Cheese me

Seven days in the alps a couple of weeks ago were fantastic for my new board and awful for any concept of weight loss I may of been entertaining ! Cheese and beer a plenty kept me fueled for days of piste carving and nights of liver pickling, along with lots of other food things in the category of "not vegetable". Actually the dinners weren't too bad, our catered chalet had some good balanced meals, it was more the lunches of potato, pasta and bread - often all three - that were somewhat nutritionally void.

But the slope conditions for the holiday were unlike more recent holidays - we had powder ! Piles of it ! This came with some nasty winds and hail on a couple of days, but there was some phat, deep snow to play in that made up for it. Being a Euro resort, much of that powder vanished quickly as it got tracked out, but actually I was enjoying the on-piste almost as much, so didn't mind.

Anyhow, lots of photos are online now (hence the delay to this post) and it's been a very good boarding season overall. My boots and bindings are looking a bit shabby though... might be time for some new ones ;)

Le Fat Bob est mort, vive le Titan !

Alas on my last holiday, my beloved Fat Bob passed away. Fat bob was, of course, the snowboard I picked up in 2002. Manufactured by K2, he had to endure my full bulk for six years, going from novice to advanced-intermediate, carving terrible turns to popping terrible jumps, and generally taking a nasty beating off several rocks and snow park features.

All of this finally cracked the metal edge around the edge of the board, which combined with a couple of gouges into the base caused water and air to get into the board-core. Being stored between seasons probably allowed this gap to expand, and so on the first day of boarding, Fat Bob broke down. Many drink were consumed in his honour, and I look forward to mounting him on the wall "trophy-style" in the future.

So as we say a collective goodbye to Fat Bob, we can now welcome the K2 Titan ! Having just waited long enough for the end of season sales, I can safely say I picked up this board for not a lot more than the original full price Fat Bob cost me. However, this is a higher level intermediate board, 2 cm shorter than Bob (166cm long), a little lighter but plenty more "pop and gnarlyness" integrated into it's honeycomb multi-core blah blah blah... actually I have no idea how good it is yet, but with snowboards, price is often the indicator, and this board is around the right price range for someone of my abilities. The slightly shorter length may cause me to curse it's lesser stability, but equally it may cause me to praise it's smaller form as I attempt to pull-off 180 jumps and ride switch.

Next week sees our group trip to Tignes, where I get to try the Titan out on hopefully some good conditions - well looks like it's sunny for the next few days, but on our first day of boarding, it's set to dump fresh sweet powder...