NZsnowboard.com

5th October 2006

Christchurch you say? Yeah it's not exactly loaded with snow. However I got a call from Sam Masters on Friday night and he wanted to know if I was interested in getting a story done on doing a street rail for his TV program called Skiora. My first reaction was "this is the perfect time to do the Mount Hutt double kink" however Sam was keen to do something where he was guaranteed to get the shot - I don't think that rail classifies in that category unless you gap it which wouldn't be too hard but I wasn't really interested.

So we went to Christchurch and got the snow late Sunday night after I'd been riding all day. Went to hit up this rail only to find that it had been taking out a few weeks before and was lying on the ground and there had been some new stairs put in (don't think the rail will be that great if they do put one in there though as the stairs have a real short flat section probably meaning a short mini kink). However we headed across town checking out another double kink on the way which I think is definitely do-able but god damn scary as it's a 2 story drop off one side at the top so again not guaranteed the shot.

Charlie however knew where there was a stash of handrails in one spot. Perfect call as we had the choice of a bunch of rails! We chose a pretty mellow kind of long down rail. Got all setup and apparently I was to guniea which was fine as Charlie had dislocated his thumb on Monday and was being kinda careful and Jai hadn't had too much experience on street rails. We didn't have that much snow so Charlie decided in his infinite wisdom that we'd get the rail all dialed in and then put snow on the landing as it was only grass and it wouldn't hurt it would just be hard to stick especially on a snowboard.


So first hit I slid a few meters, make jump off and get straight back up there. Second hit was a perfect fs 5050 fs 180 out however I get to the grass and the inevitable happens my board sticks and I flip on to my head which was fine; it didn't hurt. So I thought I'd give the skiers a go to get it all dialed in, Charlie went first and his skies went right through the takeoff as he was doing lipslides. So we sent some of the crew to get some salt to firm everything up. By the time we had got the salt it was midnight and I was absolutely stuffed from riding all day. However I had first hit and stuck it off the end same trick first pop however I missed the snow on the landing I kinda ollied over it to the right. To cut the next hour and a half real short I couldn't make the rail again but Jai got it a few times and Charlie gave up saying it was impossible to slide lipslide in his natural direction. So at 1:30am I finally gave up hoping that we'd done enough for the TV program and Sam would have his episode on how to hit urban rails. Plan for now is to try hitting a rail a week until exam time so next on the cards could be the 30 stair double kink at the same location.


Here's one of the more artsy slow shutter speed shots we got on the rail & a failed attempt at some kind 5-0 slide spin thing - keep your eyes peeled for ski ora I thinks its gonna be an episode mid October.

- Tim Bathurst
www.mountaindew.co.nz