![crazy snowboard fre crazy snowboard fre](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TzbPwsn4V90/T5lLA-jPCrI/AAAAAAAAADg/yjQoCuM0q1E/s1600/crazy_snowboard_screenshot.jpg)
My board set me back £450, second hand, which at the time was my life’s savings. And my coat? That was just awesome… until it came into contact with snow or I tried to move – at which point, I became instantly soaked from either precipitation or my own perspiration. Meanwhile, my pants were so baggy that I could have smuggled several Romanian orphans over the border in them without arousing any suspicion. My Northwave boots (which I still have somewhere) were well suited to clearing snow from the driveway or mucking out stables, but were about as supportive as a pair of slippers and had the same waterproofing qualities as a ball of cotton wool.
#CRAZY SNOWBOARD FRE FULL#
If I remember correctly (caveat: my memory is not what it was), the bindings only really had two settings for the angles: a ‘mellow’ 30 degrees (for your common-or-garden eurocarving) and 45 degrees – aka full blown Russian hardboot racing style. I bought my first board in 1991 – it was 165 centimetres of solid plank, weighed roughly the same as the Millennium Falcon with a full cargo hold, and you couldn’t adjust the width of your stance. When I started snowboarding, the gear was terrible. There are a bunch of reasons why you could disagree with me (which I will try to logically and dispassionately dismiss as we go), but let’s tackle this argument one step at a time. you, me) snowboarding is simply way better now than in the past.
![crazy snowboard fre crazy snowboard fre](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/65/d7/30/65d7304c1ba51807eefcdea94f286d27.jpg)
But for the average joe snowboarder (i.e. I’ve no doubt that for those inside “the industry” there will have been easier times times when the cash rolled in from corporate sponsors, Japanese bar owners ordered snowboards by the dozen to adorn their walls, and the breakneck pace of product releases kept the tills ringing loud in stores. I believe that right now, there has never been a better time to be a snowboarder. You might therefore assume that by printing these words at all – in this brand new edition of Whitelines – I too have succumbed to nostalgia, pathetically seeking to relive my youth and cling to the dissipating fog of past glories.īut you’d be wrong, because I don’t believe it was better back in the day. “For the average joe, snowboarding is simply way better now than in the past” It delivers a sickly but ultimately pleasant death, as the rose-tinted glow of “back in the day” anaesthetises the degenerative chronic pain of getting older. Once you have slipped in, there is no getting out. For it was with the help of magazines that many of us found snowboarding weaving itself into our DNA and becoming an intrinsic part of our identity.Īs I have said before, nostalgia is like a bathtub full of syrup laced with methamphetamine.
![crazy snowboard fre crazy snowboard fre](https://mobimg.b-cdn.net/v2/fetch/4e/4e224ca26d7f9ced131d8057be015412.jpeg)
In fact the chances are that anyone holding this annual is of a certain vintage, and has at least some wistful feelings of nostalgia for that era. This feature was first published in print as part of The Whitelines Annual 2019/20.Īs you sit here, holding in your hands a beautifully curated, considerately crafted physical manifestation of our collective love of snowboarding, it is hard not to be drawn backwards to another time – a time when ink and wood pulp had a huge influence on our view of the world.