Travel:  The Greatest Perk of our Sport

By Nicholas Osadchuk

Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club Athlete

               This year most of the NorAm Cup Boardercross season was crammed into a three-week stretch due to a rescheduled events.  This has been a pretty crazy experience.  We battled many different conditions. Transitioning from the extreme cold in Mt. Tremblant to the 11,000 ft elevation in Ski Cooper to warm, foggy, rainy, and snowy Big White. We have had to adapt our wax and our minds for every possible condition.

            Mt. Tremblant was my first experience heading into Quebec, Canada.  It wasn't a total culture shock besides the fact not many people spoke English to us.  All the items at the grocery store we stopped at were written in French.   This made our short stop at the grocery turn into an hour of walking around looking for recognizable items. 

The 11,000 ft elevation made the course at Ski Cooper feel like a marathon by the time you crossed the finish line. Even the most fit athletes were gasping for air by the bottom of the minute twenty track. On course is not the only place we race, as soon as one event ended we were riding all the way to the van throwing our gear in and booking it to the airport for our next flight. In Denver we had 30 minutes to stop, spread all of our gear across 3 parking spots, repack, eat dinner, and load up for the next adventure.

 Heading into British Columbia, Canada for the Big White race was pretty interesting.  We passed through this small, hole in the wall, border crossing and as we were waiting at customs a curious black llama walked across the boarder next to us. Yes I said llama! I was a little jealous because they didn't ask him for any papers. The thick fog in Big White was definitely one of the most challenging obstacles. On the first race day we could barely see two features in front of us while trying to take on the course at full speed. It was a widely debated subject of whether to cancel the race or not, but we went ahead with it anyway. 

From these hectic three weeks of travel I took away many memories and experiences that I couldn't get without being in this sport.  Traveling is one of the coolest and greatest things a person can do.  It's important to enjoy the ride, not always take the sport so serious, and remember to embrace the moments that make it so much fun!

What if you need to tune your edges last minute?

I'm staring out my window in Park City, sipping my morning coffee and trying to piece my next seven weeks together in my head.

Aside from the ridiculous logistics. I try and distract myself from the reality that only my second big event and first world cup of the season is still two weeks away. Never mind the finances required just to travel and stay at these events.

Before my first big event, I'm only driving 5 hours to Steamboat. I'll be greasing my bearings at the Slash and Burn Banked Slalom. Because of the insanely high level of freestyle snowboarding, banked slaloms are becoming more popular. Going to the hill and learning new tricks won't cut it anymore.  Gymnast skills and foam pits are essential for any rider who wants to be a competitor at any mid level or higher freestyle event.  In turn, banked slaloms and other race events are making a comeback since any pro or Joe can burn turns.

Not to brag,  but I learned a trick that didn't even require a foam pit:

Your board is all waxed for your banked slalom tomorrow and oh no, you forgot to do your edges. It's almost bed time and you planned on waking up early to scrape and brush before going on the hill. No need to scrape,  brush, tune your edges, clean your base then wax again.

Use your Toko pro edger, the file guide with the wheels. Now you can clean your edges up and make sure they're smooth and fast for your banked slalom.

Personally I wouldn't set my edge angle this way; as the hardened wax on the base won't make for a true side bevel. However, for minor edge sharpening, clean up or any work with a diamond stone this will save you the hassle of waxing again.  Also, softer waxes can gum the bearings on the tool, but it is easy to clean out.

See you on the podium,

Cheever