At SIA, the days are long but well worth it because of the amount of fun that’s going to happen. Day two started early with a SIA seminar, continued throughout with appointments and ended into the night with the Transworld Riders Poll. It was the longest day of the tradeshow and probably the most fun with everyone attending.
I arrived early at the tradeshow at 7:30am to listen to the SIA breakfast seminar on women in skiing and snowboarding. Speakers included a great list of women in the industry including Donna Carpenter from Burton and Kyre Malkenes from Roxy Snowboards. It was an interesting discussion that covered what they’ve done in their experiences and a variety of concerns for getting women into our sports.
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Pete from Unity Snowboards has a pretty sweet gig with his boards built in Silverthorne, Colorado. The Unity line for 2013 offers up the Whale snowboard in a splitboard and regular version.
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Jess Kimura, Pat Bridges and T-Bird hanging out at the show
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The always popular Lib Tech Snowboards continuing with Banana, EC2, C2 and radness.
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One of the new brands on the floor is Anakie Outerwear for women riders. They keep it bright, youthful and fresh looking with their designs. Plus the majority of the outerwear features 20,000mm/gm rating.
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Can always count on Coal Headwear for keeping heads warm and looking good. A bunch of options for beanie lovers, hat lovers and scarf lovers. I was able to snag a beanie to rock for the tradeshow early on Day 1.
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Just a friendly stop in the middle of the show. Trent Bush from Brandbase, Dale Rehberg from NXTZ and Adam Schmidt from Snowboard Colorado scouting future plans for snowboarding history.
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Dakine continues to offer a variety of products for skiing and snowboarding with an amazing team backing them. New this year they are launching Dakine outerwear, my favorite jacket was the women’s white jacket on the top right. The packs and gloves continue to lead the charge for quality.
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You can always count on Smokin Snowboards to stay true to who they are.
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It’s really great to see companies like Jones snowboard deliver what the customer wants. This year there are three women’s Jones snowboards added to the line.
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Facemasks are your friend on the mountain. NXTZ knows that and keeps it fun with their stylish facemasks.
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Gigi Ruf introduced his new board line, Slash Snowboards at SIA. It’s rad to see more pros building their own brands and getting behind board design.
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Technine team rider Dylan Thompson was in the booth to model the latest Technine gear including his pro model snowboard.
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Snowboarding legends are walking the halls of SIA. I was talking with Trent Bush when Terry Kidwell stopped by and was introduced to him. I made sure to get a photo because Terry is a super snowboard legend. Later in the evening, I got to spend more time with him at the Riders Poll.
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Splitboarding is getting big and Spark R&D is keeping up with the growing demands with their splitboard bindings. New this year, they offer a binding that makes mounting easier than ever.
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686’s Mike West making sure people are drinking water at the show. The 686 line continues with my favorite Snaggletooth series but also their known style to outerwear with the rest of the line.
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At the end of the Tradeshow, I finished things up and made a quick video with Board Insiders to discuss the highlights of the show so far and show the scene. Headed to the Hyatt, dropped off my heavy backpack and went downstairs to greet the Spy RV for a drive to the Spy Riders Poll pre-party.
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Of course a pre-party is great when you have unlimited drinks and a shot luge in front of you. Inside the shot luge was a frozen Spy goggle. Here’s myself, Alex and Charlie getting out shot drinks on.
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Friendly Windells faces at the Riders Poll, Parker and Alex.
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Greats at the Riders Poll. Sessions Founder Joel Gomez, Legendary Terry Kidwell and Boardistan Lee Crane.
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I had a great time at the Riders Poll and somehow this blurry photo of Johan and myself captured the real essence of the Riders Poll VIP area. Laughs, good times and drinks.
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After the Riders Poll, I cabbed it back to the Hyatt with Trent where we sat down at the Hyatt Bar to drink. We ended up running into Henrik from Freeskier and Jon from Snowboard for a couple rounds. Of course drinks led to the great idea of going to Diamond Cabaret Stripclub down the road and we ended up there to spend a couple bucks.
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The parties went into the wee morning hours, finally crawled into bed around 5am. Crazy the amount of fun, partying and snowboard gear you can enjoy.