Expect more frequent blogging!

So as you know I was up in Glasgow a couple of weekends back for the Westbeach Snowflex Tour, and as is normal I refuse to be parted from the Internet so I was checking my emails, Flickr and all the other sites I check on a regular basis, when I was stoked to receive a Flickr mail from the people at WOM World/Nokia asking me if I'd be interested in participating in a trial of a new Nokia mobile phone application. Basically they'd give me a mobile phone with this app on it and I get to play with it for a while in exchange for giving them feedback.

Hmm let me think, free (on loan) gadgetry and new stuff to play with......of course I'm interested! So I promptly pinged back a message and waited to hear back, 2 weeks passed and I heard nothing so I contacted them again. It wasn't that I wanted to be pushy, I was more concerned that Flickr mail had failed me and they hadn't got my first message, I mean you don't want people like WOM to think you're rude, do you?

So when I got back from Southampton last night there was an email waiting for me complete with trial sign up form and a plea for my address so they can send out the N82 I'll be testing the app on. This was returned promptly this morning and by the end of the day I'd had an email back confirming the phone is on it's way out to me.

Based on some wording on the dispatch notice and some Googling I have a feeling the app I'll be playing with for the next 2 months is Nokia viNe, this is based on the Nokia Sports Tracker which I've played with before and really liked so it'll be interesting so how this handles. Of course I could be completely wrong and it could be something else but I do know that whatever it is it's location based. So expect more on this on Monday when the phone gets to me and I find out exactly what I get to play with!

How true!

IMG00345.jpg
Originally uploaded by Mistress Matisse

This is probably something I should remind myself of from time to time....sometimes I really should keep my mouth shut rather than blagging knowledge!

Snowboarding playlist

Snowboarding playlist
Originally uploaded by plasticsnow aka Kat

I like to listen to music when I snowboard, it helps to relax me and to spur me on. I find that the music that's playing can really affect the way I ride, if I don't like ith then I ride really badly, if it's good I try things I wouldn't normally.......so I always take my iPod with me just in case the music played where I'm riding isn't to my taste, that way I can be sure that it won't spoil my evening,

These are the main tunes I'll be sessioning to this evening!

Me

Jools has a new camera lens and took this picture of me while he was testing it out. I'm not normally keen on how I look in portrait shots but this one I really like!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The Westbeach Snowflex Series, Bearsden – A Rider's Review

Saturday August 16^th saw the first leg of the 2008 Westbeach Snowflex Series roll into Bearsden slope in Glasgow, technically speaking it half rolled into Bellahouston on the Friday night for a jam session and party but I didn't make it due to an inability to move following one too many slams at CasVegas the night before.

This was the first event of the season to have both skiers & snowboarders competing on the same day so it was a good opportunity for old friends to catch up on what's been happening since last season.

The Westbeach Snowflex Series is the brain-child of Wayne Taylor, shop owner (AKA Snow Skate) instructor & mentor to local riders at Halifax and is in it's 2^nd year having expanded from the annual Cock of The North competition and is set up to run as a fun jam session comp, with a jam session final for the top 5 in each category culminating in the 2 run final final for the top 3 rider's/skiers in each group. What this translates to in reality is loads of riding for everyone with a nice show-down at the end of it to see who can squeeze that last bit of energy out of their legs and nail the trick of the day to take the title. I'm not kidding when I say it's loads of riding, practice started about 10am giving everyone 3 hours to get used to the kicker and start throwing some stuff down. There were then two 45 minute jam sessions for the Over 16s and then Under 16s and women, these saw the competitors really getting into it, working through their arsenal of tricks, in some cases (mine!) starting small with some straight airs and grabs moving onto basic spins, in others, well they started big and got bigger! It has to be said that the standard was amazing with 7s all over the place from the guys (skiers & snowboarders) with 3's & 5's being the order of the day from the girls.

One of the nice things about this series is that although it's a competition the atmosphere is great, people chatting on the lift's and at the top, supporting each other as they drop in and lots of cheers when good tricks are nailed. Without too much pressure everyone really gives it their best shot, because of the jam format no one's put off from trying something new because they know that they can keep trying until it's nailed and then move on to the next trick. I must admit that I only landed a few tricks in the whole competition, I could have stuck to doing my safe tricks and just spent the day working through a range of grabbed straight airs, but where's the fun in that? So I tried to step it up and started spinning, OK so the landings weren't great, but we've all got to start somewhere and I was getting pretty close to nailing an elusive backside 360 by the end of it. If it had been a simple 2 run format then I wouldn't have bothered trying and certainly wouldn't have got as much out of the 840 mile round trip as I did.

Once the jam qualifications were out of the way we moved on to the jam finals, the top 5 in each group went through and we started again, MC Sketch (of Syndicate Clothing) was a tad quiet on the mic as I think some locals weren't enjoying his cutting edge vocalisation & joke stream but he was supporting the rider's providing encouragement & letting us know when the judges were finding it hard to split riders to go through for the 2 run final, with only 3 going through everyone was really pushing themselves and the lads started to move on from 7s to 9s! It was almost hard to ride because you wanted to watch everyone else (luckily I didn't make the final so got a chance to do just that for the final 2 runs)

Before the final final we had the fun & games of the Team comp, in this everyone gets together in teams and rides for fun & glory, dropping in one after another we saw trains, stiffies, stunts and quarter pipe action.....organised chaos doesn't come close, in fact organised & precise chaos may be closer as when you have 5 people hitting a kicker in close succession it can be a bit nerve wracking if one of them falls!

The day finished with the 2 run final around 5pm, 7 hours after the first practice kicked off and I'm sure that people must have been getting a bit tired (I certainly was) but still we saw some amazing riding, no one held back and I'm certainly glad that I wasn't called on to judge things!

This weekend's comp had the best atmosphere of the season so far and I can't wait until the next leg at Halifax on 13^th September, get it in your diary now and come along.....whether it's to compete or just to watch some amazing riding it'll be well worth the trip! Check out some photos from the weekend to whet your appetite.

Thanks must go to Wayne & Debs for organising it and all the sponsors for providing support & prizes!

Results

Women's Snowboard

1. Lynsey Ashdown

2. Rhianna Nuttall

3. Kara Anderson

Under 16s Skier Boys

1. Murray Buchan

2. Chris Wadsworth

3. Chris McCormick

Under 16s Snowboarder Boys

1. Pete Meadows

2. Danny McCormick

3. Will Smith (The English One)

Men's Ski

1. Andrew Matthew

2. Andrew Wilson

3. Charlie Richardson

Men's Snowboard

1. Will Smith (The Scottish One)

2. Andy Nudds

3. Zach Culshaw

Best Unsponsored Skier – Andrew Matthews

Best Unsponsored Snowboarder – Rhianna Nuttall

Endeavour Trip to Tignes – Rhianna Nuttall

Technine Unsponsored – Marc McClement

Team Event – Team Big Nose

Stephen Fry Uses Spinvox!

So you remember I said in the last blog post that Spinvox also have a voicemail to text service that I'd yet to try? Well it appears that Stephen Fry uses it! (Thanks to James Whatley for Jaikuing this) So it seems that I am in good company using Spinvox, you can read all about it on his blog!

I should stop blogging now and get ready for today's Westbeach Snowflex Series in Bearsden....expect plenty of Spinvox Tweets over the course of today

Hands-free Tweetage!

So I was walking in to work yesterday after the early storm and passed a patch of cut grass, it had that lovely wet, soily, grassy smell to it, slightly summery, partly autumnal and I wanted to share it with people. Being on my own (stranded in Southampton) I reached for my phone and dialed the contact labelled Spinvox Social Network (I also have Spinvox Blog & Spinvox Memo - more on those in a mo!) and shared this with the world......

"I love the smell of fresh mowed rained on grass, it's brilliant and under the sun, it's even better"

Yes my speech was converted to text and posted to two of the social tools I use, Twitter & Jaiku. To be honest there's been a glitch recently so I was only expecting the words to end up in Jaiku so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I'd Tweeted as well, yes the brilliant team at Spinvox have got things sorted and I can now use my phone to update my status on Jaiku and Twitter, it would even do Facebook as well but I tend to limit what I update on there.

So thanks to James Whatley aka whatleydude who first turned me on to Spinvox (he works for them as their social media dude) I will be able to spend this weekend's road trip (3 days, 3 slopes, 1 snowboarding competition) speaking to Tweet rather than texting. Which of course will be much easier as it means I don't have to keep taking my gloves off to text as I go up the drag lift!

I'll also be able to use those other contacts I mentioned to blog slightly longer ponderances to my Vox blog and also email myself memos to things I need to do when I get home.....you know how it is, random important stuff always pops into your head when you have no way of writing it down and then it vanishes by the time you get home. Even better all of this is completely free! Yes no cost at all (apart from the phone call but as I get loads of minutes free on my mobile it's free!)

I'll do another post about their Voicemail to Text service at some point, this is chargeable but I'm thinking that it'll be very handy when I'm in Switzerland later in the year!

So for those of you that have an interest in my snowboarding and want to follow what I get up to over the weekend then keep your eyes peeled on the following locations Twitter (short snippets), Moblog (photos), Vox (longer ponderances) & Qik (live streamed video)!

Not a good start....

Ride on gas pipe

So we headed up to MK SNO!zone on Friday night, mostly because the slope plan showed a kicker on it, and seeing as how I have a Big Air competition in Glasgow on Saturday and need the practice we thought it'd be worth the trip up there.

As you can see from this Tweet, there was no kicker and I wasn't too chuffed. Things got even worse for a moment when Emily, one of the regulars, mentioned that they weren't going to be grooming the slope because the Cat (slope groomer) was broken. Luckily before I got changed and went to get my money back the Cat made an appearance and started to groom the slope.

So we were left with a rail session for the evening, not what I'd hoped for but when you're travelled 75 miles and it's taken over 2 hours you tend to make the best of things (or in previous instances head home for Chinese takeaway!).

I decided to continue building on the previous week's progression and got straight on to the side on gas pipe. I didn't have much choice if I'm honest as it was either side on or ride on gas pipes or a side on kink bench rail. Not much for beginners, but for someone looking to step things up a bit it was something to work on. I wanted to get as much out of the session as I could so once I'd warmed up on the side on gas pipe I gave the side on bench rail a try, now this is more tricky, although it's flat in the top providing a better slide, it has space underneath meaning that if you don't jump enough and your board gets trapped underneath it's going to sting a bit!

Determination combined with the presence of some of the girls I regularly compete against meant I pushed myself more than I normally do and this resulted in probably the best trick run I've ever done....lip-slide tail press to switch on the bench to boardslide revert on the side on gas pipe followed by 50:50 to boardslide to switch on the ride on gas pipe! All pretty smooth and all ridden out cleanly.

Considering a week ago I wouldn't touch a gas pipe through choice and could do side on rails in my head but not in practice I certainly feel that the practice and my new PMA are paying off, lets hope it continues that way because I'm convinced that with hard work and a touch of confidence I can keep things moving in a positive direction. We'll see how things go on the kicker front this weekend when I head to Bearsden for the 1st leg of the Westbeach Snowflex Series!


Side on kink

MK Ahoy!

We decided earlier this week that we wouldn't go to MK this Friday. We've got a busy weekend next week what with a stop at Cas/Halifax and then the Westbeach events in Glasgow but it's been a hectic week at work for us both and the slope plan's looking good.....so we're going to head up for some more practice.

The question now is what to work on, I'm thinking kicker first while my legs are feeling strong and the run in & out isn't too rutted and then move on to the rails and see if I can build on last week's jump on gas pipe break through. Either way I'm hoping it'll be a fun night with some achievements at the end of it!

White girls can jump....

DSC_7225_filtered
Originally uploaded by Jools Smith

...and here's the proof! Yes, it appears that I CAN jump on to rails (or in this case an evil ribbed gas pipe) from side on, low height kickers!

I have to admit that I was disappointed when we arrived at MK on Friday night to find that the kicker that was shown on the slope plan had been squashed and removed ("because we couldn't remember if the airbag was tonight or tomorrow" - it was tomorrow obviously as the airbag has been there on the 1st Saturday of the month for at least 18 months). The whole reason for us driving there for the session was for me to do some kicker work, not only for that tiny International comp I'm hoping to enter in January but also because next week sees me in Scotland for a jam session & a big air comp as part of the Westbeach Snowflex Tour and I need to keep working on "the fear". Still we were there, 75 miles away from home and I'd already paid so I figured that if nothing else I could work on my switch riding (riding with my wrong leg going downhill first) and just have a mess around for an hour or so while Jools took some pictures of our friends. Seeing as how he'd jumped through numerous corporate hoops to get permission to take pictures there (must have public liability insurance, must ask permission in advance, must bring email of permission) and because some of our mates had also made a special trip up we couldn't do our normal trick of not riding, getting our money back and driving home for Chinese takeaway instead!

So after a few runs of hitting the kink box rail I moved up to hitting it switch. It was a ride on rail (no gap between the jump on and the rail itself) so I felt fairly confident in giving it a go. All was well but if I'm honest I was getting a bit bored. Hitting 1 toy in a run of 130m gets dull fast.....and to be honest the whole reason I started freestyling in the first place is because i got bored just riding down the slope....so I had a ponder on the lift ride up and decided enough was enough it was time to face another of my fears (I'm allowed more than one, right?) and try the toy at the top. A ribbed gas pipe, with a low side on kicker! Now I HATE gas pipes and I just can't get my head round side on kickers onto rails. Well I can get my head round them, in my head I can do them just fine, it's actually convincing my body to do what my head tells it to. Still we were only 45 minutes into a 4 hour session so I decided to give it a shot. My first try I made contact with it, not on the top of the gas pipe were I should have, but on the side, round about 2 o'clock in the grand scheme of things, still it was contact made and it was enough to give me the confidence to keep trying.

Two hours later, after continuous laps and a slightly stressed encounter with someone who was trying to help but who completely put my back up (I really need to write a post on "girly supportiveness and the need for hugs in snowboarding" - and my views on the subject) I not only managed to do a jump on 50:50, so riding with my board along the top of the gas pipe pointing down the slope, but also a jump on boardslide, facing down the slope with the board at right angles to the gas pipe. So not only did I prove I could do it, was dropping in from the right place and wasn't too tired after a handful of attempts but I took a step towards beating another of my fears (next stop side on rails....proper ones!)

It wasn't until I got home and Jools showed me the picture above that I actually realised that I was really jumping onto the pipe! In my head I was just scraping on to it and my technique felt all over the place, but looking at the picture I can see I don't actually look too bad. It's also given me real confidence in trying this on something a bit more meaty, in fact I'm hoping Castleford have their side on street rail out next week when we're up there because I'm starting to believe that I really can do it

So thanks Jools for capturing that shot, and in a way I have to say thanks MK SNO!zone for forcing me to try side on gas pipes by removing the kicker (just don't do it every week!)

More pics of me from Friday night can be found here