Jeremy who, Jeremy Jones?

Jeremy Jones and his new prototype Jones Snowboard!

So last night I got a call from TSA head honcho Jeremy Sladen, it went something like this, "Jeremy Jones is coming over to Chamonix tomorrow will you go up and ride with him, show him around?" after some consideration, I reluctantly agreed to get my ass out of the office and go meet up with this 'Mr Jones' at the Grands Montets and spend the day riding with him. Well better than sitting in the office all day?

Ok, so I wasn't that reluctant, in fact, I have to admit I was quite excited by the prospect of riding with one of the Worlds 'all time' greatest Freeriders, to see what he could do, check out his riding and catch up on his gossip.

Of course Jeremy has been around Chamonix plenty and with only really the Bochards piste open there was never going to be much showing him around going on and we basically just ripped lap after lap on the Bochards top to bottom, cranking and playing with all the features on route.

Jeremy as many of you may know is branching out with his own Snowboard company, 'Jones Snowboards' that comes with a Freeride flavoured approach and design and he had just picked up a couple of new boards hot off the press, designed to his very own specifications and for the big mountains style of riding that he is famous for.

The boards looked nice! A rocker design in the nose but with normal camber to just short of the widest point of turning edge contact, so normal camber to well in front of the front foot for turning pressure and then rocker to the nose for extra float. Best of both worlds, nice idea!

The board runs with normal camber to just behind the rear foot then there's a small amount of rocker (2cm) running from a little way behind the foot to the tail. Now I'm not convinced with tail rockers as I love the tail pressure in the rear of the board and mentioned this to Jeremy who replied that he too regards the tail of the board as the most important point with regards pressure at the end of the turn and although there is a slight rocker in the tail of this board, the tail has been designed to be very strong and is still super stiff.

The idea behind the small amount rocker is that the turn radius of the board can easily be made smaller for steep narrow couloirs. You can carve right to the end of the edge on hard pack or in softer snow you can bring the pressure point in closer to your rear foot and use the rocker to finish the turn.

The edge of the board had a very slight magna traction type of thing going on so all in all this should give a super nice all mountain charging type of ride!

It was his first day out on it, they were literally hot off the press and so I was keen to see how it worked and what he thought of it.

We headed up the Bochards and had a warm up run at about mach 10 and then quickly built up speed run by run. The board seemed to perform real nice and Jeremy was super stoked on its performance. These were the first proto types and so it'll be interesting to see how things progress from here and I'm looking forward to seeing the end result production models come onto the market.

We also talked about split boards, I've always been very disappointed with splits in the past, finding them great for going up hill but too soft for riding down. The bindings have also always been raised up on a plate with lots of flex and loss of feeling. I love the idea of skinning up and riding down with out having to carry a board but until a good split hits the market I'll stick to my snow shoes. Jeremy is keen to bring out a riding biased split to his quiver of boards and there are now new split bindings that eliminate the riser and flex problem so maybe the future of Backcountry riding could be about to change with the introduction of the Jones splitboard?

lets hope he doesn't take too long!

Its a big move to start up your own Snowboard company, especially these days, but this guy has a passion for what he does and is designing kit with lots of thought and experience to back it up. Its a refreshing change to see someone designing boards not just for fashion or to introduce a new sales point but for pure all mountain function so good luck to him!

Anyway we had a great day riding and talked about hooking up for some future projects which could be fun!

I was riding my Burner 166 today which never fails to perform and this years Malamutes are even better than last years, after 2 days riding in them they feel totally dialed in, perfect!

I felt strong again today, riding nice and fluid and with one of the greatest riding partners on the planet! So not a bad day at all.

Not many spaces left on this seasons courses! If you want to get out on a course this season you'd better get in touch with Ruth in the office asap.

Good weather again tomorrow and then Snow to 700m!!! What are we going to do?

Here we go!

Neil.