Wheels and Waves » News

Dan Marion Autograph signing Sept. 26th

vicbrazen — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:24:08 +0000

Pro Skier Dan Marion will be coming by our booth and signing autographs at the Eco Sports Festival at Laudholm Farm in Wells Maine on September 26th. We will be offering free Stand Up Paddleboard demos as well.

Should be a fun day for the whole family with everything from hot air balloon rides, beer and food vendors, product demos and a 5K fun run.

Dan is one of the worlds top halfpipe skiers, consistintly placing in the top 10 in the X Games and every other major contest around the world. He’s also a great back country skier and absolutely destroys handrails as you can see in his part from last year’s Dynstar video below. He can also be seen in all the Meathead Ski videos and his recent trip to Chile got a lot of coverage on the ESPN website. Besides skiing, Dan is a ripping surfer and all around good guy. Contact the shop for more details.

Click to see Dan’s part from Dynastar’s Absolute Winter 2 video

Body Glove/Cheyne Magnusson autograph signing

vicbrazen — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:56:16 +0000

The Body Glove RV came by the shop last week for an autograph signing and surf session. The crew consisted of Cheyne Magnusson, East Coast Team Manager Dan Hassett, Body Glove owners Ronnie and Shelly Meistrell and North East Rep Bruce Chrisner.

The day started with an autograph signing with Cheyne at the shop. Afterwards, we headed down to Gooch’s Beach in Kennebunk for a surf session. The Body Glove crew and a bunch of locals ripped up some waist to chest high waves with Shelly catching the waves of the day. We then ended a great day with a huge lobster bake up at the house. Thanks again to Body Glove for coming up and hanging with us. We all had a blast.

Colin’s Endless Winter New Zealand

vicbrazen — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:04:26 +0000

So here’s one from Colin that I never got around to posting. He’s been living in New Zealand product testing with the Burton crew and earlier in the season placed 2nd in the World Heli Challenge qualifier at Treble Cone in Wanaka New Zealand.

Colin Boyd from 6/30
New Zealand. What can I say, besides spinning yarns that stretch the imagination and the realm of possibility? NZ in its essence is a playground for big kids. Between both islands nearly every landscape known to man exists and its isolated location ensures pristine conditions as well as travellers fully committed to basking in its wonder. As the winter clouds move in, the mountains transform from sharp rugged hills to the enchanting snow encrusted Southern Alps.

From home base in Wanaka, there are three resorts within a 45 minute drive, Cardrona, Snow Park and Treble Cone. Over the dicey Crown Range in Queenstown lie The Remarkables and Coronet Peak. This goes without mentioning the Club Fields to the North and endless heli-accessible terrain between here and there.

An early dump of snow jump started the season like an eye dropper filled with liquid…caffeine. The Remarkables picked up most of the snow, so we bolted off on a pre-season recon mission in my new $900 race car! A short hike had us in the midst of the Remarks rocky terrain and into dozen pow turns before the menacing sun crust overran the bottom half of the mountain. We took a wee detour through the Southern Hemi’s only Burton Stash and even slid a few rails in the car park, stoked for the first session in early June!

Last week, the Wanaka season officially rang in with three opening days in a row. Treble Cone, one of NZ’s best freeriding resorts was stacked with about 30 cm (12 inches WOOOO!) of pow on top of one of the best early season base’s in years. The crew was riding deep and a handful of NZ’s top pros turned up for shakas and face shots. We ended up getting a few shots for The Hallway, a weekly update from the kiwi rider Bevan Hall. The Airbag (Airbag.co.nz), a massive inflatable blob on snow, made its debut on the kiwi snow scene, and everyone was out to test out their double backies… This resulted in just one heli-vac due to massive head trauma, but all in all, everyone enjoyed testing out the new feature for on snow training.

The following evening, we headed up to Snow Park’s VIP night where we obviously pretended to be Very Important People. Snow Park’s rail line was littered with about 25 features and they’re about a week away from a 22 ft pipe! Heaps of crew showed face and the chilli vodka shot/calamari combo had everyone in good form.

A quick trip across the valley the following morning rounded off the weekend with some more park riding and a gorgeous sunrise. Cardrona was riding well with a solid base and perfectly sculpted features in the park. In general conditions in NZ are fairly equivalent to New England, so all those days training on icy Rocking Chair kickers and rails aren’t without loss.

Sorry there aren’t any riding shots…I was too busy snowboarding!

Shop News

vicbrazen — Sat, 29 May 2010 19:44:24 +0000

Lots of stuff to report on. Billy Woodward is finally back in Maine after an extended PR trip. Wescott is back from Alaska and Peru. Dan Marian is on the road but is keeping everyone posted on his adventures with his blog http://danmarionblog.com/
The shop got some good press the past few weeks. We had a nice blurb about our new website in the latest ESM. We also got some love from www.getinthevan.com The latest episode of the Dug Show starts at the shop.
Tons of new products last week from Nomis, Sanuk, Famous Stars and Straps, Circa, HIC and more. Loaded up with everything for your summer needs.

amyHUGE Too Late The Hero

vicbrazen — Sun, 09 May 2010 15:37:15 +0000

Here’s some pics Amy took at the Too Late The Hero show at the 103 Ultra Lounge in Orono, ME from 4/23/2010

“Colin’s Endless Winter” Japan part 2

vicbrazen — Wed, 05 May 2010 20:22:16 +0000

The trip to the isolated island, Rishiri in the Sea of Japan was put on hold for a few days as another storm chased our tails from 6 AM from Niseko, down to Sapporo and north into Central Hokkaido. It was a game of tag all day, as the storm clouds billowed through sending snow spirals around the van packed full of the crew. This was the Black Diamond Guides trip after a hectic season bringing punters around the backcountry. This time it was our turn. We passed Clayton along the way with his truck full of sleds. Day 1’s Mission – head to a small closed ski resort, drop the sleds and proceed to shred with 4 snowmobiles in waist deep pow. Yup it sounds too good to be true, but what an epic day. The storm got full force as we ran doubles up to the top and back down. Let me tell you, if you are a green sled rider, a closed ski resort is the best place to learn. Headng back to the van to pick up 6 sets of snow shoes and poles, we ran one last lap to the top and sent a handful of the crew off into the backcountry as the light began to fade. Three of us happily took the sleds for another power hour ripping every bank like we were snowboarding. We didn’t pull out of there until well after dark but everyone was amping and the Black Mountain Lodge already had a crew warming it up.
The next day the heavy hitting locals crew went out and punished the local hill with no one in sight. Pillows, drops, cliffs, and some VT style tree shredding was in the cards. Another waist deep day made anything possible and we rode from 8:40 – 4:00. The whiskey bottles came out in force that night and the stories began around our own personal bar. Toshi ended up getting lucky with one of the cute lifties engraving him in Black Mountain History. Anyway, the next day was a late start and the hangovers felt like getting pounded over and over and over at a Mexican beach. We went up anyway for a big mission to explore some of the backcountry that was too appealing to be left alone. An hour hike through heavy wind and snow almost had us turn at the peak, but we continued on, across the moon like rocky surface and wrapped down through the cloud into an epic gully, which funneled us down into a valley where the walls grew into towers on both sides. One of the photos illustrates a gaping hole in the snow pack and a slab on top. Nearly killed myself on that one, but lucky escaped alive…Found out later it was 30 meter waterfall!
Anyway, I’ll save the next day for another story, but within 4 days we shredded more terrain than your average punter gets in a season. Japan – a place that gets better by the day.

“Colin’s Endless Winter” Japan part 1

vicbrazen — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:57:33 +0000

After four jam packed days of heavy riding and sledding in Central Hokkaido, Japan, the blizzard was welcomed like a deep sleep. For two days the local mountains were shut and we took the opportunity to fill up on pancakes, coffee and much needed down time. As the storm began to clear on day two we stepped foot outside to assess the damage. Overhanging most of the driveway was a fully developed nine foot cornice, and after an attempt at bashing through it with one vehicle we succumbed to shoveling our way out of the house. In between shovel-fulls of snow Mt Yotei, the local volcano began to show its snow-covered flanks offering glimpses of how much snow had really fallen. Toshi, my Japanese friend caught wind the mountain was opening late in the afternoon and a nighter was called to order. If you haven’t heard, Grand Hirfau in Niseko probably has the best night shredding in the world and after being closed for two days the options were endless. Traversing out of the night-lights we dropped into dark tree runs, waist deep drifts and pillow drops galore, we scored the best of a late March dump laughing all the way and of course for the local’s price – free.

The following day gave way to bluebird skies so we decided to hit the Niseko backcountry to put a couple lines down Iwanoit and some other zones behind the main resort. A late start had us on the peak by 2:00 PM, enough time for three separate pitches, but as the sun began to set, so did the snow pack; by 5:00 PM the thick layer of sun-crust shut down any optimistic thoughts to drop any of the features littered on the slope. Although the best features went untouched, we kept the boards on the ground and found some really steep and fun lines back down to the carpark where a round of ice-cold Sapporo’s awaited our arrival in the snow-bank.

Colin Boyd’s Endless Winter

vicbrazen — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:01:59 +0000

A lot of our customers and friends know Colin as one of our surf instructors or just one of the guys out in the lineup. Some of you might remember him as the kid who represented us by killing it at all the big New England snowboard events. Colin likes to surf, but he loves to snowboard. After some serious travel through Central and South America, he moved to New Zealand about a year ago. Since then he’s mixed surfing in with a pretty heavy snowboard schedule bouncing back and forth from New Zealand to Japan to wherever the snow is. I’ll be posting some stories and photos from his most recent trip to Japan in the coming weeks. The early stuff I already saw is amazing.

Fall and Winter

rag — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 05:32:22 +0000

Ralph Gustavsen built this website. He also takes good pictures. Here’s some of Ralph’s favorites from this past Fall and Winter. If you like the pics or want a website as cool as this one contact him at his website or Facebook fan page.

http://www.gravit-design.com

Spose’s “I’m Awesome” video shoot

vicbrazen — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:16:57 +0000

Here’s a couple photos from the video shoot for Spose’s hit single “I’m Awesome” Nice local crowd for the concert scene. There’s gonna be some stoked kids from Wells when this hits MTV. Cam Groves, Stiky-1, DJ Jon all in the house. And by house I mean the Wells Rec Center.