Well the UK’s snowboarding competition season is well underway and in
the last two weeks I’ve competed in 2 comps.
The first was on 29th September at Warmwell, this was to be the National
Artificial Big Air Championships combined with an informal Quarter Pipe
jam session. Unfortunately it became apparent that the slope was to
slow to get anywhere near enough speed to hit the quarter to a couple of
rails were dragged out and a rail jam commenced the proceedings.
The surface for this comp was SnowFlex, unfortunately despite the
weather being quite cool the slope was running sloooooowly, this was ok
for the rail jam as not much speed was needed to hit the 2 jibs but for
Big Air it looked like it might be a problem. Warm-up came and I
dropped in for the kicker, hit the wrinkled SnowFlex speed bump and lost
all the speed I’d gathered, landed on the knuckle, board stopped and I
kept going……straight into the algae swamp at the bottom of the
landing!
Yes, this was to be the day of the swamp woman, white shirt covered in
slime I made my way back to the top of the slope and resorted to the old
dry slope favourite, half a can of furniture polish on the base of my
board! Dropped in, kept more of my speed and landed a clean frontside
shifty, 2nd run I managed a frontside 180 and was almost clean on the
run out, until I hit the swamp riding switch….and fell over again!
Thinking that was it I was already to get changed when they announced
I’d made the final, well that was a surprise to say the least, the day
ended with me winning the Masters and placing 4th overall (beaten by 2
16 year olds and a 10 year old!). Still I was more than stoked because
I managed two more FS180’s this time with a grab! Who knows, maybe I’m
finally starting to beat the fear, only time will tell though.
Saturday 6th October saw the National Indoor Slope Style Championships
at Castleford, another great set up by Cas’s Damian Doyle (indoor
slopestyle designing guru), unfortunately I didn’t ride as well in the
comp as I had done the night before or the warm-up so no final for me
this time. I did place 3rd in the Masters though so I can’t complain.
Considering I managed to hit both c-boxes and frontside the slide box
without giving myself concussion (as has happened in my last 2 National
comps at Cas) I’m satisfied that I’m improving!
So what’s next? Well this Saturday is going to be a long one with the
National Indoor Boardercross and slopestyle jam at MK followed by the
Burton Scrap Metal at Tamworth, I’m going to be up for approximately 24
hours and will drive around 300 miles! Bring it on!