Results 51 - 60 of 163
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2010: Watch Lucas ride and its clear to see he’s a product of his environment. He started riding at 4 years old and grew up riding Mount Baker in Washington, one of the heaviest spots in all of North America and home to many of snowboarding’s most legendary riders. Craig Kelly, Jamie Lynn, Temple, Ranquet—there’s a little bit of all these riders embodied in young Lucas. Maybe it’s the demanding terrain and the heavy wet snow, but something about Baker builds strong, flowy riders with incredible terrain-reading abilities. And yet, for as much Baker local pride as he’s got, Lucas has cast out on his own, eager to explore the entire world on his snowboard. At only 22, he’s already won the fabled Baker Banked Slalom. In 2009, he filmed an awesome rookie part in Get Real, going on to be voted Rookie Of The Year by TransWorld Snowboarding. This past season, Lucas joined Absinthe to film for Now/Here and it’s obvious he has hit his pace. With ripping, high-speed AK lines in the opening of the movie, Lucas seems like a great fit for the crew and is sure to keep pushing it in the years ahead. “I enjoy snowboarding more and more every time I strap in,” he says. How’s that for good vibes?
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2010: Originally hailing from the NorCal skate hotbed of Santa Cruz, California, its no surprise that Bode Merrill has skateboarding in his veins. “Snowboarding, skating, and traveling to explore new places” are Bode’s passions. And these passions seem to intersect perfectly in his role as an up-and-coming pro rider. Lured by the “best snow on earth,” Bode moved to Utah a few years back and began taking his skate-style riding into the mountains. Park City to be exact. Like many of his peers in snowboarding’s new guard, Merrill is equally adept at urban riding as well as hitting jumps. In 2010, he was nominated by TransWorld Snowboarding Magazine for both Rider Of The Year and Video Part Of The Year. Here’s why: In his first year of filming with Absinthe—for Neverland—Merrill stood out, and after all was said, done, and edited, he had secured the coveted closing part which, no exaggeration, blew people’s minds. After a winter spent injured—on the couch and in the gym—Bode only did one trip with the Absinthe gang for NowHere, “I went to Haines, Alaska. It was the deepest, most fun, and scariest snowboarding I’ve experienced!” But alas, Bode was back and charging.
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2010: Since he stormed onto the burgeoning halfpipe contest scene of the early 1990s as a young teen, Norway’s Terje Håkonsen has continued to push the entire sport of snowboarding forward. Through his catlike physical abilities, his unsurpassed dominance, and his visionary foresight, he has cemented his place among snowboarding’s true legends as perhaps the most gifted and influential rider of all time. Take just the numbers, through the 90s he racked up three world halfpipe titles, five European pipe titles, three U.S. Open pipe titles and has also won the Legendary Baker Banked Slalom six times. At the height of his domination in halfpipe, Håkonsen boycotted snowboarding’s Olympic debut in Japan in 1998, where he was the clear favorite. This one decision redefined his influence. Staying true to snowboarding was more important than Olympic acceptance and so began his quest as a guardian of pure snowboarding, run by the riders. In 2000, he created the Arctic Challenge, which in turn grew into the TTR World Tour, today’s foremost competition series. In 2007, Terje set a world record for the highest air on a quarterpipe—nearly 10 meters out—which reinforced his position as an unstoppable force and raised a debate about the age at which a pro rider has peaked. Simply put, without Håkonsen, snowboarding just would not be what it is today. Absinthe is always glad to have Terje out in the mountains with our crews.
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Author:Administrator
2010: Like many Canadian shredders from the east coast, Annie Boulanger headed west to British Columbia over ten years ago. And it has paid off. Annie’s video segment in 2009’s Neverland was amazing—it pointed in the progressive direction that women’s riding is headed: consequential freestyle/freeride action in the backcountry. Her riding made a statement and showed that through her own self-motivation, Annie is leading the way. For her efforts, she won the recognition and admiration of the entire world of snowboarding when she won Rider Of The Year and Video Part Of The Year by TransWorld Snowboarding Magazine and was voted 2010 Woman Rider Of The Year by Snowboarder Mag. But these accolades aside, Annie has been pushing herself for a decade as a pro rider and has continued to evolve, not because she seeks recognition, but because she is a self-proclaimed “soul-shredder” who, like the rest of us, “loves powder.” She has been filming with Absinthe for four years now, the first two, as the sole female in heavy, all-dude crews. Yes, Annie can hang. Even facing a tough snow season in Whistler in 2010, during the filming of NowHere, Annie was undeterred, she just keeps going until she finds what she’s looking for.
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Author:Administrator
2010: Jake Blauvelt was raised on the icy slopes of Vermont, USA. From a young age, Jake learned to use his board’s edges in the rock-hard pipes of the east—a fundamental skill that, over the years he’s developed to become one of the most fluid and controlled young pros of the new generation. Barely out of his teens, Jake tired of the pipe and slopestyle contest formats and sought out the freedom of powder and exploring the mountains. He just wanted to ride and film, and so he did—blending his technical freestyle abilities with the natural forms of the backcountry environment. In 2008 Jake shook things up by changing sponsors and moving up to the Pacific Northwest—to be closer to the legendary Mount Baker, Washington. Here Jake has sharpened his focused on dissecting natural terrain and gaining skill in all aspects of backcountry riding. Filming for NowHere this year was his first season with the Absinthe crew and for Jake it was a dream come true. He went to Alaska for the first time with Gigi Rüf and he explored the depths of Chatter Creek, B.C. with Nicolas Müller. Jake calls Absinthe “the real deal,” and is already looking forward to the next adventure.
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Author:Administrator
2010: This kid is a beast. From the frozen flatlands of the American Midwest—Richmond, Minnesota to be exact—Dan Brisse moved to Utah to follow his dream of becoming a pro snowboarder. Armed with an unshakable Midwest work ethic and serious rail skills, Brisse got to work learning how to ride the real mountains of the Wasatch and Uinta ranges. While developing his backcountry landing gear, Dan also continued to seek out brutal street terrain. With a penchant for big, consequential rails and massive urban gaps, Brisse has put himself squarely at the center of the urban progressive movement. At the same time, his powerful jumping abilities combine to make him an all-terrain force to be reckoned with. And despite his growing reputation as one of the best, Dan remains humble and hard working. Because of all these factors, as a pro rider he’s the full package, as was witnessed in his breakout video part in Neverland, which was his first year filming with Absinthe. Control and power in all environments, this is Brisse’s contribution. Dan returned again in 2010 for NowHere more focused than ever in his quest to deliver the best film part that he possibly can.
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A child prodigy, Gigi hails from the Voralberg region in Austrian, on the back side of the St Anton valley. He grew up a child of the mountains and has maintained this simplicity despite his world travels and the international recognition his skills have bestowed. Not your a-typical snowboarder, his slender, light frame is seen as often on the steep summer slopes of his family’s mountain top farm – scythe in hand – as it is descending from helicopters in Alaska or the Canadian ranges – board in hand. Despite Gigi being recognized as a developing talent at the age of 13, he has never lost touch with the simplicity of his upbringing nor let the hype that followed him as his career exploded distort his laid back, carefree and life loving character. He is as grounded today as he was at 13, proudly recently becoming a father of a baby boy with his home town sweat heart. A tweak master, constant innovator, style sergeant with a pack mule work ethic – if there is light, snow and a slope, Gigi is out there playing with it. Gigi doesn’t really ride a snowboard, he dances with it. He doesn’t simply read the terrain, he teases it. His touch and finesse when riding has the precision of a watch maker, the power of a heavy weight boxer and the grace of a ballerina – his style has overtures of a Nic Müller or Jamie Lynn. Outside of his filming duties with Absinthe, he has consistently found time to bag parts with his local crew, Pirate Movie Productions. He created the Back Yard camp, hosted at his Uncle’s remote and isolated Mountain Alm above his village, where he also co-organized the European Nixon Jib Fest with Nic Droz and Romain de Marchi. Gigi’s infectious personality and cheeky laugh is reflected in his riding style and make him a first choice in any planned road trip or shooting project. Be it backcountry, rail, jib line or kicker – Gigi Rüf does it like few others. He is undoubtedly one of the best riders to have ever come out of Austria, Europe – or Planet Earth for that matter!
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Born in the sleepy coastal town of Bergen, Norway, JP was already demonstrating a love and a talent for the sport by the time he was fifteen. This talent granted him entry into one of Norway's Sports Schools for snowboarding at fifteen, before being head hunted the following year to a fledgling specialised Snowboarding School. In the early days, one of JP’s mentors and riding partners along with Mads was Daniel Mikkelson, who encouraged him to get out and travel more, which lead to his first international trip to Innsbruck in 1999 (as described above) and the scene was set for the second global Norwegian invasion since Terje– third if you count the Vikings! Being an annual participant at all of the early now infamous Hemsedal sessions, it was often Mads and JP who contested for the “Guinea Pig” of the year award (one strangely absent in award calculations) stepping up first on kickers that went daily from silly, to ridiculous, to stupid, to irresponsible, to “are you off your fucking head!?!” bagging more tricks in a single week than many riders do in an entire career. JP’s compact, flat spin, boned style in association with his Travis Rice style stomp made him one of the most effective, professional and rewarding riders to work with. Always cheeky and chirpy, relishing any opportunity in the early days to take his shirt off and break into the latest song he was working on for his yet-to-be-formed Boys Band, he soon graduated from the snowpark to the back country with devastating effect. Riding partners and mentors such as Gigi Ruff, Mads, Romain de Marchi, DCP and the late Jeffy Anderson took his confidence and skills to a whole other level. By the time he had bagged the Road Gap cover for Absinthe’s Film’s, “Transcendence”, one of eight covers that season, there was little surprise that he was voted in as Transworld Snowboarding’s “Rookie of the Year”.
JP consistently bagged some of the best rider parts for several years, before suffering a career threatening shoulder injury three years ago that resulted in his progression being put on hold but gave him time to work on his new project, “YES Snowboards” with Romain de Marchi and DCP. We spoke to him at home in Encinitas, California, and he said, “Damn Dude, I am feeling so good right now. Finally, I’m seeing past the shoulder and can see everything is possible again. I can feel the progress...” He said. “Damn, there were three years that I really didn’t know what to expect, not just for snowboarding, but just every day shit. It was tough, both physically and mentally, you know, sort of a lot of negative questions – if it over – and the like over that time, so I’m feeling on top of the world. It’s also given me time to fall in love with riding again, I’m really hungry for it every time we head out and I’m out there to prove stuff tom myself. It’s less pressure and more fun and I’m gonna be ripping it until I’m 50 or something...ha, ha, ha...that’s not true but you know what I mean. But if I was to thank some people for helping me get here, I’d have to give a heads up to all of the Media Department out there, especially TWS, who have been awesome to me over the years, and to the filmers and the photographers, particularly David Vladyka and Shane Charlebois – those guys lug the sacks and do all the work. Yo!” He concluded.
Fighting fit again YES we are going to see more of JP, YES in Absinthe Productions and YES riding something completely different.
www.yesnowboard.com/
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Author:Administrator
Hailing from big, bad Jackson Hole, Wyoming, an area renown for the number of World Class riders emanating from it’s ample bosom, Travis Rice has arguably changed snowboarding more than any other rider since Terje Haakonsen started going bigger backwards than all of his peers of the time. The son of a Ski Patroller, Travis was on snow from before he was toilet trained where the steeps and deeps of his home resorts nurtured and refined his big mountain skills while early riding partners including the likes of Brian Iguchi, Brodi Dowell, Eric Risland, Lance Pittman honed his freestyle skills. Travis’s personality could be described as a warped combination of ‘Denis the Menace’ and Barney Rubble on Ritalin – cheeky, totally focused and hopelessly hyperactive. As a relative unknown, Travis rocked up to Snowboarder’s Super Park in 2001 and simply blew minds, blew up and has never looked back since. His riding style is big, bad, forwards or backwards and often multiply inverted – few outside of Romain de Marchi can, do or want to keep up. Big mountain Heli follow cam freestyle, mega-stadium contests, parks, quarters and recently even halfpipe, Travis is guaranteed to pull the unexpected, produce the unseen and push the accepted envelope. Alongside his riding, Travis’s rambunctious personality and understated confidence have seen him to go onto producing his own flims and creating his own unique contest concept in his beloved Jackson Hole where the natural terrain happily teamed with nature to dump to dump 6-feet of snow the day before the event – producing Amped 27 level riding. There is no doubt the sport is not the same since Travis picked it and kicked it in his short 24 years, the only question left that is out to lunch is exactly where he will take it before he eventually hangs up his boots....
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Hailing from Lofer, a small village butted against the Wilderkaiser in Kitzbül Alps, Austria, Stefan Gimpl is a sort of enigma in Austrian snowboarding. Not really being part of the prevailing snowboards scenes of the time, Gimpl honed his skills at his home resort of Saalbach-Hinterglem in relative isolation to other riders of the same level. He ‘burst’ onto the scene follwing a night session in the Fieberbrunn pipe, busting 3m high b/s 7’s and leaving everyone sessioning the pipe that night thinking, “Who the fuck is that...?”. That one session nailed Gimpl a check out in Onboard Magazine at the age of 16. Gimpl’s international homecoming came shortly afterwards when he beat all odd’s taking out the world famous Air&Style title in front af a frenzied hometown crowd. This was the first of three Air&Style crowns making him the youngest rider to take the title and the only rider to have taken three consequtively. The king of pop, Gimpl always put on power riding performances busting bigger than anyone almost all of the time, and matching that with legs of steel, often stomping a trick several meters into the flat, going a third bigger than everyone on the day. One of eight brothers, Gimpl was not your a typical snowboarder of that time. Modest, quiet, polite and well spoken... He always did rather than said, and always said “Thank you.” after you had just told him that he had just blown your mind. A gentleman, and all round sportsman adept at anything he puts his mind to. Gimpl is an acclaimed golf and tennis player, and avid rock climber.
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