I’m stoked to announce (in a slightly more official way than this Tweet) that I’m now sponsored by i360.  They’re a US company that are just moving into the European market and they design music infused apparel.  So I should shortly be rocking headbands & beanies that not only hold my iPod and pump music straight into my ears but I’ll no longer be tangled in wires while I shred!  It also means that one of my reasons for not completing my Couch to 5km running course is now invalid (I can’t do it because my headphones fall out and it interrupts my stride).  Of course I’m sure I’ll find another reason not to run (it’s dark at night, I’m tired after work etc) but maybe I’ll get at least one run in before I go back to slacking.  So a huge thank you to them for hooking me up.

I also managed to hit the snow this weekend, Jools had to head up to Hemel to get some photos of some of our friends so I had a chilled session on their boxes practicing some presses and spins while giving my new Laurus face wrap a proper test.  It was a great session and not only did I stay snuggly in my new jacket (cheers Sputnik) and facewrap but Jools got actual photographic proof that I held a tail press!  I was so pleased he managed to catch it because although I’d been able to press my Plastictastic on the flat I felt like I wasn’t really committing on the boxes.  It turns out I am!  So it’s good to know that the flex on it is as good as I thought.

Apart from shredding things have been insane on the work front, I’ve been travelling the country to visit NHS Trusts and tell them about the NHSE Membership I’ve been working on for the last year and I’ve also been working on the presentations we’ll be giving at the first of our Discovery Sessions next week and then the NHSE Conference the week after.

I’ve also submitted my application for a slot in the Burton European Open, I got a place last year but had to pull out due to injury so I’m hoping I get a place again this year.  I really want to give it a go and as I’ll be out in Laax anyway I’ll be pretty gutted if I don’t at least get to ride the qualification round.  I should hear at the end of the November, so until then I’ll just be practicing as much as I can.

At this point I should admit that I hate being the first person to hit a toy, in previous years I’ve been able to rely on Jamie Nicholls or one of the other kids acting as a test rider and I can bow to their judgement with regards to speed, how the kicker’s riding etc, unfortunately though they were all riding in the 2nd qualification group so if I was going to step up and hit it I’d have to do it on my own. I looked again and after a bit of banter with Shiner the Technical Delegate for the day where we argued over the size (I said as far as I was concerned it was 9m as that’s what the plan said, he said 14.5m) I decided it was definitely doable, took a deep breath and dropped in. Straight off the drop in ramp, over the first lip, straight into the kicker (good girl, no speed checks) and up into the air……..oooooops! Yes the kicker was way whippier than it looked and the moment I was in the air it started to feel a bit wrong, my weight was too far back and I was tipping in the air. Anyone that’s been in this situation will know that at this point time slows down, I was a long way up and I realised that my best chance of surviving this was to tip my weight so I was going to fall on my front not my back, bring my arms in, relax and wait for the impact. It seemed like I had a long time to wait as I took up my “frog” position and started to plummet, then the ground hit, I bounced on my front, hitting my chin and then I must have bounced onto my back because I came to rest half way down the landing with my head pointing down and my feet back up towards the kickers. I wasn’t in pain, knew I wasn’t broken but I was totally winded so when I looked up to see people rush in to check on me I signalled I was ok and let them unstrap my board so I could roll over and get off the landing. A huge thanks to the First Aider, Col Mytton and Jools Smith who were all over to me pretty much the moment I’d landed. A pretty impressive feat for Jools considering he was on the run in side of the kicker capturing these shots…..

..he then had to pelt round to check I was alive! Thankfully I was and once I got my breath back I was back up the top grabbing a drink of water before getting back to it (all be it on the 5m kicker). I was quite gutted not to have landed it but I think I impressed (and scared) everyone by giving it a go. For a while I doubted myself and wondered if it was my mistake and whether I’d misjudged my ability, it turns out I hadn’t though as over the course of the 2nd qualification when the guys were hitting it, it became apparent that it was too whippy a kicker and a lot of people came a cropper much worse than I had. Numerous guys ended up visiting the local hospital and quite a few more admitted to being scared. These weren’t poor riders but the cream of the UK and it’s a shame that a quarter of all entrants took a bad fall on the main kicker! I count myself very lucky to have escaped with a slightly scraped chin and some aches from the impact.

All in all it was a fun session, even with the aches I was feeling and I was stoked to qualify for the final in 3rd place. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to hang on to it so finished 4th overall and 1st in Masters, still I figure I can live with being beaten by a 12 year old, a 14 year old and an under 30 year old!

To wrap up the day nicely I had a really nice message that put the icing on the cake and I’m pleased to announce I now have a new sponsor, Laurus. Laurus make handmade face wraps, and I’m looking forward to wearing them over the course of the Winter, not just on the slopes but on my commute to work if it gets cold enough!

The weekend kicked off on a scorching Saturday with the boardercross, which took place on the main Dendix slope, and we each took 2 timed runs. We then moved through to some races with 2-3 people battling it out at the same time. Don’t be fooled, Dendix is not easy stuff to ride and it’s diamond shaped sturcture means falls can get nasty, luckily though the slams I had in warm-up coincided nicely with where I’d placed my padding and I survived in 1 piece. I finished the morning session in 2nd place in the Masters (over 30) age group. The afternoon was spent sessioning the kicker for the (big) air competition. Unfortunately the slope was running quite slowly and so if you didn’t land in quite the right spot then your board stopped and you kept going….cue whiplash for me! I’d decided to try and step things up, with only 3 in my group I figured I might as well try the spins I’d been working on in practice. It didn’t work out though and although I did a really nice BS180 Method I sat down on my landing, my second run was even worse and I managed a big FS90 to slam. The way I see it though if I’d landed the tricks I’d have been in with a chance, both girls in my group are trying 540s so I had no option but to step things up.

Sunday was slopestyle day and it was a bit cooler, unfortunately the slope was still running really slowly, so much so that the judges had the toys swapped around as people weren’t able to get enough speed to hit the higher scoring line the way it was originally set up. After a few practice runs I managed to work out the line I needed to keep my speed and my first comp run was a smooth and clean frontside nose press, followed by a nose press and then a 50:50 to boardslide, switch out over the up-down shark’s fin. It all went wrong on my second run though, I did a nice tail press to switch over the first box, but slipped out on my switch frontside on the next box ending nicely in a perfect faceplant. Hopping up the slope to try and get enough speed for the shark’s fin, I tried but failed and made it half way up the up box before having to jump off. I just missed out on a place in the final by coming 5th overall but my first run was enough to get me 2nd in the Masters.

So I finished the weekend with 2 silvers and a bronze, not bad going considering the sticky conditions. The big air and slopestyle will both get me started in this season’s TTR ranking and hopefully my luck will hold for this Saturday when I head to Milton Keynes SNO!zone for the British Indoor Big Air championships.
Photos by Jools Smith

I admit to totally wussing out of riding on the day we got there, both Katie Summerhayes and I decided to leave the guys to it, 44 hours with hardly any sleep screamed “accident waiting to happen to me” so I just walked around the slope watching and just chatting to the people who had come up to either watch their friends or just see what was going on at this new slope. The slope is amazing and currently consists of 3 kickers (a knuckle, a 3 foot and a 6 foot kicker) all of which can give you massive air. It was great to see that the locals were already getting the hang of it, with a young lad (the size that Jamie Nicholls used to be) of 9 year old giving 360s a try off the knuckle. There are also 2 boxes, a straight box & a down flat down kink which are placed on the intermediate slope. The slope is also going to be expanded as part of Phase 2 and so the riding area is going to pretty much double and they’re bound to add more jibs to the collection over time. There’s also a nursery slope for beginners to make their first turns on or to tube on.

After a late start on the Thursday we spent the afternoon playing ball and sunning ourselves in the uni pool (after a drive around town to find the outdoor pool with waterslides was closed as school had started) before heading to the slope to ride. I picked up my 150 Humanity Plastictastic, got my bindings screwed in and hit the slopes. After a couple of runs down the main slope to get the feel of the Snowflex and the new snowboard I was ready to start pushing it.

My first reaction to the new snowboard was that it perfect, it’s got plenty of spring and pop for ollies and is a lot flexier than I’m used to but without feeling soggy. I headed up to the kicker drop in and had a chat with Wayne Taylor about drop in speeds for the big kicker. I’d decided to go all out and hit the big one first off because I knew if I hit the 3 footer I’d be too scared to step it up, especially if I stacked it.   So after a couple of ride -throughs over the knuckle to get the hang f the drop in and feel the gradient of the run out I went for it. Dropped in, quick speed check and straightened up for the main 6 footer….up the kicker, in the air and I landed! I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised that the 150 handled the landing without any problem at all, and even more importantly there wasn’t any chatter on the run in either. I spent the rest of the evening working on various grabs and just trying to go bigger each time.

Friday saw us riding again and I was even brave enough to give a FS180 a try on the 6 foot kicker. I landed cleanly, but girly legs took over half way down the landing and I sat down. That was my only spin off the big kicker of the trip (it just felt a little on the large side for me to keep spinning on it) but I did get some good spins off the 3 footer while I was there.

Saturday was the big opening ceremony and it was seriously hot out there! So hot in fact that I put my riding shirt in the bucket of ice with the water in it to cool it down before we hit the slopes in the early afternoon sun. After the sky-diver had landed on the slopes and skiied down the hill I was the first over the kicker….it seemed like a good idea to volunteer to go first initially as it meant that when we started doing named tricks I’d be at the front to do a straight air (rather than being at the back and getting stuck with a 1080!), but as I was waiting to drop in it dawned on me that I was going to be the first person that the waiting crowds (of around 3,200 people) would see. All went well though and although I had a hand down on landing I managed to stay upright and not stack in front of everyone watching or get squashed by the riders who were following me in in quick succession.

After some “Trickology” to show the various tricks possible on skis and snowboards we had a quick team comp. I was part of UK 2, consisting of myself, Will Smith, Matt Macwhirter and Wayne Taylor. Unfortunately UK1 (Jamie Nicholls, Andy Nudds, Woodsy & Katie Summerhayes beat us in the crowd vote and went through to the final against on of the US teams. UK 1 were amazing and won the crowd vote overall. Their run can be seen in this video shown on the local news (in which I also feature!).  It was also great to have Dragon Goggles Team Manager, Sam Nelson, acting as half of the MC crew, it meant that there was someone there who knew our names and what we were doing and made sure we got plenty of shout outs and support from the crowd.  Russ Shea from Dopeshots was also on hand with his trusty camera so hopefully there’ll be some shots from him of us doing our thing.

We rode again on Sunday and as it was after the opening I think everyone was pushing it a little bit more, the pressure was off and people were less worried about hurting themselves. I used the time to keep working on big hits and grab variations and I had a great time. Katie stepped it up to throw down some massive 720s on skis and all the guys were putting in some huge spins. Everyone who hit it agreed that it’s the best kicker we’ve all hit and certainly the best kicker on Snowflex.

Unfortunately all good things have to come to an end, and  so we left Lynchburg on Monday morning and headed to the airport following a quick tourist stop off in Washington, where we saw the White House and the Washington Memorial. Arriving back in the UK yesterday it was great to log in to Facebook and Twitter and catch up on the buzz of the opening and the excitement of all our new friends. It was great to meet everyone from Liberty, the US Team and my boys from Humanity! We were all made to feel so welcome and I can’t wait to see how everyone progresses over the coming months.

Thanks again to Brian, Terry & Wayne for making this trip possible and for taking an old girl like me along with the kids. It meant a lot to be included and I hope I did you proud!

Here’s another movie from the team at Liberty University, great work from Hannah & Ena, I can’t wait to see what else you come up with.

And here’s my Flickr set of the trip

If you’re not an avid fan of me on Twitter then you might have missed seeing the design of my 150, but you can now not only view it, but purchase it, via the Humanity Snowboards shop.  Obviously I’ll be doing a full review after my first shred but if you’re yearning for something new and can’t wait for that then it’s worth snapping up one of the pre-sale boards for $299 (Discount code 1STHMNTY50).  If you find that the pre-sale offer has closed then hit me up for my discount code.