Girl Gets SoCal » snowboarding competition

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)

Holy Oly Revival

Bekah — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:07:24 +0000

Yesterday Mitch and I headed up to the Summit at Hyak for our first ever Holy Oly. It was the Summit’s seventh time and they promised Cobra Dogs and the biggest anti-contest in North America.

Hyak had been taken out by a mudslide, so lifts were closed, and hiking to the quarter pipe was in order. Snow has also been sparse this year so Summit pulled its snow from all over the mountain to make the QP.

(Almost to the top.)

The hike up wasn’t so bad, it was blue sky in the Cascades and a good competition was going down. No complaints here.

A decent number of riders got pretty familiar with the backside of the quarter pipe after launching themselves over it during the competition. That was always exciting–one minute they were in the air, the next they were gone from view.

But there was lots of big airs and methods to be had.

A few skiers showed up.

Riders hiked the hill to hit the pipe for four hours. By the end, everyone seemed kind of tired and there were some breath-catching falls. Fortunately everyone walked away.

There were a few females that were competing, which was awesome. I had no clue who any of them were (since they weren’t announced). But, I did hear about Jess Kimura. She won best crash and was seriously hitting the features hard–literally and figuratively. It was pretty impressive.

I also got to meet Shay of Shayboarder.com.

The winners:

PNW shred Austin Hironaka walked away as winner and with a half-pallet of Olympia.
Danny Garrity Northwest Method
Nate Farrell Berserker
Bryce Neibuhr won best facial expression and highest air
Sean Tedore won Hardest Charging Industry Dude
Russell Winfield won the Russell Winfield award (the award formerly known as the Jeff Brushie)
Jess Kimura won Best Crash/Y Chromosome
Forest Bailey won Official Mayor of Tube City
Jake Tomlinsin won We don’t need no stinkin’ binders
Blair Habenicht won most creative line (Billy Goats Gruff).

Thanks Shay and Rumorator for convincing me to go. Can’t wait for next year! Be sure to head on up if you’re in the PNW.

Downtown Throwdown

Bekah — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:26:30 +0000

Goes for the gold but gets the pole…

…was probably the best quote of the day at the Downtown Throwdown in Pioneer Square in Seattle. There were some pretty impressive diggers, but some pretty awesome shredding was happening too.

As the residents of Occidental Park looked on, Snowboy Productions descended on the park and set up three features–a quarter pipe, box, and rail–and went through bags of snow to cover it all for an hour and a half of shredding.

Besides getting super excited for the upcoming season, we got to see what seemed like every trick combination known to man. There were so many sick moves, but the best trick award went to Jason Robinson for his backside 360 railslide with a backside 180 out.*

There were lots of stalls, grabs, 50/50s, hand plants, you name it. Some riders ended up launching over the quarter pipe and landing on photographers below. In one instance two collided mid-air, mid-trick. Eek!

But, it was lots of fun with good music, sweet shredding, and an audience that was really into it.

With the mic cutting in and out, they announced the winners:

5th Place–Ben Bogart

4th Place–Johnny Lazz

3rd Place–Scott Stevens

2nd Place–Forest Bailey

1st Place–Nick Visconti

*Pictures don’t necessarily match up with the people or tricks mentioned.

Were you there? What did you think?