Product Callouts Archives - zasKoda

Cheetah Ultra Sports Whip F117

zaskoda — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:31:07 +0000

Honestly, I was looking for information on Netbooks when I ran across Cheetah Ultra Sports‘ new snowboard, the Whip F117. I ran across the board on a Gizmodo post. The stick costs nearly $2k and looks like a snowboard mated with a Cyclon ship. I have to admit, it’s dead sexy.

The hole in the board is… odd… making for certain that this is not a powder board. This leaves me wondering just what this board IS good for. The product page suggests it’s good for new riders. However, in my many years of teaching, the best thing I’ve found for new riders is some soft powder.

Perhaps it’s an interesting board for the park, but will the hole get caught on parts of rails, boxes, and pipes? If it’s lighter, it might be nice for areal tricks. How this board snaps and carves could have a big impact on take-offs and landings.

The risers are extremely high. I hear a lot of riders like risers, but I rarely see them and never this high. I was joking with friends the other day about making elevator snowboard boots. I imagine they would feel something like this board would feel. Unfortunately, I’ve never had the experience of riding with risers, so I can only imagine.

Part of me wants to take this board onto Snowflex terrain. There’s something that feels appropriate about taking a space-age looking board onto an artificial surface. Ultimately, I would really like to demo this board and find out how it feels. However, until I can, I’m going to have to classify this in the gimmick category – a very expensive gimmick.

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Gloves Not Recommended For Snowboarding???

zaskoda — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 07:01:03 +0000

I picked up this pair of ski gloves. The tag says they’re not recommended for snowboarding… Are they serious? Why in the world would that be?

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Snowboard on Pavement: The T Board

zaskoda — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 04:24:40 +0000

I found an ad for this thing while researching a movie full of snowboarding ladies called “As If“. Now, I’m not sure who the target market is for this product. While I’m sure an all female cast will appeal to all those young ladies dreaming of becoming a snowboarding pro… I somehow think it might appeal to a whole lot of the boys. I’m not so sure about that box cover though…. So, back to the topic…

While researching, I happened across a press release for something called the T-Board. I’d reference the site I found it on if I could find it again. Anyway, thing looks like large inline skateboard. It actually looks like a whole lot of fun, regardless of how close to snowboarding it actually is. The only problem is, if I got one, I have no idea where I’d ride it… I live in a relatively flat area. Maybe I could get someone to pull me with a bicycle and tell people we’re land-wakeboarding???

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New Movie – For Right or Wrong

zaskoda — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 18:07:21 +0000

Looks as though our dear friend Burton is getting into the movie biz with For Right or Wrong. Being a web guy, I gotta talk about the website first. It’s sexy, the preview is awesome… but someone smack the designers in the back of the head for the text. I don’t know what size monitors they’re working with, but I’ve got a 21″ Dell LCD with DVI and I can barely freak’n read it! Because it’s flash, you can’t increase the font size. You can’t even copy and paste it into something else!!! Come on guys, stop being so geh (and I mean that in the bad way, not the other way)….

The movie looks to be very entertaining. The site has a nice preview and a variety of downloadable media. There’s also an upcoming tour that isn’t scheduled. Strangely enough, no Dallas dates! (lol)… Anyway, because some second rate designer (actually, the visual design on the site is stunning, it’s the practicality that’s broken) I hand typed all of the description text in human readable form, just for you:

Produced by Mandalay Entertainment, “For Right or Wrong” takes an inside look at what it’s like to snowboard for a living and combines action and documentary-style footage about riders’ lives both on and off the hill. The movie carves out individual story lines that focus on the different facets of pro snowboarding, including the urban snowboarding scene, the competitive snowboard lifestyle and a riding trip to Russia with competitive snowboard lifestyle and riding trip to Russian with Jake Burton, his oldest son George and select Burton team riders.

“When we set out to create ‘For Right or Wrong’ our vision was to show the variety in snowboarders’ personalities, their riding styles and the terrain they ride – all from an insider’s viewpoint,” says Jake Burton, Founder and Chairman of Burton Snowboards. “It’s a perspective on our sport that has never been seen before.”

Shaun White, Keir Dillon, Kelly Clark, Jake Burton Carpenter, George Carpenter, David Carrier-Porcheron, Terje Haakonsen, Dave Downing, Mads Jonsson, Jeremy Jones and Nicholas Miller all star in the movie, which was filmed in Japan, New Zealand, Italy, Norway, Russia, California, Utah, Oregon, Colorado, New Jersey, Vermont, Minnesota and Alaska.

So there it is, enjoy!

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Motorola Bluetooth Hat For Snowboarders

zaskoda — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 20:50:41 +0000

While reading Gizmodo, I ran into an odd product. The Motorola Bluetooth Hat lets you use your bluetooth devices (re: cell phone) hands free on the mountain. This reminds me of a rather annoying moment on my last new years snowboarding trip. Some dunce busted out his phone in the front of the busy lift line and started chatting it up. His conversation had him engaged to the point where he had no interest in getting on the lift, yet he stood there blocking up the line. The lift operators had to grab him and physically move him out of the way. As far as I’m concerned, they should have kicked him off the mountain. Maybe if he had this hat, he would have been able to jump on the lift during his oh so important call – likely with his mommy.

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A New Season of Changes

zaskoda — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 23:16:28 +0000

It’s been a long time since I posted. I have a few quick things to talk about.My New Board: Burton CustomI finally replaced my old Kemper board. I recently bought an ’05 Burton Custom 162. I would have preferred an Arbor, but they’re hard to find and I snagged the Burton with bindings (Burton Cartel) for under $500. It seemed like a good deal. The best price I’ve seen on froogle for the board and bindings is $570 (and as high as $710) before tax and shipping. I’m having a frustrating time trying to get the bindings set just right for my boots – but I’ll get it all just right. These are my first toe-in bindings so I’m excited about trying them out.

Upcoming Trip: Crusty Butt

Last New Years I hit Crested Butte, Colorado for New Years. I’ll be headed back the day after Thanksgiving. I can’t wait to give my new board it’s first run! I will also be planning another New Years trip this season – but I haven’t decided where I’m off to yet. I wish I could justify the cost of Lake Tahoe. I’m also hoping to squeeze one more trip in this season, probably some time near spring break.

New Movie: First Decent

There’s a movie coming out called First Decent. It looks like it could potentially be good, even though the website kind of sucks. I’m hoping it feels something like Dogtown. The trailer and the site give me the impression that it covers the early days of snowboarding. I don’t know how historically accurate it will be, but it has some big names in it including Shaun White, Hanna Teter, Shawn Farmer, Nick Perata, and Terje Haakonsen. (There’s a longer/different trailer available on myspace.)

The Big Announcement: Snowtripping

Even though I’ve failed to update this site regularly, I still seem to get a lot of traffic. This inspires me. I fail to update this site because I built it from scratch, and never got around to building it so that it’s easy to update. In my first post to this site I said that I expected to reorganize the site and evolve it form a journal into something more. Well, the good news is, I am indeed making this happen. The new site, which I’m currently working on, will live at SnowTripping.com. Unlike this site, it’s not going to be all about me… instead, this new site will be a full blown community site. If you want to be alerted via e-mail when the new site goes live, drop me a note on the contact form. Details to come…

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Texas Snowboarding

zaskoda — Wed, 25 Feb 2004 03:47:57 +0000

Being from Texas, snowboarding has always meant long trips to somewhere that actually has both mountains and snow. For a long time, I pondered and discussed the idea of an artificial snowboarding surface. In my mind, some kind of little styrofoam balls seemed like the right way to go. Eventually, I caught a reference to artificial turf in a snowboarding magazine – thus confirming that it does indeed exist.Then, while checking out Snowgo, I found my way to this article and eventually to the website for Snowflex. This stuff looks pretty cool. Unlike my idea of lots of tiny balls, these surfaces are more like astroturf with extra padding. According to the article, it doesn’t ride like snow, but it’s “pretty darn close!” It sounds like fun regardless.But that article was about a resort in the UK. I’ve dug around for more info on artificial snow turfs and it seems it isn’t used at all in the US. This is ironic because snowboarding was invented in the US. If I could go to somewhere close and ride a day on artificial turf for a reasonable price, I’m certain I’d be there at least a couple times a month. Does anyone have any investment capitol they need to get rid of?

I tell ya, I’d like to do it… I’d like to bring Snowboarding to Texas!

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MP3 Players – Let the music control your mind.

zaskoda — Sun, 08 Feb 2004 07:01:25 +0000

MP3 players are popular. A few years ago I picked up an MPIO 128 meg DMG MP3 player. This was around the same time that the original iPod was released. I originally got the player just for mountain biking, but have used it extensively. It ended up being my best friend on campus when I went back to finish college.I didn’t just go out and pick up any old player. I did a lot of research and, at the time, the DMG was the best value for the dollar. Before they started branding their own products, MPIO designed and manufactured lots of OEM units distrobuted by some of the biggest names in electronics. The DMG player has solid state memory instead of a spinning hard drive (like the iPod). This means it can store less (a lot less), but because there are no moving parts it uses far less electricity to operate. This makes for a nice long battery life. Additionally, hard drives are sensitive to being bumped and I didn’t want a wipe out on my bike to damage my MP3 player.All in all, I’ve been very happy with my DMG… HOWEVER, there are many new products available on the market today worth checking out. Even though it’s not a solid state device, the iPod is very popular among snowboarders. It’s even more tempting now that Apple’s released the iPod mini. Alternatively, Dell recently joined the MP3 player market with a product that directly competes with the iPod (Dell is also competing with iTunes music store). Also, while you’re checking out big name players, Creative Labs has been in the MP3 player market for a while. Yet another popular player, that used to belong to Diamon Multimedia, is the Rio player. But the biggest names aren’t always the best products. Do your research!

I was nervous when I first brought my MP3 player to the mountain. I wipe out a lot… I get snow everywhere… and when snow melts, it turns into a substance that’s deadly to electronics – water! But, I’ve taken it on most of my snowboarding trips and have never had anything remotely close to an accident. I keep it in an inside pocket in my coat. It’s not a water tight pocket. In fact, it’s made of net material. A lot of newer coats and bags have special pouches designed for your mp3 player. Having had no trouble, I thought these were somewhat gimmicky. But, Burton has something on the market that really seems like a damn good idea. While my player is safe in my pocket, sometimes I have to take it out when I want to adjust the volume, change songs, or just turn my player on or off. This means I have to remove my gloves, unzip my coat, reach into my pocket, etc. The Burton Amp Pack solves this by wiring the controls onto the shoulder strap. Note: I also found a bit info on a Burton iPod jacket with the controls on the arm.

If you’re wondering if having music on the mountain is worth the trouble, my answer would be – “YES, it is!”

P.S. Navigating Burton’s flash centric Web site on dial up sucks!

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