Fit Birds and Proper Shredding

 Fit birds and proper shredding. My British Invasion by Blaise Rosenthal

I don’t write blogs often. As the creative director of Artec, the last thing I usually feel like is spending more time in front of my computer. But every now and then I go on a trip or something happens that I just have to share. The nature of this rare blog is the former, a super sweet kick ass trip I just got back from a bit ago. It was a destination not generally high on the list of shred destinations; the United Kingdom, Sherwood Forest to be more specific. The purpose of my trip was to visit one of our new Artec dealers, The Snowboard Asylum, do some bro-ing down and educate the TSA sales crew about the finer points of Artec Snowboards super advanced snowboard technology. Little did I know landing in London’s Stanstead airport that I was about to spend four days shredding and kicking it with one of the coolest shred crews I’ve ever met.

My host during my stay was TSA’s main man Jeremy Sladen. I’ve been snowboarding a long time now, about 20 years now I think. There are not a lot of people I meet that get snowboarding more than I do. There is knowing and then there is comprehending. Every day on our drives to the snowdome we would talk every aspect of shredding, from equipment to the scene, all of it. And Jeremy gets it like few people do. And this understanding rubs off. The TSA kids know their stuff.

That brings me to the UK shred scene. I had no idea what to expect from this small island nation with no real mountains to speak of. Was this going to be like Japan where people drive around Tokyo with boards strapped to the roof for style points but never actually go shredding? What I found out is that the Brits take their shredding pretty seriously. From Wild Will, the veteran big mountain shredder who spends seasons in France to Kightly, who laid down the laws of tech riding during our sessions in the snowdome, these guys love it and it shows. But no level of passion I’ve ever seen compares to the dryslopers. These kids are straight up crazy. Kids who can do 9s 10s and every rail combo and tech move out there, and some of them have never even touched real snow. They are hands down the gnarliest shredders I’ve seen. As for me, it was my first snowdome experience. We rode Tamworth and on snowboard night they drug out all kinds of obstacles, from rails to big gas pipes, to launch ramps. I don’t know what else to say, it was awesome! I rode as much as I could. Best September session I’ve ever had.

Snowdomes

Fit Birds

Proper

Forgive the crappy photos