Advocation of Boardsports

Why Snowboard?

2004-10-25T22:21:00.000-04:00

Why not snowboard? Snowboarding can be one of the most relaxing and stress-relieving activities you can do. Just leaning back and forth through turns and flowing with the mountain on a freshly groomed slope or floating on top of 6 inches of powder without a care in the world can give a rider a feeling indescribable to those who have never ridden before. The sport of snowboarding has often been compared to that of surfing. Just finding the right wave, (or run in snowboarding) and you can ride it all the way to the bottom with a feeling of adrenaline and freedom running through your body. Much like when you find a perfect wave in surfing, if you find the perfect run, you want to ride it all day long and never have to leave it. It just feels that good.
Snowboarding has also been compared to modern day skateboarding. It is similar in the fact that riders can use half pipes, railings, table tops, jumps, and many other objects to do tricks and jumps. This is one way in which snowboarding is less of a relaxing and stress-relieving sport, but more of a fun and crazy energy outlet to show off and get some air. One of the most unique elements of the snowboard, compared to skiing, is that most of the modern day snowboards have two ends which are raised, allowing for easier backward landings. This allows for many tricks that are nearly impossible to do on skis.
Most snowboarders do a little bit of both styles, carving and jumping. My personal favorite is to carve all day long, especially if there is any sort of fresh powder on the ground. That feeling of surfing in the powder is irreplaceable.

Places to Learn How to Snowboard in Ohio and Michigan

2004-10-25T15:08:00.000-04:00

My own personal experiences have taken me to Montana (Big Sky), Lake Tahoe (Heavenly), Colorado (Steamboat Springs, Vail, Keystone), and quite a few places in Michigan. Although I have been skiing and snowboarding in Michigan my whole life, there is nothing like skiing in the mountains. If you have never been snowboarding before, skiing in Ohio and Michigan is a perfect place to start. It is much cheaper and (for some of us) much closer. Most ski areas have deals for people who have never been snowboarding before which include lift tickets, rentals, and a group lesson.
In Ohio there is a ski area called Alpine Valley.
For those of you who are from Michigan or have the ability to make it up to the "Water-Winter Wonderland" there are many great ways to learn at cheap rates. The way I learned how to snowboard was through a program called "McDonald's March Ski Month". Apparently Big Boy took over this program, as March is now the "Big Boy Ski Month". For 35 dollars a first time snowboarder can rent a snowboard for a full day, a beginner pass for a full day, and a 1 hour group lesson. This site, Michigan Ski Deals, lists this beginner deal along with many other great ski deals in Michigan for beginners and veterans alike.

Snowboard vocabulary

2004-10-23T13:34:00.000-04:00

Living near a mountain or riding frequently with friends can engulf you in a full culture of snowboarding. One of these things is the slang which riders use to communicate. A great site I found with a full dictionary of 139 terms is
ABC's of snowboarding

First Links

2004-10-15T01:40:00.000-04:00

Trying to get this page going. New links include one to a sweet snowboard and skateboard manufacturer, Arbor. I personally have an Arbor snowboard and an Arbor Longboard. I'm definitly impressed and have logged a lot of miles on the snowboard in Michigan, Colorado, and Montana. Sector9 is another sweet longboard manufacturer. They are basically the big name in longboards. I tried my friends the other day. His is sort of a tweener board: In between long and short. Not quite long enough for really fast hills, but not short enough to do tricks. I guess the advantage is that he could do tricks if he wanted to, but nothing compared to those you see on halfpipes. I like the longer board because you can get your front foot all the way to the nose and in front of the front wheels. This helps you from getting "high speed wobbles". When first looking online for tips and hints on how to longboard I can't even count the amount of times someone wrote "high speed wobs suck!" and then proceeded to tell a story of how they were going to fast, the board started wobbling, and then they ate pavement.
New links to come will include one to a forum I found a couple of months ago. There are all kinds of riders in there that can give tips and love to tell good riding stories. They also write in looking for buddies to ride with. I lost the actual page due to my recent upgrade to Windows XP so I'll start looking for it.
That's it for tonight, but here's my board for you to look at: If you click on the picture it takes you to Arbor's home page.