Into the Groove again!

Just finished a 3 day Off Piste Clinic which was great fun, a great crew, great conditions and some great riding.

It's that time of year were I'm starting to get back in to the groove of everything, trying to fit in my personal training for the cycling season next year with my freeriding and guiding through out the winter.

I've been doing quite a bit of leg power work, Dec and Jan are my power up months, then I'll start to go more aerobic through out feb, March and April which also fits in nicely for the BC freeride and touring side of things.

I just have to make sure I don't do to much and just burn out, but at the moment things feel good, my legs are super strong and my riding feels better than ever!

Riding every day again takes quite a lot out of you. On the courses, we're riding morning through until last lift most of the time and so it's important to be prepared for the long days and keep yourself fuelled up through out the day.

My personal tip is some 'Science in Sport' energy mix in my drinks bottle and some energy Gels and Go bars in my pockets. At the end of the day I'm also drinking some 'SiS' rego for recovery straight after riding. Seems to be working!

Get yourself onto the 'SiS' website (link on home page) and get yourself some products to keep you going when the going gets tough!

Head honcho from 'Jones Snowboards' Robert Etienne joined us for a run down the Lognan's Glacier yesterday. He's a part time Chamonix local and so will be joining us now and then on a few of the courses here and there, picking up some feedback on the boards and getting out and about in the mountains on the Split board tip.

I received all my 'Jones Solution split boards' now, still waiting for a few parts for some, but I just set mine up and it is now ready to ride so I'm keen to get out touring on it this weekend, I fancy heading up the Argentiere Glacier to the 'Col du Tour Noire' or something like that if the weather stays stable.

Setting up and personalizing your Split board takes a little time. Make sure you read the tips that come with the 'Spark' bindings and be ready to take them apart to re-size then to your boots. I spent most of the morning getting it all set up and managed to get my perfect stance with out compromise and so am super keen to try it out.

I'll let you know how I get on and run a review once I've dialled it in.

I've also got my Flagships 163 and 168 XL's to pick up this evening so I'll give them a ride next week on the 5 day Tech clinic which starts on Monday. The Tech clinic runs through the Science behind perfect snowboard technique and runs from Piste to Off Piste. (Of course if the snow is good Off Piste, I scrap the on piste bit!)

I rode the Hovercraft again this week and am happy to say that it still feels amazing to ride, even with my heavy Backcountry pack on my back. Yesterday I had the full Glacier kit in there so this must add about 10kilos on my back and it was still stiff enough for the full mountain rip around, Nice!

Looking forward to getting out on the 168 Flagship, looks like it'll fly!

Most of the courses are now pretty full and some have waiting lists. We're always getting cancellations for one reason or another so keep checking back and let Ruth know what you're after if you're looking to try to get out this winter. I also have a week free at the end of March so have the possibility of putting on one more course so watch this space for details. Still trying to decide what course to run!

Right got to go pick up some boards in Cham so until the next time,

All is good in Chamonix!

Neil.

Perfectly white Christmas!

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Chamonix has once again turned back into a perfect winter wonderland with over 2 ft of snow fall in the valley over the Christmas weekend.

The forecast this week is for clear skies so perfect conditions for this weeks Off Piste clinic which kicks off tomorrow morning.

Christmas here was fantastic, Ruth threw her usual Christmas party which filled the house to over flowing and saw a rare visit from that other 'Jones' snowboarding character, the Jenny one (x factor winner!) who came over for a surprise visit with Tammy from Mint and then threw a sicky, not from drink I must add, our Jen was properly poorly and early to bed, but not until 'Urban Magik' Mike had baffled us all with some more insane magic, levitation and spoon bending feats.

On Christmas eve I drove over to the Nidecker factory where they make the Jones boards and picked up my test fleet of Solution Split boards. Still waiting for bindings and skins but things are coming together and I'll pick up my Flagships later today to complete my full Jones quiver of boards.

Perfect conditions out there today, blue skies and super light powder snow, nice! Nipped out for a few turns on my skis, great fun!

Back on the Hovercraft tomorrow for the Off Piste clinic, we'll do a bit of technique and run through the basics of how the board works, bio mechanics and control of speed and line. We'll run through some Avalanche search and rescue training and charge the back of Le Tour until darkness stops play.

My review of the Hovercraft earned a few links so check these out. (I'm still computor illiterate so you'll have to do the copy and paste thing).

http://chamonixinsider.com/2010/12/23/chamonix-gear-guide-jones-hovercraft/

http://www.snowboard-review.com/snowboard_reviews/review/hovercraft/

All is good in Chamonix.

Neil.

Amazing!!!!

Oh my God!

Just back from a days charging steep and deep in the trees at Courmayeur on my new Jones Hovercraft 156!

I played around on this board a few days ago on hard pack and crud and it felt amazing. It carves like a big gun with the turn-ability of a 156!

I was pretty impressed.

Today, however, (the last day of my first course the 3 day tech clinic) I rode the Hovercraft in fresh untracked (and tracked) steep and deep powder in the trees in Courmayeur and I was just blown away!

I don't think I have ever ridden like that before. The speed and manoeuvre-ability through the tight trees was amazing. The stability in the powder, down pillow lines, drops, anything I could throw it at it just handled like nothing else I have ever ridden.

I seriously don't think snowboarding has ever felt that good and been that much fun!

I feel reborn!

For sure, check out the Jones Hovercraft!

This is a pure freeride board, not a one trick pony like the Burton fish or a swallow, this board can carve it up with the best on the hard pack, steep ice and blasts through the chop. In powder its simply comes into its own, its like standing on a big gun, floating on air and then you just tilt your front foot, slam the power into the tail and it changes direction like f**kin road runner, release the tail and it charges back into the fall line as you disappear into the wave of snow kicked up from your edge.

For me today is what snowboarding is all about, riding with a great crew who are all going for it and eager to learn, having a good laugh in the process and riding some amazing snow. As a bonus, Courmayeur was pretty much deserted except for a few other Chamonix guides skiing with clients.

Well done to the guys this week, they have worked hard, improved loads and reaped the rewards.

Nice one!

Looking forward to trying the Jones Flagships 163 and 168 which should arrive Friday.

All is good in Chamonix!

Neil.

Keeping up with the Jones!

Just back from a days riding with Freeride legend Jeremy Jones in Saas Fee.

I drove over early this morning to hook up with Jeremy for a ride before the Jones Snowboards sales meeting that took place in the afternoon and had a great charge around with him testing out next years boards.

Next years Jones line up looks very nice. Not many changes really, a few tweaks here and there, a couple of new sizes and obviously new graphics. Very nice!

I picked up a Jones Hovercraft, which is really short at 156! But which Jeremy says I'll love swearing that it rides like a much bigger board so we'll see.

Although this is obviously a purpose built powder powder it has a very stiff tail with good side cut and so is meant to be pretty good on hard pack to and so not to be categorized with the Burton fish, which was a bit of a one trick pony.

Anyway, I'm going ot get it drilled up for my massive stance (which will put one foot on the tip and the other on the tail and i'll give it a shot. It's a great looking bit of kit so I'm intrigued to see if it will work for me.

I also grabbed a Solution split board and so will get this up and running sometime in the next week or so and my flagships should be here sometime next week.

Very exciting!

Whilst I've been off riding, Ruth has been busy filling in and updating spaces on the courses!

A space has come available on the 3 day Off Piste Clinic on the 27th Dec, so in a couple of weeks.

A space is available on the last BC Intro 4th April.

There's a space come up on the BC touring week in April.

And a space is available on the Greenland trip 22nd April to 5 May.

So not much left but keep checking back as people seem to be dropping like flies over there in the UK with all that ice around!

I have our first course starting next week, my holidays are nearly over and the serious work of more snowboarding must begin.

Oh well, good job I love it!

All is good in Chamonix.

Neil.

Charging!

Had a great 'Ski' over in Avoriaz this weekend.

It's pretty icy over there but on two planks it was super fun just carving massive high speed Arcs from top to bottom everywhere. My legs felt super strong (well for a while anyway), it took me back to my ski racing days, pulling massive G's out of big GS turns...Fantastic!

It's amazing how much snow disappeared with all the rain last week! Morzine was looking a little green!

The Grand Montets is still fun, good snow up high but getting a little icy on the pistes in places due to traffic. Still fun up there though.

Le Tour looks like it'll be up and running, the grass underneath means the snow base doesn't need to be deep up there. Same sort of deal here in Les Houches, where they now have the snow cannons running 24/7.

Not sure about Flegere, it looked like there wasn't so much snow over there (when viewed from the GMontets) lots of drainage ditches showing through, but I'm sure they'll sort something out. Brevent, is kind of the same deal as Flegere, I imagine they'll get the basic pistes open but we definitely need some snow soon.

The good news is that its forecast to snow next weekend! Not sure if this is just a tourist forecast to keep us optimistic, but I'm going to start getting excited about it anyway!

bring it on.

Beautiful sunny day today, I burnt my legs out a bit yesterday (Skiing burns the thighs in completely different places to snowboarding) so today I'll get the bike out down the valley and have a bit of a spin before hitting some sprint intervals! You know what they say, 'a change is as good as a rest!' and 'No pain no gain!'.

Actually I don't think they say that anymore, with all the sports science research kicking around these days, I think in fact when you're tired they even advise a bit of rest and recovery!

What!

With all this fun stuff to do!

They also say 'no rest for the wicked!'

And I'm having wicked fun so its out on the bike later then and I'll be back on the board tomorrow. After all, I've just spent a good hour in the indoor office already this week, don't want to over do it!

All is good, get out there and get physical you lot, we got work to do this winter!

But be careful on those Mtn Bikes when riding on the ice!

No more cancellations through injury please.

All is good in Chamonix1

Neil

New Avalanche article on line!

I've just finished a new article on Avalanches which is now on line on the www.mcnabsnowboarding web site in the 'our library' section.

I'd post a link to it here but am technology illiterate so you'll have to just go find it!

I've also posted a heap of other articles that I've written over the years but not always up loaded so check them out.

Neil.

I love Snowboarding!

After all the amazing snow last week we've just had 2 miserable days of rain.

Boo!

Ok, well it's not that bad, it kind of settled the snowpack a little, as in everything slid!

We've had loose snow avalanches to full depth low down in the valley and a massive assortment of Slab avalanches up high.


This doesn't look so big but that crown wall is 2 meters high!


Just below the top of the Herse on the Grand Montets there are an assortment of perfect example slab avalanches.

You can just see the rocks on the scoured ridge above and how the slope has been cross loaded over the ridge.

A scoured ridge above a sheltered wind loaded slope with a 2 meter crown wall and perfectly smooth sliding surface presented by the old snow surface, affected by the cold clear days in November.

The Face on the Glacier above the Herse has also slid with massive crown walls and over towards the Chardonnet there are perfect examples of loose snow slides starting on steep rocky buttresses and triangulating outwards until channeled into the valley through the gullies below. Low down these are full depth, so its interesting to be able to see the affect of altitude on the Avalanche activity with the colder temperatures higher up affecting the snowpack very differently from lower down.

I've just been writing about all of this stuff this last week, so it was interesting to see it all on the mountain exactly as it should be after a big snow storm, some wind affect and then a massive temperature increase.

Not all the snow dissapeared though and up on the Herse I scored some really nice turns down the face under the chair lift. I'm not really into riding Off Piste so much at this time of year because the snowpack is still quite thin, but here with a little caution there was some very nice riding to be found.

Ruth came up with and rode the Grand Montets for the first time in 8 years! Is that's what having kids does to your riding? It was the first time we'd ridden together in 8 years as its the first year that both our girls are in school and we could both find a little time to go play.

We had a great day and I'm happy to say she can still ride very well so if you're calling up for info or bookings be ready for her to rabbit on about how good she is!

I was out riding on my new Jones 164 Wide All mountain Twin for the first time. It's a really nice board to play around on, super easy to turn.

It has camber under foot and rocker tip and tail which helps it just float effortlessly in the powder but it also brings the turn initiation points (contact point) closer to your feet. This makes turn initiation super easy and it took me a little while to work out that I didn't need to move pressure so far up the board to start the turn. The rocker makes it initiate turns like a much shorter board but then once its in the turn and on the edge you have the full edge length coming into play so it has the stability of the given length.

Its a nice concept and it seems to work well.

For me and my wide 70cm stance the 164 is about as small a board as I'd go and I found it lacking in stability at super high speed which is where the Flagship comes into play. For an 'All mountain' board for jibbing about on though it does exactly what it says on the packet!

My legs felt super strong, I've been stacking in the squat sessions and building up some leg power on the turbo and it seems to be paying off with top to bottom runs not a problem!

Anyway, we had a great day and I came of the hill super stoked about the season ahead.

Yeah, I am just loving Snowboarding right now and there's more snow and even some sun on its way for the weekend.

We've had a few spaces come available this last week due to cancellation. You guys need to be more careful riding your bikes on all that snow and Ice over there in the UK, you should know better!

Check out the updates and availability (www.mcnabsnowboarding.com) and also I've been getting quite a few inquiries for the Q&A blog so check those out though the link on the web site home page.

All is good in Chamonix!

Neil.

Chamonix is open!

These days will come soon eneough!

So Chamonix, or the Grand Montets, is open for business as of this weekend and its official the winter season 2010/11 has begun.

I headed up there today for a quick slide around and am happy to report that the conditions are good, well on the piste at least, very good!

It's that time of year where the Off Piste looks pretty good but there is still very little base to the snowpack and hidden just underneath is a jagged, spikey rock garden just waiting to bite your board and your ass, so beware!

Of course this being Chamonix, there are tracks absolutely everywhere and because of this a lot of the rocks are now visible as excited seasonaires have ridden over and into them, I'd hate to have seen the state of some peoples new boards and skiers after yesterday, the first day of opening after last weeks storms!

For me, I look forward to the long season ahead. There's going to be plenty of time to mix it up out there and I'm happy to bide my time and just play around the pistes until the snow base gets deeper and all the rocks are filled in and well covered. For me, this is the time to focus on the feelings of riding, get the control and precision back in your feet and perfect your technique. Its time to play around and jib it up a little here and there but definitely I'll leave the cranking it up Off Piste until we've had a couple more big storms come our way.

For the time of year, the conditions are great1 It looks like we're going to get some milder weather coming our way and some rain quite high up. In a way this isn't a bad thing as it will consolidate the snowpack and melt out any dangerous hoar crystals that might be growing in there due to the cold conditions and the shallow snowpack (faceting through temperature gradient metamorphisis for the snow geeks!)

It's due to get colder again afterward so snow should follow the wet weather and conditions should just get better and better from here on in.

I picked up a Jones 164 Wide 'All mountain Twin' yesterday and so will try it out over the next couple of days, really looking forward to it.

I hear that the Jones boards are now arriving in the UK, so all of you that have ordered them through our TSA deal should be getting hold of them any day now.

I've also updated a few changes to the course bookings as we had a cancellation on a couple of spots so check out the latest course news.

Busy writing BC safety articles at the moment for various sources, some of which I'll post on the site once they're free from the publishers.

Time to get excited, bring it on!

Neil.

Snow and more snow!

Bring it on!

It seems like its been snowing pretty much everywhere this last week! From what I've seen on the news, the UK is pretty much snowed under and most of France was in similar chaos as massive winter storms swept across the country.

Chamonix has received loads of snow, around 50cm here in the valley and it looks like the perfect start of another great winter!

The Grand Montets is to open again this weekend and the word on the street is that it might stay open for the season if the conditions allow!

After 2 days of digging, wading around with the dog, powder sledging with the kids and skidding around in the car, it has cleared up again today and from the office window I can see the Midi towering up there in all its glory covered in a deep blanket of snow. The sun is coming up behind it lighting the snow blowing over the ridge at the top like a halo. It looks amazing!

The Midi is unfortunately closed at the moment but with this much snow in the valley you can pretty much ski anywhere at the moment as long as you don't mind a bit of a walk. Tomorrow I'll skin up to the top of Les Houches or the Grand Montets and see if I can get Ruth out with me for a bit of a slide around.

I've just updated some questions on the Question and answer blog, 'Ask Neil' on the home page and the 'latest course updates' as I think someone has transferred from an early course to a later one, anyway there's a space come up on a BC Intro in Jan and I think there's a couple more single spaces on 2 other BC Intro's in March and April. If anyone is interested, get in touch with Ruth asap as I don't think they'll be available for long!

I've also booked my tickets for Greenland, very exciting! There's a space available on this trip if anyone fancies joining us on a very Jeremy Jones, 'Deeper' style adventure.

I'm hopefully picking up a Jones 'All mountain Twin' 164 at the weekend so I'm looking forwards to giving that a bit of a rip around. A lot of you have taken advantage of the Jones deal we have running through the TSA but I don't think anyone has received boards as yet!

Don't worry, there is a bit of a delay due to the massive demand but I have it from the factory that all orders will be supplied as soon as possible and before the winter fully gets into gear.

My bike is now firmly attached to the Turbo trainer and I've started training for leg power with lots of squats to compliment the cardio work I've been doing. Need to get on top of the stretching a bit but feeling pretty good and ready to go.

Wow, full clear skies outside now, looks beautiful so I've got to get out there.

I need that feeling of powering deep turns in feather light powder! You remember it? If not I'll describe it to you after this weekend!

Get ready!

Neil.