Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Ride Machete Review


 First of all here are the specs straight from the Ride website.
STYLE: ALL MOUNTAIN FREESTYLE 
SHAPE: ROCKER 
STANCE: CENTERED 
FLEX: 6/10 
DESCRIPTION: The award-winning Machete snowboard features Ride’s LowRize™ rocker shape eliminating hook without sacrificing pop. Cutting through the competition, this go anywhere freestyle twin snowboard combines our Pop Rods® 1.0 for an extra dose of pop, with smooth-riding Slimewalls® and durable Cleave Edge™ for a fun surfy twin built to last. CONSTRUCTION: Thin Con Pop Rods® 1.0 Slimewalls® LowRize™ Rocker Carbon Array 3™ Cleave Edge™ Biaxial Glass Fusion 4000 Base™ 2x4 Inserts

     Allright, first of all I think LowRize™ Rocker might confuse people since it's far from a rocker board, and feels completely different. The board is flatbased betveen the bindings and got a small rocker after the inserts.

Austin Hironaka shreds everything on this board and does it with style, and it's true, you can use this board in any terrain. First impression I got from this board was that it's reeeeally precise, if you stomp a trick in a perfect straight line it will stick to that line. Sometimes it felt like your torso wanted to continue spinning but the board stops you. Straight jumps feel like you don't have to do anything at all. Even if it's really precise the LowRize™ Rocker makes it playful at the same time. But since the flex is a 6 it's not a board that bends that easy, so when doing tail/nose presses you have to push into it abit.

I didn't detune the edges on the board and it still handles really well on rails and boxes. On rails it's where you really notice how stable this board is. On hardpacked groomers it handles well when you really carv into the turns but I felt like if you get abit sloppy the contactpoints won't hold too well. It feels safe and handles well in high speeds. The turnradius feels really wide so you have to get in to cruising mode. In ice I think it's really hard to get a good grip, but then again if you're into riding groomers only I think you should get a camber board.

I didn't get to ride any powder on the Machete so kinda hard to say how it handles, but from watching other reviews it's supposed to handle really well. On slush you gotta me careful not to force the board and try just to cruise since I feel like forcing it might make you loose control of the board.

So to sum this up I would say that this is an excellent allaround freestyle board for an advanced rider, a beginner is prolly better of with the Ride Crush for example. If you aren't into the freestyle stuff this is in my opinion not the board for you, it IS a matter of opinion but Ride has really good all mountains boards for groomers.

When coming to pros and cons I think most of the cons have something to do with stuff outside the park. And as I said, this is an excellent board for everything in the park, everything from rails to big kickers. I almost forgot to mention that this board is great in the pipe aswell, made it really effortless. If you want a super soft jib board or ride mostly outside the park I don't think this is the board for you. But if you're an advanced freesyle rider who wants a board that can handle anything in the park, this is the board for you.

The bindings I use are Ride Rodeo. As you might have noticed from the pictutres and the video I got my Machete from
 
Vide-Oh! ep.5: My new toy! Ride Machete from Vide-Oh! on Vimeo.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Black Bear Open

Last friday was my last working day of this season and to celebrate that me and Kaarle headed to Björkliden for the Black Bear Open competition. It's basically a slopestyle comp in the back country. Since it's this latre in the season we're not talking about pow, but heavy and wet snow. So it was kinda just about hitting all the obstacles without falling down. As the guy hosting was saying all the time: "This is the most difficult park in scandinavia" And that was the truth. The runin to the first jump went trough some bushed, and at the same time it was narrow and crazy bumpy. Some people crashed before even getting to the first jump, ending up in the bushes. Neither of us got into the finals since I feel liek we tried to push ourselves abit too hard on the first jump, hah! The landing was super bumpy and you had to start breaking as soon as you hit the ground to not loose control and crashing in to the next obstacle. Completely insane competition but at the same time really fun. All in all it was a really fun weekend, fun shredding and alot of nice people. Here are some pictures from the "park":




On the way back to Levi it started snowing ALOT, but the weather was still quite warm so I guess that it's only a good thing if you're prepared to hike up to 1000m+ or something. We stopped for some food in Kiiruna where something really random happened. In the grocery store we saw Jake Blauvelt. They bought groceries for over 500€ so I guess they are staying for a while wherever they are going. So this is the last week at Levi. We're hoping to get some filming done but the weather is and has been reaaaally bad, it's raining and +4 almost every day and it doesn't seem like it's going to get much better. But I guess we just have to film in the rain if it doesn't get any better.

LeviCamp351 starts on friday so let's hope the weather get's better by then.




















Friday, April 12, 2013

The Norway trip

When we arrived to Tamokdalen the road was closed as expected, you can get some nice runs from the parking lot but we desided to take a nap and wait. After almost 2 hours went to the nearest gas station for some morning coffee.
By the time we got back to the gate they were just about to open the gate and set us free into the wild.
Since there was a f-load of new snow and everyone we met told us about avalanches they had seen during the past days, we desided not to hike too far up to stay in a somewhat safe area.
This turned out to be a good idea, first hike was really nice in sunny conditions. But by the time we got to the point from where we wanted to ride down the light was completely flat. We waited a while to see if the weather would get any better, but it didn't. We filmed the first run on the gopro but the result was not too interesting because of the flat light.
Second hike it snowed while the sun was shining, after that it cleared up. By the time we got up again it got cloudy again, so we desided to build a jump. We got a couple of hits before it started snowing so hard it was getting really difficult seeing the jump. I took a picture of my board just to give you an idea of how hard it snowed, I cleared my board from all snow and took the picture a few mins later.
All in all it was a really good trip even if it was a short one and the weather wasn't too good. I don't have that much to show you but here are some pictures.

Blogspot sucks when it comes to posting pictures, impossible to just put them all side by side....










Wednesday, April 3, 2013

On our way again...

So woke up again in the middle of the night to leave for Tamokdalen for a day. Might sound crazy to go there just for a day, but we wanted to scout the area abit since we havent been there before.
The avalanche risk is quite high and the road is closed due to heavy snowfall but should be open again by the time we get there, let's hope for the best.
Still a few booring hours to go...

Monday, April 1, 2013

Vide-Oh! ep.4 PART TWO

Just got editing done today. It has kinda been a busy week with easter holidays etc. Finally the holiday is almost over, soo tired of theese jerks behaving badly all around the mountain. Today I had to take a guys skis down to the lift because he was too drunk the get them on, too drunk to stand up actually. By the time he got down he had forgotten about the skis and just headed to the next bar. Spring is definatly coming, the weather is alot warmer and sunnier, and as usual during spring time on Levi, windy! Tomorrow night we'll be leaving for Tamok, Norway. Hoping for some awesome pow. First time there so alot of scouting around but we'll try to get something filmed. So here it is, PART TWO!!!!

Vide-Oh! ep.4: Shredding the west PART TWO from Vide-Oh! on Vimeo.