Michelle is stalking herself
Youth Crew Rider Michelle Shea having some fun with her Go Pro...
posted by DAVE TRAN on February 16, 2010 at 4:50 PM in MNMNT BLOG
BALHARRY PLACES THIRD AT CANADIAN OPEN
Monument Youth Crew Rider Robby Balharry places Third at the Canadian Open!
posted by DAVE TRAN on February 09, 2010 at 9:52 PM in MNMNT BLOG
Twenty Ten Storm
Riding the 2011 FVK Reverse Camber 155
The second big storm to hit the South East in the same season (20+ inches each storm) meant us heading for the hills to shred some gnar gnar. Usually the storms come on weekdays but this one came at the start of the weekend. With schools closing left and right in DC, MD, and VA, a small crew of us headed to Wisp Resort in Deep Creek, MD.
I headed back early from the SIA show in Denver so I didn't get a chance to ride at Winterpark. I really wanted to try out the FVK reverse camber deck we had but it's better that I tried it out in powder at Wisp. The 155cm (RC) deck we have really is a powder deck and a lot of companies are starting to target them towards beginners. I've always been a regular camber kind of guy and will still be so here's the deal. A RC board definitely helps you cheat on the mountain and I wouldn't have it as your only deck in your arsenal.
The guy below us hiking out? There was untracked snow for like thirty feet below him.
After talking to Brandow and Stansfield (our Rockies and Midwest reps) about the Winterpark demo, the consensus was that riders really liked how the boards rode. The one complaint we got was that our FVK Reverse Camber deck had too much pop. Too much pop? Try the BlackBlack reverse camber deck, it's a little softer. But I don't think I've ever heard of a complaint that a board had too much pop, ever.
Either way, a RC deck is good to have in your arsenal but I wouldn't have it be your main one. I still prefer a regular cambered deck for freeriding, especially one of ours. In the 15 years of riding, I've ridden a lot of brands over the years and this has translated into me selecting specific decks with certain characteristics/cores and spreading them over certain price ranges to make them affordable for everyone for the upcoming season.
We've been listening to our shops and have been keeping track of trends for the past four years; we're still sticking to regular cambered decks as our main product offerings. We will offer some reverse cambered decks in some sizes but our answer is this: We make fun boards that ride good as they look. Try one.
2010-2011 FVK Reverse Camber 155
Back to the storm. We dug out spaces for 2.5 cars on Friday night. We dug them out again Saturday morning. I then dug out my car again Sunday night. And then dug out my driveway Monday morning. We're now bracing for our third big snow storm tonight which is supposed to dump 10-20 inches. I hope film crews are heading to DC/VA because there are tons of banger spots that have yet to be filmed. Hope you guys are all staying safe around here; I'll have some news to post up on our riders this week.
posted by DAVE TRAN on February 09, 2010 at 4:38 PM in MNMNT BLOG
Breck: Jared and Ethan
MNMNT Youth Crew Jared Jordan and Ethan Deiss...
posted by DAVE TRAN on February 03, 2010 at 4:48 PM in MNMNT BLOG
SIA DENVER: MISSION SUCCESS
We've done a few of these, and with our first one being in Denver, I figured we'd do a simple walk down memory lane.
2007
Our first SIA event was four years ago, when they first created the Yard to showcase the new and upcoming brands. That was the first year we showcased C.Glancy's first fully curated line with Monument, featuring the likes of Donny Miller, Peter Beste, Maya Hayuk, J.Penry, etc.
We were expecting the board Maya designed "And I Will Always Love You" (seen in the photo) would be censored but the folks in charge looked at it laughed, said how awesome it was and kept on walking. One girl walked by and said it was gross but everyone else loved it. That year the Donny Miller and Maya decks were the most covered in media outlets. Somehow my mug got put on the Daily Snow Press, SIA's Newsletter publication; hat-head is attractive right? A week before that the Washington Post did a feature on Monument Snowboards in their Sunday Source section. We were also featured in numerous print publications that year, like Flaunt Magazine, Snowboard Magazine, Trace Magazine, Theme, and Giant Magazine.
2008
The second year for us at SIA involved a 1972 Chevy Nova at the entrance of the Yard. We unveiled our new short logo with the vowels taken out. We worked with the likes of KR (KRINK), Kime Buzzelli, Todd Tourso, Owleyes, and Thom Lessner. That was a fun show for us, from rushing to get Fire Marshall approval (and having the cabbie show us a Bunny Ranch catalog along with a binding of hooker cards), to navigating the NOVA in with the booths already built around us. Imagine driving around a bunch of ski booths in a muscle car with little room to spare. Loud, smokey, and well loud.
2008-2009 SIA at the entrance of the Yard.
That year Kime Buzzelli was on the cover of Flaunt Magazine in November, and KR was getting a lot of exposure with his INCASE collaboration. Owleye's design of the FVK series put the FVK series on the map with his unique collage style and solidifed its reputation as the super fun park board that it is. KR (KRINK) ended up doing a collaboration with Smith goggles the following season. Thom Lessner's 777 design also made its round along the photo circuit in videos and blogs. KR's BlackBlack series sold out in no time.
That particular year we were next to Hot Chili's with their hot models wearing spandex the whole day parading around on the platform. We weren't complaining. That was also the year they banned scooters after a day or two because people were having scooter wars. We saw Larry Nunez from Snowboard Mag shove down a guy after the guy stole his cart and nudged Larry's shins; refusing to return the cart. Tyrant also tried to charge two kegs to our booth; it was kind of easy to dispute the $1200 bill. They told us that SIA felt bad about their location since they put in a dunk tank in front of their booth, and gave them two free kegs. But instead they ordered it, billed it to us and hoped we wouldn't notice.
2009-2010 SIA VEGAS
2009
Our third SIA they sandwiched us in between Option and Flux, near the Burton section. We decided to go simpler this year and lay down some vinyl and make it nice and simple. We took the shiny gold rope holders from the front of the building somewhere and used them for our booth. I couldn't believe no one there said anything about it!
The BlackBlack series designed by one of hip hop's and graffiti's forefathers, Ramallzee, made waves that year and sold out, reinforcing the BlackBlack's position in the Monument line up as the most popular for it's price, performance and aesthetics. The SSUR line in addition to the Memento Mori art by Kelsey Brookes turned heads at the show. Richard Colman (777) and Bjorn Copeland (FVK) were popular park boards that rounded out the rest of the Monument line.
We started using these awesome wooden guitar stands that no one else has used before for our decks. These stands didn't have the standard necks on them so they added to the aesthetic presentation of our decks.
Celebrity sightings? We were printing stuff at Kinkos before the show started where we saw huge Snoop Dog prints which SkullCandy were printing up for their booth for his visit. Gene Simmons was walking around SIA and saw a KISS influenced ski; with his face on it, unauthorized obviously. I think he was already calculating how much he was going to make as soon as he saw that. There were rumors that Flavor Flav was running around somewhere, but unconfirmed.
2010
Left Shot by ECS, and my self portrait: both of the 777. The custom board bags to the left are hand made by 777 designer Raif Adelberg.
Why does it take a day and a half to get materials to build up the walls and less then 20 minutes for tear down? Here we are building the walls.
This was probably the most relaxed out of all the ones we've done. Having people in town like Connor, Calvin, Ethan, Teddy, etc. to help out was a huge deal. We built out our walls for the first time to go for a super simple look. White walls, red carpet, red logo. We had to do some recon and did some secret ops action to get our materials in as efficiently as possible. South East rep Armani Rivera and Mid West rep Mark Stansfield joined us this year along with Rockies rep John Brandow to support the brand.
A lot of media folks stopped by, as well as the regular flow of industry folks. It's nice to have the support from other industry creative folks that we look up to. The couple things we did different this year was add some directional shapes, some more reverse camber options, lowered our higher end prices so that they peak at $399. Glancy is continually raising the bar on the graphics front and the boards are fun to ride; which is why we are participating in the On Snow Demo at WinterPark. We are more than confident with how the boards ride so please come check them out to see or ask your local rep or shop to demo one.
Photobooth fun courtesy of Fuel TV and the Yard
No scooter fiascos. SOTN FYB shirts. Yobeat's awesome Todd Richard's video. Ethan Deiss forgetting his pile of stuff while trying to get a picture of Pam Anderson and missing the Volcom RV with GiGi and company. Scrounging around for free morning bagels (Bitch Boards put the bagels too close to their booth so you actually had to talk to them if you stole their bagels, their bagels lasted all day; whereas Recco's lasted maybe an hour). And what was a tight wire company doing there; it was just moving straps? A 360 camera crew yelling at us to get out of the way so they could film (almost running over one rep, then getting mad when I flicked off the camera). The guy is lucky someone didn't drop kick him when he's speeding through the aisles almost running into people.
Overall it was a great show in Denver for us. It's great be a part of this industry. We received more than great words about this year's line. Please contact our reps to find our more about Monument Snowboards.
To read more about C.Glancy's direction of the artwork, click here.
"Monument Snowboards makes affordable premium quality snowboards and work with high caliber artists to make the most unique product offering a small company can produce. In the few short years MNMNT has been around our Artist Network out numbers and out shines all other board companies in the industry with the caliber and quantity of artists.
We don’t create “artist collaborations” we create snowboards that stand apart from all other sticks in the industry based on good design. Our Artists contribute to our overall aesthetic and branding, not momentary trends or vapid corporate design."
posted by DAVE TRAN on February 01, 2010 at 10:54 PM in MNMNT BLOG
