Goodbye Future?

The word is getting out by a couple sources that Future Snowboard Mag is finished. Transworld Business and Lee Crane’s blog are both posting up the news. I guess we’ll see whether or not it’s true. In the meantime…I wrote up a goodbye letter to FSM

Dear FSM,

It’s a sad day to hear that you are closing your doors.

I enjoyed reading articles that the other snowboard magazines would never touch. Who else would discuss the panty trees at mountains or the ode to bikini girl that made me laugh so hard. Your article that broke down outerwear tech…is still something I use to this day. The greatest moments in competitive snowboarding spoke of true stories I wanted to hear more about…Terje’s switch run on the banked slalom. There were so many articles that were fun to read and educated us as riders.

You managed to write articles that were classics, that could be used 2 years ago to now. It wasn’t about which rider was the coolest or which fine print techno jacket you had to have…it was articles based on everyday stuff snowboarders should know like how to adjust your bindings properly to your boots or how to travel to other mountains at reasonable rates.

Thank you having a board test to go against the TWS Good Wood. Your board test was based on a board that could do everything vs TWS’s park specific board test. Your methodology was clear and easy to understand, giving you more credibility towards a board test where readers understood the methods involved. You pointed out which boards were better at freeriding vs freestyle and it was great to see that it just wasn’t about freestyle. And it gets better with a powder board test…it was a great concept and something that should be done.

To this day the Future Snowboard Trade News is the best mag ever…I was bummed when it got limited to once a year release…some of the coolest industry articles out there directly to snowboarding. Quite frankly it is the only magazine that I ever have scanned into a PDF so I could send articles to friends. The top selling brands poll it was great to see the different brands making waves by sections of the US. The shop spy…seriously great questions asked to shop salespeople over the phone and some classic answers. It makes you realize that people who work in shops are not always the best people to ask…but once you find a knowledgeable shop person, they are bread and butter for shops.

My favorite to read is Brad Farmer’s articles…whether it’s discussing terrain park liability, blogging for companies, the untold story of Forum, the state of the snowboard movie industry or anything else he has wrote…even when it’s the most boring thing to me…he makes it interesting to read about. I’ll keep looking for his future articles to come, no matter what publication it is.

I hope for the best, keep the Future website and keep writing online articles. The future is online…so let online save Future.