Ed Hardy Snowboards on Ebay

I read about this on SOTN and figured they were just making hoodies. Then I googled it and found a real one on ebay. WHAT???


Just because you have the $$$ to pay a factory to make some boards doesn't mean you should hire a factory to make you some boards.

I don't even want to comment on the description.... I'll let you.

Forum x The Hundreds

I gotta give it to the guys at The Hundreds. Not only are they being nominated by Inc. as part of "30 under 30," but they've decided to forgo the product announcement about their collab with Bur... err Forum and just show some images without saying much.

This totally made me laugh out loud at work today. Nice work guys.
Thanks to Bnqt for the tip-off.

Burton & Killington Get Stashed

Sometimes I get bummed I live in San Diego now and not back in NYC. Burton bringing the Stash to Killington makes today one of those times.


Thanks to Transworld for bringing me this info and making me sad.

Vice TV Drops "Powder and Rails"

Damien Sanders throwing a jib to indy with hardboots... WHAT???

Xanadu at the Meadowlands and Liberty University Dry Slope

Big news in the world of alternative shred areas.

First, Transworld Business did a nice piece on the Liberty University's dry slope. Say what you want, guys get worked on these things in the UK all the time. And yes, I realize skaters get worked all the time too. So do freestyle mountain bikers and those kids on snakeboards. Can't we all get worked together?

(image courtesy of Transworld Business)

Then, my boy HRocker in the dirty NJ (well, parts of it are dirty), dropped some knowledge on the Xanadu Ski Dome at his Liv2Ride blog. With that baby opening up, spring and fall trips back to the EC just got more interesting.

(lousy pic courtesy of Liv2Ride)

BTW - HRocker, I was listening to the Boss' Greatest Hits on my way to sruf Cardiff last week. It did not help me surf any better.

Todd Richards Wins Ultimate Boarder Stage 1

Not a shocker that a snowboarder won the snowboard stage, a skater will probably win the skate stage, etc. It's the guy that can do one extremely solid and the other two fairly well who will probably take it, so it's still anyone's guess.

I wish the Ultimate Boarder site had more info on how people placed, but you can check the release out here.


BTW - What's up with the nose of the board on the left? Looks like someone pulled a Shaun White and broke their board in competition.

Photo courtesy of Ruben Sanchez.

Rome SDS is on fire

The guys @ Sno Con posted this image of an unnamed Rome shred flexing over a fire pit at the World Quarters.

See kids, you don't have to go big or go first to have fun on snow.
Thanks to Sno Con for the image.


Disclosure: I've done business in the past with Rome and most likely will in the future.

Hayes Brothers - Big Changes

I love East Coast brands.

Hayes Brothers is like a micro-brew of snowboards, even more so than Never Summer and Rome SDS, which while small, have been quite successful (while staying independent).

Some of my favorite boards in the line, graphically and construction-wise, are the Bandito and Vigilante. Good shred sticks that look good and can shred the whole mountain. Just what you'd expect from guys riding concrete on the EC.


On a side note, Hayes Bros. has just been acquired too, bt Ault Glazer & Co. This is good news, not bad. They'll have additional resources and hopefully be able to take this gem of a brand a little further.

Press release below:
http://www.sportsonesource.com/news/spec/spec_article.asp?section=8&Prod=2&id=22289

Hayes Brothers Snowboard Acquired
SportsOneSource Media Posted: 2/26/2008

The Hayes Brothers Snowboard Company has been acquired by Ault Glazer & Co., Inc., a holding company that holds minority stakes in a variety of businesses.

Co-founder Stephen Hayes, will remain at the helm as the Vermont company embarks on their second decade in the snowboard industry.

“This is an incredibly exciting time for Hayes Brothers and we expect this to be the year Hayes Brothers takes it to the next level,” Hayes said.

Anthony Bianco, a one time member of the World Cup Snowboarding team and Managing Director of Berlin Cameron, echoed Hayes’ feelings.

“He further commented, "It's fitting that on the eve of their ten year anniversary in an increasingly competitive market, Steve was able to put this deal together," Bianco said. "Based on the media buy and the sharp increase in exposure to a demographic starved for authenticity, this is definitely the year Hayes Brothers punches a hole through all the bogus brands out there and reminds the world that snowboarding is a sport born of first runs of the day.”

“Hayes Snowboard fits our target demographic and we are very bullish about this firm’s potential for growth in a very competitive market,” said Ault Glazer & Co.’s President, Jim Hodgins. “We welcome Hayes into our family of companies.”

Ault Glazer & Co., Inc. is a diversified holding company that maintains stakes in various companies through its minority interests and wholly owned subsidiaries, and is involved in merchant banking, corporate lending, shareholder activism, real estate, healthcare, energy, consumer products & services, insurance and media.

As previously announced on Dec. 13, 2007, Remington-Hall Capital Corp. changed its name to Ault Glazer & Co., Inc., and is currently waiting to be assigned a new symbol from NASDAQ Market Operations to reflect the name change.

Burton NoBoard and Bad PR

So my East Coast brother of another mother, Liv2Ride, did a little post about the fellas at NoBoard working with Burton.

Someone, maybe from NoBoard, maybe not, left a nice comment calling him a kook. Another guy left a great one insinuating that he likes to roll with dudes. On the latter, whatever man, super mature. On the former, here's my stance:

Everyone is entitled to the opinion. If you wanted to sway Liv2Ride, maybe you should have put something intelligent in there? Or told him about the fun aspects of it? Or sent him a YouTube clip? I'm sure there could have been a better way to get him to see your point instead of calling him a kook. Or gay. Or switch-kook.

I liken NoBoard to snowskating... it could be cool, but it's not something I'd see out after driving five hours to Mammoth. If I lived in an area where there was more, closer snow, maybe I'd be down with both. I enjoy snowskating (not blading.... those skate-deck snowboard hybrids) and would probably have some fun on a NoBoard too. Instead, "NoBoarder" just made some stupid comment that'll live together in cyberspace.

I know Burton's PR firm is smart enough not to make dumb posts. Hopefully NoBoarder is just some guy and not the crew actually at NoBoard.

Malakye Gets It Right With Office Booyz

Sometimes, those of us in the action sports industry think we're too cool for school and forget why we got into it in the first place... we actually enjoy skateboarding, snowboarding, freestyle scootering, stair-boarding, etc.

Malakye has not forgotten this and to celebrate the greatness of sitting at a desk and talking about limited edition socks all day from eesa, there is is Office Booyz.

I'll be traveling, so I can't make it to the comp, but I'd love to have entered the "most gray hairs" competition or "kit so rad you can't possibly back it up" event. Or just have fun drinking beers with people who realize we're really lucky to talk about limited edition socks all day. I'm just glad South of the North and Liv2Ride aren't on this coast.... otherwise I'd have to cancel my trip and show them how to throw down apres ski style.

Oh, and if you're looking for a job in the action sports industry, check out Malakye too. But be smart about it.... apply for jobs you're qualified for and if you're not, look at how to get qualified. You'll notice none of the jobs say "must be able to kickflip." Board skills are nice, but for these gigs, you need the mental tools too.

Shaun White's Lambo

Liv2Ride will love this.

Robust Flavor, the same guys behind UNIV, took a picture of Shaun White's Lambo.

I wish I had a Lambo.

Ultimate Boarder

Have you heard of the Ultimate Boarder competition?
The name sounds hokey, but a lot of the riders are legit.

The 'Squan's finest Shayne Posipil, element's Tosh, Aaron Astorga and Kurt Wastell are just some of the riders I'm stoked to check out.

Unfortunately, their site leaves a lot of info lacking (besides stats on how marketable action sports are today). Maybe they should reach out to one of those action sports PR firms and see if they can help get things going?

Pics from the Ultimate Boarder site.

Ellis Snowboards

Just got a MySpace request from the heads @ Ellis Snowboards. While their MySpace page is pretty lacking (we make snowboards), I give props to these SoCal guys for going for it in an already crowded market. Then again, so did Rome SDS and Stepchild, and those guys seem to be doing ok.

The board I'm most interested in is the Bot, which seems to have a pretty cool construction in the nose and tail areas:

The Bot offers Freedom Tips™ which are areas where we use space age aluminum honey comb in the core (nose and tail.)

Check them out at www.ellissnowboards.com

Not everyone in snowboarding likes Shaun White

I don't know Shaun White. He's probably a good guy. But sometimes when you're too successful, get too much coverage or otherwise start to annoy people due to your on-screen X-Games moping, people may start to hate you.

Case in point, Liv2Ride, who joined Generation WTF to voice his opinion on the Flying Tomato (note to mainstream media, no one in snowboarding calls him that).

Before you knock LivRide, realize I know him and the guy likes riding. He didn't grow up in a family of riders, is self taught and drives an incredibly boring four hours each weekend to shred the Ice Coast of Mount Snow. What's snowboarding to him may not be snowboarding to you and as a passionate shredder, he's definitely entitled to his opinion. The same way some skaters dislike Tony Hawk (note to mainstream media, no one calls him the Flying Egg Man).

Not everybody wants Nike SB Snowboard Boots

Looks like the fellas from Rome are teaming up with Consolidated to help keep Nike from invading action sports.

I won't lie, I own Nike SB's, but I don't skate in them. I appreciate their recent support of skateboarding to some extent, but I'm wondering about their commitment there and in snowboarding.

Are they a part of this because they want to bring something to skate/snow or because they see the writing on the ramp saying shred and skate will only continue to grow in popularity?

I haven't seen any tech info on these yet. If there's a compelling reason to wear them besides Danny Kass and faux croc, I could change my glum opinon on them.

Nitro 09 Slant Snowboard Boots

South of the North seemed to have a lock on SIA 09 coverage, but he missed these Nitro slant boots from the fine folks @ Nitro who keep coming on year after year.

I don't have too much info on them, but I like the idea of making the boots look like a slip on sneaker. I wonder why the guys @ Vans haven't done a checkerboard?

Pics courtesy of the Snowboard Mag.

Spy Optic Drops The Apollo

Straight from SIA, Spy is showing their newest goggle for next winter, the Apollo.


The Apollo is the first goggle (ever) to introduce what Spy calls a dual radius lens. Basically, other goggles have cylindrical or spherical shapes. Bigger lenses that give you better vision also make you look like you’ve got a fishbowl on your face.

The blended radius idea on the Apollo combines multiple radius angles (radii?) so you get more peripheral vision than ever before in a smaller package goggle.

I'm not the only guy who thinks this is cool, the heads @ Future Snowboarding are down too.

Nike Drops Snowboard Boots - Really.... Again!

I know I've clowned on the idea of Nike doing boots for snowboarding before, but it looks like they're really happening.

I'm @ SIA now and I'll see if I can get any details, but Liv2Ride and South of North have it pretty much covered.

To Present Action Sports With Relevance, You Should Have an Action Sports Background

South of North just covered a fairly tame (could have been way more scathing) post about Steve Fischer being the Phil Mickelson of snowboarding. This comes on the heels of a very nice woman sending me info that was close to accurate about a great skateboarder, but just a little bit off... enough to make me laugh (she's one of the better PR people I've run across, so I won't call her out ;-).

Here's the deal. Jeep with their garage ads showing an old Burton Air from the early 90's in the garage, Honda Element with it's clueless "half-cab 540 comment" and other marketers (and media to some extent), just don't get it. When your features/ads/whatever are off, even just a little, we notice, mock and write you off.

It'd be the equivalent of me writing about a football game and saying a kicker shot come touchdowns for three points. Football fans know what I'm talking about, but don't I look a little bit silly?

There are a ton of marketing firms in action sports available for marketing consulting, not to mention a few bloggers like South of North. Pay the little extra to have your marketing dialed.

BTW- Know what would have made a great article, the Burton/Shaun comparison to Sims/Steve. That would have been worth reading.

Pic via the Aspen Times.

Steve Caballero Gets His Ski Art on With Rossi

This isn't uber-breaking news (check out South of North's post earlier this week), but it's cool, so I'll cover it. Steve Caballero is doing ski art with Rossignol. What? Yeah, but in this day and age, skiing isn't all that bad (doing all I can to highlight how sideways shredding saved the industry, but that's another post on another blog). And besides, Rossi is owned by Quik, so they can't help but see how youth culture drive sports, versus old-man ski culture (I kid... some of my best friends are skiers... ok, two friends.. aquaintances really, but good guys none the less).

Dubbed the 'Seven Artistic Sins' the collection takes some of the most well respected and innovative artists (some, not all, so haters stop hating) and lets them use skis as a canvas. While I'd prefer to see these on a board, skis as a medium for display is definitely something interesting to check out.

The ski itself is dubbed the S7 and it's for those that like to ski where no man has skied before (or at least in the last 20 minutes). From their press release:

Sage Cattabriga-Alosa and Rossignol have designed the ultimate backcountry slash ski. Using twin tip construction combined with a new tricked-out reverse camber, reverse sidecut shape and incorporating sidecut underfoot for navigating on the cat tracks, the S7 is the most revolutionary powder twin tip to hit the backcountry! 100% Backcountry.

Lots of other worthwhile artists are involved, including Andy Howell, whose ski is more park/pipe style:

The S1 is specifically designed to be a very versatile park and pipe ski with solid, all-mountain performance. This ROSSICAP twin is for the jibber for wants to hang in the park all day or to surf the whole mountain with friends. 80% All Mountain / 20% Jib

Ok, that's enough ski talk for the evening. If you're heading to SIA, check them out at the Rossi booth or online when they drop early at www.evogear.com. Nice work Rossi, you're onto something.