Winter 2014 / 15 Mega Post

Tux

Start of winter for me was October in Hintertux and Stubai, Austria.

Pleasure Jam

1st comp of the season early November was the O'Neill Pleasure Jam at Dachstein Austria, a good few days and the weather held out!

Colorado

December in Colorado was sick 1st chance to get back into halfpipe and always fun playing in woodward at copper (indoor skate, tramp, foam pits etc), this year they even had snowboards with wheels. Plus i got to go to my first NBA Basketball game Denver Nuggets v Miami Heat.

Courchevel

 Home for Christmas, it was a poor start to the season for snow, although Courch was better than most being one of only 6 resorts in France open before Christmas. Luckily snow improved for my return! Was also cool to have Tyler Harding and fam over to stay for Christmas and New Year.

Wear a Helmet

Always wear a helmet, awesome day riding Pow was ended when i had a collision with another snowboarder (jimbo) resulting in Jimbo's board cracking my helmet, splitting my jacket, breaking both our snowboards, thankfully we both came out of it ok, saved by helmet and back protector.

Pow

January in Courch we finally got some good snow.

Night Riding

Wednesday nights Verdon lift, slopes and park open. 

Meribel Park

Meribel really upped their park game this year opening earlier than previous years and real good set up from the beginning.

Old Foret Lift Station

The old Foret gondola was replaced this year by a new chairlift, had been eyeing up the old lift station got a little session going on a bad weather day and a few cool shots.

New Toy in Family Park

Courchevel Family Park was also a big improvement this year with new layout and new toys.

Kuhtai

In March i travelled to Kuhtai in Austria for the Austrian Masters Halfpipe comp, good few days pipe here is always good and memories of Youth Olympics which was here in 2012, gutted to miss podium by 1 place.

The Brits

Later in March headed short trip over to Tignes for the british snowboard championships. Stoked to retain my title as British Halfpipe Champion. Even managed to get the Australian DJ on the podium! and a cool shot on Whitelines.

Mammoth

All of April was spent in Mammoth California, awesome trip with Ben Kilner, riding Pipe at the BKPro, got some new stuff down, rode some pow, watched sunrise from natural hot spring and witnessed the worlds first triple cork in pipe.

Kaunertal

Early May headed to Kaunertal Austria for the Spring Break / Snowboard Test, good couple of days and awesome atmosphere for the Methodical Madness and rides on piste basher.

VT

Headed back home to Courch although lifts now shut, Val Thorens had 1 more weekend so headed up  there for a final shred of the winter on 10th May.

Summer 2014

I have had an amazing summer..
Chilling in Courch, 2 trips to Scotland, Frappa, Summer Glaciers, Holiday in camper van.

Chilling in Courchevel
Stayed at home mostly this summer. Dismantling & Building our new chalet. Helping out at Pleisure Holidays. Unfortunately didn't get as much Volleyball this year though as has been one of the worst summers for rain in Courch only had 5 dry days in July! but all good.

Removing roof and floors of our new place Chalet Swift.

1st Summer trip to Scotland
Headed to Scotland for a private session in Breahead with Team GB on an airbag was fun to ride in a dome! here is a link to the team edit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF4GPIyUjZ8


Frappadingue
Did the Frappadingue (french version of Tough Mudder) again this year, had a couple of other mates doing it with me was a fun day kept to the routine of having a Jager Bomb first thing to get us pumped to do the 12.5km run with an obstacle every 300m, was quite tired when we finished! haha. Come and join me in Courch next year to do this again http://www.frappadingue.net/les-courses/frappadinguealp-xtrem/

The Start of the Frappadingue

Summer Glaciers, Les 2 Alpes, Saas Fee, Tignes, Zermatt
Did a few day trips to the summer Glaciers, picked my days depending on weather, all had pretty good setups. Had fun at all.. Tignes had a new park for this year, hopefully will continue and improve for next, especially the lift! Saas Fee had fun riding the pipe. Zermatt no pipe :( found some natural stuff to session. Les 2 Alpes best of the lot this summer, awesome pipe, big park setup.

Les 2 Alpes pipe

Scotland Again
Now been to Scotland 3 times this year!! Even more fun this trip, more of the same, skate and air bag session at Braehead. Plus went to the Edinburgh comedy festival and saw the Canterbury tales. Got to fly back VIP and spent 4hours in the Heathrow lounge making sure all the wine was good enough standard! link to Team GB edit from this trip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEhHHdZ5snI&feature=youtu.be


Holiday in Camper Van
Went travelling again in Forrest our vw camper. Started by going across to Carcans on west coast of France, met up with Alice and Adam, ex Pleisure staff.

Then headed down to Capbreton to see Jim, Annie and Thatch for our annual catch up with mates, surf, skate, swimming, bridge jumping, good food and wine! (H2O Surf Holidays http://www.h2oholidays.com/), surf was awesome the waves were tiny!! also went to Le Deck for lunch owned by people from La Tania, check it out on Gordon Ramseys Costa del Kitchen Nightmares! haha. Then we headed on a wine tasting tour of Rioja in Spain, Corbieres, St Emillion and Cote du Rhone / Chateauneuf-du-Pape in France. With some bull running in Nimes, swimming and yoga everyday, and some cool skate parks. Another awesome trip.

Riding the biggest sand dune in Europe Dune du Pilat

 Yoga on Lac Vassiviere

 Wine tasting in Rioja

 Yoga on beach at Collioure

Grape picking near Narbonne

Skating St Jean de Luz

Season Edit
Finally got an edit up of what i have been up to the last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgLg7Krgjz4&list=UUDFWeBoRdlnJ8rijB9kTwdA

Now off to Hintertux tomorrow, my winter is about to begin, cant wait....

Derren Brown, Scotland, Majorca, Stubai, Forrest.

After the end of the winter in Courchevel, i have been on my travels. First stop was Scotland, then Majorca, Austria, UK & France.

The start of my travels was to go and see Derren Brown Live in Milton Keynes, it was awesome the tricks he was doing were insane! cheers Damon & Sue for sorting the tickets, then straight from the show me and my dad drove through the night up to Scotland to ride a half pipe and first uk comp it was awesome such a fun day riding just messing about in the sun with your mates in a stunt ditch! haha plus got the title of the first uk pipe comp champion! and a season pass for Cairngorms! stocked! spent the following week in Scotland at the Trinders house doing my Level 1&2 coaching course.

Halfpipe in Scotland!

From Scotland I flew to Majorca for the end of season Pleisure staff trip, got a lot of funny looks going through the airport with my board bag ha! fun few days in the sun, jumping off cliffs, sunbathing, drinking sangria in the all inclusive bar and going to one of the best beach bars where there was a rich german who must of been about 65 with about 15 girls in bikinis in there 20's! lucky guy! he must of had a big…. BOAT!

After flying back home i got the train to Austria, to ride the jumps at Stubai for 2 days, whilst there i witnessed history in the making Katie O landing the first ever BS double 1080 in womens snowboarding!

Then i travelled to UK with my parents in Forrest!

Stopped off at Champagne to visit the Merciers cellars couldn't believe how big it was, 18km long!!

We drove to Ashford for a couple of days shopping, got suited ready for friends wedding in the summer!
Then headed across to Cornwall and stayed in mates new house! fun few days on the coast, looking for treasure in caves, got stuck on a rock when the tide came in… got to meet up with a few of the O'Neill guys in the Big O'Neill bus near Newquay, it was so sick the inside was all old wood / pallets and the seats were made from wetsuits! they were doing a photo shoot which funny enough Dan Wakeham and Nick Atkins were doing so was good to see them and get in a few photos! this was to promote the O'Neill summer tour, check it out and go and see the sick bus for yourself.. Link to Tour info

From Newquay we headed to St Ives, met up with friends, more beach walking and sand dune jumping!

We got the ferry back to France from Plymouth. In Blois we went to the house of magic where the building comes to life every hour on the hour with dragons coming out of the windows!

Final stop was the beaujolais wine area where we visited a Goerge Dubeuof vineyard and his Hameau du Vin. Was really cool with 3d cinema, interactive stuff and wine tasting!

Now back in couch for the summer, bring on the volleyball!!

Meribel/Andorra/Brits

The past couple of months have been good, mainly riding at home in Courchevel.  The DC park in Meribel probably been the best it has ever been, the pipe has been in perfect condition and so have the jumps, its been really fun riding here with the Pleisure boys. A little top to bottom edit i put together:

Meribel Top to Bottom

Danny, Me and Sam. 

A few weeks back i went to Andorra for the Total Fight slopestyle comp, the course was good, but on the comp day on my first practice run i fell really heavily off a rail landing on my back and couldn't compete, so we drove back to france. When i got back home went to see a physio to find out i had aggravated a disc and twisted my hip. Didn't feel to bad so still went to the brits which was a couple days later..

The Brits was a real fun week, so happy to have got on the podium in all the freestyle events, 1st place Halfpipe and 3rd in Rails and Slopestyle. It was great seeing people again and riding with Henry and Jamie, who also killed it, Parklife podium in Slopestyle 1, 2, 3!

British Halfpipe Champion!

Took a slam in pipe on my back again making it worse, so back home now for more physio and rest, gutted to miss out on Mayrhofen TeamGB trip. However off thursday to Scotland! they have the UK's first real snow halfpipe up at Cairngorms and a comp there to promote it on Saturday. and then i will stick around in Scotland while the snow lasts, meet up with the TeamGB lot, can't wait its going to be sick! :)  

Halfpipe Comp in Scotland!!