Here’s a little bit of news about freeriding madman Xavier De Le Rue’s latest project. The three times Freeride World Tour winner has teamed up with his sponsors; Swatch Watches, The North Face Clothing, Rossignol Snowboards, Relentless Energy Drink and Nissan (deep breath) to give us feeble mortals a window into Xavier’s life throughout the winter season. From business and product meetings with the North Face to photo shoots for Rossi’s 2011 ISPO stand and filming death defying cliff drops in Verbier’s backcountry the “Timeline” series documents the lot and is definitely a series worth keeping an eye out for.

Continue reading Swatch Timeline with Xavier De Le Rue

Another quick press release from the guys at Rome Snowboards. As well as giving away free posters and iPhone apps Rome have, for the second year running, created a limited edition Artifact Rocker for the kids working in the board stores. Who knows how you become eligible to get hold of one of these very limited boards, but I’m going to hazard a guess that you have to be a “kid” and work in a snowboard shop that sells Rome. So if you like riding super soft noodles and you spend every saturday working in your local board store to pay for your lift tickets it’s definitely worth looking into the Artifact Rocker SK.

Continue reading Rome Artifact Rocker Shop Kid Edition

Back in 2005, a couple of months before my first snowboard season in the French Alps, I was bought a Rossignol Todd Richards 157 as an early Birthday present. The graphics were ok and the spec was pretty comprehensive but it was a Rossignol so I had reservations. Within a couple of weeks of riding my Burton Dominant had taken a back seat and I was riding my new Rossi day-in day-out for absolutely everything on the hill. Two whole 100+ day seasons later I had to retire the TR because I’d decided to jib some rock faces with it. Since then the brand I’ve returned to is Rossignol. I’ve since owned a JDub 158, Twilight 164 and an Angus 157. With every board I’ve owned I’ve been impressed with the durability of the boards, the quality of the materials going into the boards, the build quality and most of all the way the boards deliver great performance. Sorry this is beginning to sound like a sales pitch, I guess the point I’m trying to make is that Rossignol is a brand that has always been a little bit of an outsider in the snowboard game, those that have tried the boards on the most part have only good things to say about them, and there are those that despise the fact that Rossignol has been producing skis for decades, they feel that Rossignol has no part to play in the industry. Isn’t the saying ‘It’s where you are going, not where you have come from”?

I met Arno one of the big men behind Rossignol Snowboards at ISPO in February, he took tons of time to show me through the boards, chat about the brand and the company he works for, definitely one of the nicest people I’ve met in the industry to date. It occurred to me that it would be nice to humanise Rossi and let people decide for themselves whether Rossi is a brand they want to buy from or not, so I put together an interview for Arno.

Perhaps after reading the interview you’ll have a better or just a different opinion of Rossi, perhaps you won’t, but at least you’ll know a little bit more about Rossignol Snowboards and you can make your own mind up. At the very least you’ll get a little exclusive on two boards being put together for the coming seasons!

Continue reading Brand Focus - Rossignol Snowboards

Sods Law dictates that whenever you plan a video review to coincide with good weather you get freezing and overcast weather instead. Last weekend I headed up to Obertauern one of Austrias higher less tree lined resorts to put a 166 Salomon Burner through its paces. With a thin blanket of snow in the backcountry I didn’t dare venture off the groomers so I found myself riding faster and faster to try and find the Burner’s limits. Having ridden every snow type under the sun (except for powder), at every possible gradient I can safely say that the Burner has no speed limit, but I do.

Continue reading Tested - 2011 Salomon Burner 166

December will always be known as the month that Jesus Christ was born in a cattle shed in Bethlehem, but now I bring even better and maybe slightly blasphemous tidings. Yes it’s true Snowboard-Review.com/TV (supported by Peak Leaders of course) will be bringing you seven new video reviews of your favourite boards throughout this festive month!

Continue reading Upcoming Video Reviews for December

Here’s a quick press release from the guys at the Snowpark Guide. To celebrate ten years of producing a damn fine publication and the only website on the net where you can compare the best of Europe’s terrain parks at a glance, the Snowpark Guide is running a video competition. The best thing is, anyone can enter. Email the guys at Snowpark about why you want to create the video for one of the 37 featured parks and if they decide to put you through, you and your buddies could be picking up 6 day passes for your local park for a day’s filming with the possibility of winning a Contour GPS Helmet Cam if the guys at the Snowpark Guide decide that your video is the best. The details are below. Take it away maestro!

Continue reading Euro News - Snowpark Guide 10 Year Anniversary Comp

Signal Snowboards sent us a quick email about their Black Friday giveway promotion (whatever Black Friday is?). If you’re thinking about buying some Signal gear, Friday is the day to do it. Buy your gear, send Signal your receipt and hey presto you’ll be in the draw for some free gear. Fingers crossed you’ll end-up with a free snowboard, not just a sticker to plaster on ride you just forked out on.

Continue reading Signal’s Black Friday Giveaway

Windlip offers a truly unique product, custom snowboards. Based in a small town called Pussy (yep that’s a real place) hidden in the Heart of the Savoir, France’s most mountainous region and the home of many a smelly cheese, Windlip produces a handful of boards each year for snowboarders who want the finest handmade rides or completely customised snowboards. Windlip create snowboards designed to match their owner’s ability, stats and riding style. Because it’s every snowboarder’s dream to own a custom freeride stick, Snowboard-Review.com contacted Windlip to find-out a little bit more about their snowboards and their unique approach to manufacturing.

Continue reading Brand Focus - Windlip Snowboards

It’s not every Sunday that you have a handful of the world’s best freestyle snowboarders competing on your doorstep. With the news that the Pleasure Jam had come to town I headed up to the Dachstein Glacier home of the Atomic Super Park, situated 60km south of Salzburg in the Ski Amade lift region to witness some of the madness.

Continue reading Event Check - The Dachstein Pleasure Jam 2010

They say you can tell a lot about a man by the car he drives…….unfortunately I only own a 20 year-old push bike so I’m not entirely sure what that says about me. Anyway, the same conclusions can be made about snowboarders and their snowboards. Tom, our head of testing, delves into his parent’s garage to unveil which snowboards he’s owned over the past 12 years……..you can draw your own conclusions!

If you’d like to share your ‘boardology’ with Snowboard-Review.com’ readers please email a photo of you and your boards, with a few words, to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and I’ll put together a reader’s boardology over the next couple of months.

Continue reading What is your Boardology?