duh

Skiing was definately on a downward trend in the mid eighties. I lived in a small town outside of Mammoth and none of us ever went skiing. As soon as we discovered snowboards we hiked small hills near our houses and built tiny kickers to no-where that we thought were the best things ever. When we could finally ride June mountain we did, and we sucked. We got spit on, body checked, knocked over in line, cut off, punched... the list goes on. Sometimes we fought back, sometimes we turned the other cheek and shredded pow.

I miss those days! In the end we won, but sometimes I feel like the over-commercialization and corporatization of our sport killed the one thing we all had in common back in the day.

Soul.

On that note, it's time to go ride. Have a great day and go play on a stupid wooden toy. Don't forget to piss off a skier here or there for old times sake!

Clayton Bigsby

I do remember those days, guys throwing snowballs off of the chairs at us, spitting, altercations, passing us on the road with a finger out the windows etc etc, but believe me I do hunt out the euro carve skier guys and chase them down, then blow right past them, then watch them try to catch me. It's funny though, once you've shown them that you can carve/G.S. with the best of them, then all of the sudden they want to ride up the chair together and all they do is say that they've never seen a "boarder" race/carve that fast past them, the occasional powder spray is always fun

Sincraft

well, I can tell you that , as someone that rode out east with very limited verts and slopes that were all pretty much the same with a few trees between one and the other, yes skiing got boring.

No one I knew really skied when I got older...

so I sat, and did nothing. Then one day, a co-worker told me that he snowboarded (not really, he stunk) so we went out one day, and I never looked back.

Sure, in a few years my crippling , deteriorating body will no long allow me to board......but until then I'm loving it.

Yet , I still like to ski too. Nothing like holding an edge going 60+ mph , then switching to another and yet another...but floating on a board through powder .....skis cant touch.

'round here,...there were no boards. Then one day there were a few and that's all there were for some time. They were not allowed after a year or two at our local hills, then a couple years later, they were.

People didnt like them because they USUALLY were the more asshat crowds that were hanging in packs in the middle of teh slope on their asses, doing not much of anything.

Fast forward 10 years, and things have evolved to an amazing level.


I guess its like anything, people fear change and new things. They want to beat it with a stick and go back to their cave eating whatever they clubbed earlier.

Unless it is technology for some reason. People now flock toward anything like ants to a picnic. I see people with ipads that have no idea what to do with them. Rushing to get in line to buy the new one, only to have the exact same apps and three emails a day loaded on their ipad. I dont get it. My company rolled out 1000 of these things to the sales force because 'it made them look cool and everyone else is doing it', yet they cant really figure out what they can do with them. They REALLY need a good solid small/lightweight laptop or, TADA a Windows Surface. But, we trudge on blindly like lemmings and purchase whatever the inc's throw at us, as long as there is an lcd or potentially LED screen.

Which brings me to a video outlining this very topic,...enjoy....

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network

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extra0

I guess skiing still has it's place, like super steep/ice covered runs where you need every ounce of effective edge possible...but then, why even bother other than to get out of the house.

There's gotta be a reason you rarely see skiers in really deep powder (at least around here). It probably takes a relative lifetime to be learn to manage all that equipment flailing around in anything over 2 feet deep (or even less). A snowboard is made for that shit. Those shapeless, backseat 80s boards obviously sucked on hardpack, but probably worked in pow (not that any of those boring conservatives in the vid would know....they most likely never ventured off groomers)

Sincraft

Most of the conservatives I know go pretty big. They work hard and play hard too. Most of the people back then were families. Mixed across political bands. Yea you had some younger guys that would let it rip, but not like today. You see alot more solo riding today than ever before. And I've been doing this a long time...
Dont let the verbiage conservative fool you. Just because they dont want 50% of their efforts going toward another person who sits around all day watching the tv with no intentions to contribute to society, doesnt mean they are boring.

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extra0

uh...I was referring to the ski stiffs in the video, not political conservatives.

deepcove

This is soooo awesome to see........because in 1985 I along with a group of friends not only were not aloud to get on the lifts at Seymour with our snowboards but the ski patrol also stopped us from hiking up the runs and basically escorted us off the mountain.
I went to a high school 5 mins from Seymour and in grade 10 woodwork we built our own press and laminated 1/8" birch into home made snowboards....and even mounted a centre fin!!! Maybe Seymour just didn't like our product????!!!??

In a sense Seymour hasn't changed their attitude.....last year they wouldn't let my spon up the lift with a snowskate yet this is totally acceptable at Whistler.....

extra0

I've ridden a snow skate at Heavenly - liftees let me on, no problem. They are harder to ride than a snowboard, but you wear a leash with them, so it's not any more dangerous than a snowboard in the wrong hands. Bottom line, for most people, snow skates really don't take advantage of intermediate to advanced terrain, so it's kind of a waste of a day/ticket riding them at a decent mtn resort...but maybe your son is one of the few that can really rip on one.

IdahoFreshies

HAHA, if they hit somebody's legs it will break them, because they are like a missile because they have no brakes.

Awesome video! So awesome to see just how much it has progressed and become part of the industry. I would love to talk to some of those people in the video and ask them what their opinions are now. I bet they are all at Alta though.

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SB4L

Someone had PM'd me asking for the link to this, back in November, sorry for the late reply as CBC had changed their link apparently. I've been absent from this forum a lot in the last few years as I moved back to Ontario I miss this place though.

I think this is the same one:

CBC Digital Archives - Extreme Sports: Faster, Riskier, More Outrageous - Skiers versus snowboarders