OKAY. So my Blogs been pretty empty…
BUT I’ve been busy as hell in and out of school, snowboarding all over the place, and partying like a rock star. And the time I’m spending on my laptop seems to just get sucked into this website called Facebook…
But thats over now. Here’s my first post — yeah, its in english. Yeah, its a few weeks late; but its a hell of a story. And for the frenchies, I’ll be posting some stuff up in your lingo once in a while, so keep an eye out for that.
A little more than a month ago David Brown registered for the Waterville Valley TransAM contest in New Hampshire. At first he was going there alone but managed to convince Alex Sarrazin, Max Verville and myself, Zach Aller to join him after taking a look at google maps (not exactly a fun drive alone!). We soon learned that our boys Eric Lamothe and the infamous Nic “Zic” St Pierre had also signed up for the contest, so we teamed up and drove down in PERFO’s pimpin’ 15-passenger van – Big Thanks to Pouille for the wheels!
Around 5 p.m on Friday, January 7th, Brown and I met up at my local shop, Perfo, packed the beast and hit the road. We picked up Alex “Grapeless” Sarrazin at the Empire shop in Boisbriand. Quick pit-stop at McD’s and we hit the highway — at this point I realised Pouille had left all of his keys (house, personal car, shop — everything!) in the van. Poor guy was nearly in tears — it was too late to turn around, so I spent 20 minutes on the phone explaining that life goes on, and that we’ll be back latest Sunday night with his keys. Sorry homie !
Ripped it to the south shore to pick up the other three compadres, Nic Zic, Eric Lamothe, and Max “Merv” Verville, who were mysteriously waiting for us in the parking of a strip club. Again, we re-packed everything (starting to feel like we’re leaving for weeks, even though its only 2 nights!) and we finally hit the road for some serious night-driving towards the land of greasy foods, cheap beer, big trucks and little did we know, impeccable parks!
Now crossing the border into the U.S.A. can go either way: smoothly without any problems, or terribly where we get searched, questioned and hassled by some stiff U.S. customs agent. Luckily, we got the chillest customs officer, so things went quite smoothly. Unknowingly, we managed to smuggle the illegal alien Eric Regimbald (a Chateauguay legend) in a board bag without even knowing it – still don’t know who put him there. We have reason to believe he smuggled himself in the van and practiced true Jedi breathing techniques to make it on the other side alive. What a trooper.
Actually none of that is true. But you can add him on facebook. Eric Regimbald. Do it.
Anyway, we made it to our ghetto hotel room at Loone Mountain by around 11 o’clock. For the second time in 6 hours, we hit McDonalds for a late night snack, and were astounded by their menu — completely different than the McD’s back home. We all tried something different, except Nic who ordered a “hamburger bun with chicken inside, no sauce, no vegetables, just chicken.” Pretty lame sandwich. But that’s just how Nic rolls.
That night was hellish for me, because of Nic’s snoring — I mean, I’ve witnessed serious snoring before (Hugo Chartier, until then, held the record for loudest, most irritating, congested snore I had ever heard), but Nic blew him right off the map. I mean the walls we’re shaking. Although we went to bed at 12 with the intentions of being top shape for the contest the next day, we were kept up all night by Nic’s rattling snoring. It sounded like his face was constipated…I’ve been thinking and they really should invent exlax for the face – Fexlax “For extreme face constipation” — I literally got half an hour sleep, and ended up on Facebook all night losing my mind.
We still managed to be at the contest, in Waterville Valley, for 9 o’clock the next morning. We warmed up on a sweet double line with the locals: mellow flat rail, followed by a perfect down-rail. We filmed a few ghetto go-pro lines and made a quickfast edit to throw up on Facebook, which actually got reported and taken off of facebook for some stupid reason, so good luck finding that.
The concept for the contest was called a “traffic Jam” — needless to say, it was a fucking zoo. 102 kids hyped on energy drinks, hucking themselves one after the other down 3 different lines. On the far right, a dangerous jump with a bonk, followed by a small table top. In the middle, a long flat tube rail to drop, followed by a ruffle pipe set up as a pole jam with a 15 foot gap. On the far left, a mellow down box, followed by a manual pad / table top / mini spine jump. Although the set-up was fun and creative, the concept was completely insane — 3 ambulances, broken bones errywhere, and an overall stressful contest.
Unfortunately, a member of our Wolf Pack, pack leader Dave “White Fang” Brown was down and out after his first hit on the bonk, where he lacked a bit of speed, caught an edge on the bonk and flew 20 feet down to smack his head and ribs on a flat landing. He was in serious pain for the rest of the trip, and although he blacked out on impact, luckily he avoided the expensive ambulance trip to the hospital. Big ups to Max Merv for getting to him before anyone else (his eyes were rolled backwards, hands stiff in the air, foaming from his mouth…scared the shit out of us.) and protecting him from all the other monkeys hucking themselves on the bonk hit.
Sarrazin , myself along with our boy Frank Bourgeois made it to the finals for the rest of the shit-show, along with about 20 other riders. The finals took place on one set up at a time, and can be resumed in these words: backflips, backside rodeos, spins-in-to-win, and an overall impressing level of shredding from underdog riders.
I took it easy because of some knee pain, and serious lack of sleep (and I mean, serioussss lack of sleep) but Sarrazin and Frank killed it, even though they both didn’t make it to the podium. The Pack kind of felt ripped off, but it was a good day overall for everybody (except Brown, of course, who had a broken rib and was feeling the aftermath of being concussed).
We were all pretty burnt out that night, except Nic who was feeling tip top shape after a nice night of sleep…haha. Needless to say, we took it easy around a few cold Pabst, some snowboard movies, some Facebook sessions and a little editing in our hotel room, back at Loon Mountain. We bought Nic some breathing aids, and forced him to put about 6 on his nose before bed. It didn’t do anything — that night the walls still shook like never before, but luckily I had bought serious ear plugs and sleeping pills. Slept like a champ.
8h30, Sunday Morning. Alarms go off, we rip a quick clean up of the room with some bagels and juice, and head over to Loon Mountain. Cold day, flat light, but we’re just stoked to be somewhere other than our shitty mountains back home.
We meet up with Katelyn Krumperman, the marketing manager for Loon, who hooks us up with 6 promo tickets for the day; huge Thanks !!!! The Americans know how to role.
We took a few laps in Loon’s awesome park, which we baptised the East Coast’s Bear Mountain. Innovative jibs, awesome lines, big jumps, big staircase (you can take a look at it in our edit) and huge pipe (even though it was icy as hell). Vermont and New Hampshire, like us, haven’t received much snow this winter — the difference is, they make a different type of artificial snow, much like Bear, which is less like the ice crystals we blow at Avila, and more like actual snow flakes. This, along with the awesome lack of skiers, made for legit park conditions.
Check out the Loon locals, “Loonatics” — they have weekly episodes online… DOPE !!
http://www.vimeo.com/19669637
A contest was held in the bottom of the park at 1 o’clock — Merv, Sarrazin, Lamothe, and Nic all entered it, I decided to take it mellow and film them instead. My knee was still hurting from a nice edge cut on the down rail Saturday morning. The setup was dope. Tube rails everywhere, elbows, double kinks, down flats, up downs, you name it — Loon had it all set up. About 30 riders ripped the course for 2 hours, and Merv and Sarrazin made it to the finals. Sarrazin, once again, killed it but seemed to be under the judge’s radar. Merv also rode like a champ, finishing third and getting his hands on some legit gear and 3 invitations to the next contest that will be held in February.
Here’s a mini edit of the day, filmed by us and edited by us, so you know its pretty shitty.
http://www.vimeo.com/19038727
To wrap it all up, the boys had a few words about their weekend they felt should be heard back in home in Quebec:
Merv: “The scene here is not comparable to the one back home. This is where it’s at! ”
Zach: “they’re simply years and years ahead of us in terms of park organization, marketing, and park design. They have recognised the potential and are taking advantage of it!”
Sarrazin: “So stoked on the absence of skiers!”
Nic: “Finally an innovative park designed by real shredders, who know what’s up!”
Lamothe: ”Elvis Gratton was right. Think Big ‘Esti’ !!!”
Loon’s 6 different parks, Superpipe, and innovative 50+ jibs are pushing the bar for East Coast mountains, and have an advantage on all its competitors. If you think of it, pathetically enough, Loon alone has about the same amount of jibs and setups as all of Quebec’s mountains, especially those in the Laurentians. Man was I born in the wrong place.
Hopefully this article will create some reactions to our present situation in the scene — we have a lot of catching up to do, and the first step is checking out what those mountains around us are doing and opening our eyes to what is going on elsewhere in the scene.
One thing is for sure, New Hampshire is blowing up, and we will definitely be back soon, more equipped and more organised than last time.
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