 9:30. $15 at the door, $10 if you buy a ticket at the Shakedown.

*Image: Shakedown

Ride Shakedown 2010

Bekah — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:56:42 +0000

If you haven’t heard, the Ride Shakedown is this weekend, Friday and Saturday. And, it’s free! If you want to ride, you can pick up two-day lift tickets at Evo or at SnoCon for $50.

This is the second year that women are competing in the event, and I’m super excited to go and cheer them on.

Women, Pros

Bev Vuilleumier
Gabi Viterri
Hana Beaman
Jessica Kimura
Joanna Dzierzawski
Kimmy Fasani
Laurie Currier
Leanne Pelosi
Lynn Neil
Megan Ginter
Megan Whiteside

Men, Pros

Alex Cantin
Austin Hironaka
Austin Sweeten
Bode Merrill
Corey Noble
Darrell Mathes
Dan Brisse
Dustin Craven
E-Man
Forest Bailey
Frank April
Ivan Marchenko
Jason Dubois
Jérémy Cloutier
Johnny Lazz
Jusso Lavisto
Ian Thorley
Ivan Marchenko
Lonnie Kauk
Lucas Magoon
Matt Belzile
Marc McMorris
Mark Sollars
Matts Kulisek
Nash Lajeunesse
Robbie Walker
Sam Hulbert
Sébastien Toutant
Scott See
Silas Stannard
Tyler Flanagan
Will Lavigne
Yale Cousino

Here are the details:

March 12, 2010

1 p.m.-3:30 p.m. – Am quals
4 p.m.-6 p.m.- Rail Jam quals
6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. – Rail Jam
9 p.m. – Shakedown after party, Hard Rock, Seattle, $10 in advance, $15 at the door (21-and-over)

March 13, 2010

Noon-1 p.m. – Snowboarder Magazine autograph session with the pros
2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. – Semi-finals
6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. – Halftime show (pro skateboard session on the snowboard rail set up)
7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. – Warm up for RIDE Shakedown finals
8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. – RIDE Shakedown finals and awards
9 p.m. – Shakedown afterparty, Hard Rock, Seattle, $10 in advance, $15 at the door (21-and-over)

Pillow Fight: Day 3

Bekah — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:32:38 +0000

Sunday morning came early and I was sore from Saturday’s pow session. But, I was too excited to lay around in bed, so I stiffly threw on my gear, brushed my teeth and headed to the Kingfisher Lodge at the Sleeping Lady to have breakfast with all of the other awesome Pillow Fight ladies.

It is so great to be able to talk snowboarding over breakfast with a bunch of other women. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it is so much fun.

After breakfast we sped over to Stevens Pass to meet up with the rest of the crew. I grabbed my Forum Sauce (which I love, it is so much fun…especially after riding a Burton Custom for so long) and met up with Mercedes and the rest of our little group for some park riding! Mercedes decided to teach park on Sunday since it had rained (boo!) the night before. The sun was starting to come out from behind the morning clouds as we headed up the Hogsback chair for a warm-up run.

Sam and Lori checking out a kicker in the progression park.

We were all pretty much beginning park riders so Mercedes started with the basics–ollies. As we rode down to the Brooks chair to get to the park we worked on popping off our tail and landing flat. Landing on an edge is what kills me when I hit jumps (I always end up eating it), so it was really good to practice landing flat on the board on a mellow run.

After ollies, Mercedes had us work on popping– jumping straight up into the air and landing flat. This was going to help us on our take-offs, when we hit the jumps in the park.

The first run through the park Mercedes had us ollie off the knuckle of the jumps. She went first, demoing, and then watched each of us from below as we hit the knuckle, telling us if we were landing on our edges or landing flat. It was so good to have her watch us, because I thought I was landing flat when I really wasn’t.

Mercedes on the sidelines reminding us to ‘bend our knees!!‘

At the middle of the run, we cut over to the pipe. We learned how to ride through the pipe, when to bend our knees in a deep squat (center of the pipe) and when to straighten a bit (walls). My first drop into the pipe I was thrown off by how fast I got going and I had so much going through my head between flexing and extending and turning my shoulders and trying not to get too freaked out by the speed. The first run was really awkward. It took time to figure out that you really don’t need to force the turn with your upper body or legs (at the top of the pipe wall), it can be a very subtle movement. One of the girls in our group looked like she was riding a bowl in a skate park–she was so fluid and flowed with the pipe instead of fighting it. It helped to watch her and try to incorporate her smooth riding.

We hiked up the pipe a couple of times and each time it all made a little more sense about how all the movements fit together than the time before.

Molly and Shayla checking out her 180? (can’t quite remember) whatever it was, it was sweet.

To take a break we rode up Brooks chair for another run in the park. We met up with Molly from Evo who was the photog/videog extraordinaire for the weekend and she caught us as we were perfecting our ollies over spines and moving onto the jumps. After every one or two jumps we would all group together and Mercedes would give us each a goal for what we needed to do next time…bending our knees, landing flat, getting more speed to hit the jump.

Getting together for a group ride down the mountain-50 ladies cruising.

After getting lunch and lots of water, we went back to the park to work more on our jumps. My biggest issue right now isn’t taking off or landing on my toe edge, it’s too much speed checking. I need to get over this fear I have of launching myself off of a jump, getting too much air, and ending up in crutches. Its all psychological, which makes me so crazy. I am pretty good about getting over mental stuff, but this one isn’t giving up easy. I really wish I would have had an instructor back when I was throwing myself off of kickers and hurting myself (one time ending up in crutches and getting a ride down in a sled). Because all that stuff that happened so long ago is coming back and I haven’t yet been able to shake it. (Do they have therapists for snowboarders?)

So, the last hit of the day Mercedes said my goal was to hit the jump without speed checking. I instantly got sweaty-nervous. I took a couple of deep breaths and she gave me a couple minutes of sitting above the jump until I was ready. I got up, pointed my board to the jump and took off. I hit the jump and cleared the landing, getting a baby grab in, landed and rode away. At the bottom, I was so happy I did an ollie off of a little feature. When I slowed down to talk to the group I realized I was shaking. But it was such a good feeling to get solid air and ride away clean–especially as the last run of the day.

The Pillow Fight crew.

Everyone was there to have fun and it made the weekend so much better. I love hanging out with people that love to have a good time and aren’t trying to one-up each other and this group was definitely that way. Coming in not really knowing anyone I was nervous, but after a weekend of solid shred I had met a lot of awesome ladies and had a bunch of new friends. I can’t wait for next year. PILLOW FIGHT!