I talked to Kael Hill last night and we will have an interview with him coming shortly. He sent me a preview of his new video part coming out for the “Brothers Factory” new video. I was hoping to use it for the site because its one of the most progressive rail riding video parts I have ever seen. He told me that this part will be used in the new Brothers Facotry video and I cant wait until you all see it.
Kael is a Banff kid that is pushing the envelope of snowboarding for sure. He is Endeavor snowboards newest addition to the AM team, he is killing contests (1st place Empire Shakedown), making insane video parts and is also a part of a new business venture called “Waffle Cone Zone” Collaboration. You can expect to see plenty of their collaborative stuff dropping on Snowrev soon.

Check back for Kaels full interview.

Photos by Lonnie Kauk and John Centi

As a spectator of the x games you may be in Aspen watching the event live or you may be watching it on ESPN live through the tube. What you don’t always get to see is the behind the scenes coverage from the riders view. Lonnie Kauk is a pro snowboarder that competed in the x games slopestyle event and he is also one of the Snowboard Revolution Crew members. Lonnie brings you inside the athlete lounge with all the competitors during the slopestyle finals and also shows you a look in what goes on behind the scenes before the riders drop in.

The riders prepare for there runs in many different ways, some are very mellow and seem like its another day in the park with their friends. Other riders get very focused and remain quite while prepping for their runs.

In the riders tent each competitor sits their and watches the other riders runs through the live X Games feed that you see at home. The first thing I noticed was how stoked all the riders were when the other competitors stomped a solid run.

The next thing observed was the focus that the cameras give Shaun White and it was kind of a trip to see his reaction to all of the attention. During the Shaun White interviews that you see on tv, Shaun removes himself from the room and goes to focus on the current situation at hand which is his next run. He seems like the rest of us who dont necessarily like to see ourselves in old home videos. Shaun is human.

Travis Rice who did not qualify for finals was watching the event in the tent and gave all the riders a ton of encouragement as they would walk out for there runs.

Heiki Sorsa was pretty intense to see because based on the his mellow persona before his run you would never think he would attempt something as gnarly as he did. During his run he took one foot out of his binding and did a one foot 360. That is very crazy and you would think that he would have a crazy focus just thinking about the consequence, he carried himself much different and seemed like he was just having a good time. When Heikki stomped the one footed three sixty all of the riders were cheering so much.

Andreas Wiig who won the event about to drop in to the course.

Chas Guldemond The Knight focusing on his run.

Lonnie Kauk (cowk) and Chas Guldemond

Mason Aguirre preparing for his run, he was pretty chill.

This camera remained on Shaun White the entire time.

Shaun heading out for his run

X Games Big Air Gold Medalist Torstein Horgmo was chilling with the rest of the riders.

Torstein sledding down to the riders tent, from the Slopstyle drop in ramp.

Jamie Anderson was in the tent with the guys.

Jussi Oksanen always in good Spirits

Tim Humphreys is a powerful rider. This kid is going to blow up.

Kevin Pearce from FRENDS was stoked. Kevin, who stomped his way to second place was very mellow and you could tell he was truly focused on his next moves. Jussi seemed to be having a good time just being there.

Lonnie Giving Mikkel Bang encouragement before his run.

DONT MISS SNOWREV.COM EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE OF

X GAMES 12 MENS SLOPESTYLE ELIMINATION

X GAMES 12 SLOPESTYLE FINALS

X GAMES 12 WOMENS SLOPESTYLE FINAL

X GAMES 12 BIG AIR

Take a look and watch Travis Rice explain a little bit about the upcoming Quicksliver Natural Selection contest held at Jackson Hole Resort in Wyoming. A huge line of some heavy hitter riding all natural feature this is looking to be a insane deal.
To read the press release and more info on the Natural Selection go HERE

Yeah we made it. It was sick, actually the Fat Joe Party just began. Click below and read the full story about day one of the Grenade 420 Games, snowboard at Summit at Snoqualmie. Just to let you know we put this together for your enjoyment. Peace.

CLICK THE PICTURE FOR FULL STORY AND GALLERY

The US Open big air was canceled along with the Pennywise concert due to bad weather.  The following pictures are of the riders congregating on the top of the jump, noone wanted to hit it.  Scotty Lago continuously jumped over everyone and was spinning 1080’s or 1260 ’s something gnarly.  That kid rules.  Pennywise’s tour bus got stuck in the foot of newly fallen snow so they couldn’t make it.  One positive, every rider still registered  for the big air (which was like 20) got to split up the prize money of over  50,000 evenly.  Should have signed up.

The 2007 Burton US Open at Stratton Vermont took place this weekend. This contest is one of the most prestigious (influential) contests in snowboarding. 2007 marked the 25th annual US Open of snowboarding. The best snowboarders, photographers, writers and editors showed up to this contest to feel the vibe that flows snowboarding. Snowboard Revolution attended with the full attempt of covering a snowboard event and here is our story.

I started off the trip to Vermont from Cleveland Ohio where I spent Monday morning. Tuesday at midnight Andrew Miller flew into Albany from Reno NV. Billy Cooley flew in at around noon on Tuesday. We packed up the car and drove up to the US Open of snowboarding with one thing in mind. COVER THIS EVENT. Do our best to show all of our readers exactly how cool this contest really is. We arrived in Manchester on Tuesday night and ate at the best pizza place ever before arriving at our hotel. Shortly after, we arrived at the Stratton Mountain Inn. The hotel had no internet. We could hardly believe that our online publication was going to have to be run with no internet. Our only thoughts that night were “Lets get sleep and well figure it out, no worries”. See it’s not a race to get see who gets the coverage first. It’s really all about just giving people who can’t be here the opportunity to feel the vibe that flows snowboarding.

The first day on hill we met up with  Dawn De La Fuente from Burton PR to get our media badges in introduce ourselves. It was Wednesday and the slopestyle practice was taking place. We didn’t want to flood ourselves with footage and make it impossible to edit so we just checked out the course and rode some park until the afternoon. Then we filmed a little to find some different angles. The course looked good and I regret not riding it more. Ill have to add that to the 10 Things I want to do at the Open next year list.

Wednesday night we went out in search of the Looney Bean of Vermont. The Looney Bean is a coffee shop in Mammoth with free internet. We cruised up to the village and found a place with internet, but it is $4 each half hour. We paid it anyway, did some email work. While there, we met Leanne Pelosi and talked with her about the contest and other events. She is a very nice girl.

Thursday everything was cancelled due to bad weather and we shredded in the rain all day. Poncho Slides, jibbing and halfpipe riding went down by the crew.

Friday was slopestyle, qualifiers, semi finals and finals. We filmed the entire day, through the blowing snow and cold temperatures. We were out there and loving it. Could have only been better if we were riding in the event. I do have to give it up to all the competitors that rode. The course was very difficult to ride due to snow conditions and it was hard to clear the jumps. Somehow Travis Rice managed to clear all the jumps with ease, looked super calm heading at every jump and did some insane tricks. He won the contest and $20,000 and Torah Bright won for the ladies.

Saturday was Halfpipe and scheduled Big Air.
The halfpipe went off. We got so much footage but had to cut everything down to three minutes due to regulations. If anyone wants to see our view of the US Open through video click here and Enjoy, from me to you. If you want to see the contest through the lens of Andrew Miller check out these spots on our site. Again Enjoy.
Some highlights from the halfpipe were:

Travis Rice pumping the tranny in the pipe and going consistently bigger than all the other riders.

Shaun White just ate that pipe up and he is stoked on his new nickname “The Animal”. He thinks he got the name from ordering burgers “Animal Style” from In and Out burger. I think its because he rides halfpipes like a caged animal that is let loose for the first time on one. He killed it period

Kelly Clark went huge. She is really taking girls riding to another level.

Scotty Lago, Mason Aguirre, Kevin Pearce, Danny Davis and the entire crew are all FRENDS.

Mad props go out to Jake Burton for hosting an amazing contest,  Dawn De La Fuente, all riders for throwing down and Billy for holding the other camera on the jumps in the cold snowy environment.

BURTON US OPEN, See you next year.

10 Things I want to do next year at The US Open:

1. Compete in all disciplines of competition, Halfpipe, Slopestyle, Big Air
2. Meet Jake Burton
3. Bring a bigger crew
4. Give out more cloud stickers
5. Do more rider interviews
6. Bring more giveaways for the spectators
7. Throw a big house party
8. Enjoy the show
9. Make another video
10. Eat at the pizza place named “Pizza and Pasta” located in Manchester

Today is Thursday March 15th and we are at day 2 of The US Open in Stratton Vermont.  The weather took a turn for the worst and the snow conditions didn’t make riding the slopestyle course very simple.  During the slopestyle mens and womens practice I managed to sneak in for a couple runs and found out exactly what the riders were going through.  The rain in the morning placed a super soft layer underneath the heavy wet snow that began to fall in the early afternoon.  This caused the slope-course to have an uncomfortable fast-slow-fast-slow feel.  The riders felt this as they approached the table tops.  It is very hard to clear jumps when the snow conditions are like this so the US Open qualifiers have postponed until tomorrow Friday the 16th.  Thats when the mens and womens slopestyle qualifiers- semi finals and finals will take place. Here are some highlights from today. Jussi Oksanen was not even scheduled to compete today and was out in the rain destroying the entire course.  He was throwing down in the gnarliest conditions and is for sure Heavy Metal. Anti Autti was riding all day.  During the rain and snow, I would see him shredding on every run. We all got soaked, did poncho slides and got to see the pressure of the event lift off all the riders shoudlers. This little grom named Kirby stood about three feet and stomped a frontside five in the pipe.  She couldn’t have been older than 10 (Mini Shred in a big halfpipe)  

If you can’t make it to Stratton, you can always catch the Slopestyle, Halfpipe and Big Air finals on NBC’s US Open highlights show, airing Sunday March 18^th from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm EST.  There will also be free webcasts of the final events on www.burton.com.  

WEBCAST SCHEDULE:Friday, March 16:           Slopestyle Finals                       2:30 pm – 4:00 pm ESTSaturday, March 17:       Halfpipe Semifinals                     9:00 am – 12:15 pm ESTSaturday, March 17:       Halfpipe and Big Air Finals          11:00 pm – 1:45 am EST 

Slopestyle Course:

Street style down rail on right

25 steps on the staircase

10 to 25 flat down box on the left

1^st Jump 45’ on the big side, 35’ ft on the small side                     

2^nd Jump 50’ on the big side, 45’ ft on the small side

3^rd Jump 55’ on the big side, 45’ ft on the small side

4^th Jump 50’ on the big side, 40’ ft on the small side

Last rail feature

Gateway box on the left 10’ , 10’, 10’ (3 - 10’ ft sections)

30 ft long stock flat bar at 4 ft high on the right

The revolution crew cruised up to Holiday Valley with the shop Suburban Blend to go check out the Shop Wars contest.  The shops that showed up from the Western New York region were Suburban Blend, The Boardroom, Mud Sweat N Gears, 245 Snowboard Shop, Ski Chalet, Sliders, The Shop @ Swain, Curleys, The City Garage.  The contest was sick and Im glad we made it out.  Its always super fun to go shred the local resorts and when there is a no pressure, all fun event going on there is no better time to be out.  Read the full story at the link above and watch the video too.

Damn, I can think back to Oct, Nov Dec when we were preparing for the SIA tradeshow in January and remember what a hustle it was to be ready for this show. One of the most important questions we all had was “What are we going to do about a booth?” Tons of ideas floated around, anxiety crept in, months went by and January was settled in. We were freaking out. We had a couple of ideas of what we wanted to see but noone could produce it for us. Then we met this guy named Greg Gheradini from GES tradeshow booth solutions. He was a big help and assisted us in creating our first ever tradeshow booth, and it was a hit. We were stoked on the way it came out, Check us out.

Ahh Life is good. Can’t ever complain about chilling with three beautiful girls.  Chrissy LoConti, Annemarie LoConti, and Suz Iceman.

Oh yeah, This was kind of tight. A comedian at Harrahs was rocking a Snowboard Revolution T Shirt. Super Funny!

The revolution Crew was at the 10th annual Showcase Showdown the only pipestyle contest held in Whistler B.C. The contest started on Friday the 23rd with quailifing rounds till 8pm and then contined with semi-final and finals on sat.the 24th. The top 5 women and top 10 men advanced to the late night Showdown and over 500 people came out watch. The weather was not on our side but riders still seemed to come above the whiteout conditions to show us there best from cab 10’s to back lip’s it was a great show to watch!