Freeride World Tour

[powdork]

I remember when the debate around here was 'big mountain' vs. freestyle. That whole debate is rendered irrelevant when dudes are charging fall line in the gnarliest parts of the mountain and doing huge freestyle moves. Wow!!! On visual inspection... WTF!

As for that other classic debate; who's better, competitive free rider or ski movie rider? That debate is over also as far as I am concerned. The movie dudes have nothing on the likes of Goguen and Hitzig.

Unreal comp! wow

Competitive freeriders and ski movie riders are the same thing or at least very intertwined. The competitive circuit is one of the more formal paths to sponsorship and ski movies.
Former FWT Champs we watch a lot around here include Cody Townsend, Candide Thovex, and Josh Daiek but there's plenty more

[gramboh]

Wow what a comp, watching ski men replay here now. Marcus is an alien, one of the (if not the) best comp runs I've ever seen. Such a treat to see these guys ski at the highest level in good conditions. Max Palm had such a cool run going until his crash... Hitzig is a monster again. Echoing others, love the tech gnar approach of Weitien always a pleasure to watch and surely big results ahead of him on FWT, that 80 was low. Love how competitive FWT is right now with all the young guns.

Thought Katie was ok but far and away the best commentary in recent time was Tom Pfeifer with Foose. I thought it was funny during Marcus' run Foose was speechless haha, must have been so hyped to see him put that down after seeing him come up through Whistler Freeride.

And agree with a-train on the drone work. We already know what angles work best, see some of the work in Numinous on the Tantalus section where the drone shows the steepness and scale of what is being ridden. Maybe it's hard to get angles like that setup during a comp with time pressure, but any kind of static tracking shots are better than stupid constant rotation/angle flipping. Same issue with FPV drone filming in WCDH mtn bike racing. F1 seems to be taking the steady overhead shot approach, see Red Bull's recent video.

[powdork]

Goguen's run was insane. i was already laughing in disbelief when he hit the massive transfer at the bottom. The GoPro is cool too

[Lindahl]

Insane skiing. Definitely the best show of talent the FWT has ever had. Girls and guys.

Drone work still sucks. Marginal improvement but needs major work. Quit trying to spin around the rider. Simple.

This. Who in the world started doing that crap and why does everyone try to emulate it?

[powdork]

It's simple. FPV drones can be awesome in edits, but suck for live action.

[TahoeJ]

Who in the world started doing that crap and why does everyone try to emulate it?

Drives me crazy. Friend of mine does excellent drone work for Salomon (most people here have probably seen his stuff with Josh Daiek) and once said something along the lines of just appreciating how awesome drones are to get you angles without a heli and there’s no need to show off what else they can do.

[2FUNKY]

Haven’t had time to watch and stayed out of this thread until I could. Holy Fuk! That was unreal! The level of riding was insane for ski men. Hell, the females went huge as well. What an event!!


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[Dantheman]

Finally got to watch, too. I did not have "90 point score gets 7th place" on my FWT 2024 bingo card.

[Mustonen]

Insane skiing. Definitely the best show of talent the FWT has ever had. Girls and guys.

Definitely seeing separation in the field more than I’ve noticed it before, at least, where riders were seeing what it would take to win and knowing that they wouldn’t or couldn’t do what it takes to get there. Hitzig and Goguen and a few others are just at a different level.

[kootenayskier]

I’d previously watched all the men’s ski runs, but only just caught the full highlight video. Snowboarding just doesn’t seem to work with this format, as it seems that despite having a blank canvas, everyone but de Le Rue was flailing. I was also thoroughly unimpressed at the state of women’s ski, until I saw Loschi’s run. As is the case in women’s surfing and freeride mountain biking right now, She’s just a few weeks in the gym away from relegating all the tentative side slippers into irrelevance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkK_MaHNvHI

[claymond]

I’d previously watched all the men’s ski runs, but only just caught the full highlight video. Snowboarding just doesn’t seem to work with this format, as it seems that despite having a blank canvas, everyone but de Le Rue was flailing. I was also thoroughly unimpressed at the state of women’s ski, until I saw Loschi’s run. As is the case in women’s surfing and freeride mountain biking right now, She’s just a few weeks in the gym away from relegating all the tentative side slippers into irrelevance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkK_MaHNvHI

Huh, I'd disagree on men's snowboard. Maybe my memory of this stop is faded, but overall this year and last year I think the bar in men's snowboard has been raised a ton. Strong field, seems like the fewest crashes of all the classes. It's not at the insane level of men's ski, but it's super strong riding.

[toast2266]

I was sitting at the bar at the ski hill yesterday and they happened to have a replay of one of last year's FWT stops playing on one TV, and a replay of one of the natural selection stops on another TV right next to it.

Granted, the natural selection comps are a bit different and tend to have better snow and more artificial features that are designed to be send-able. But the snowboarding on the natural selection tour is just a lot more fun to watch - big sends, impressive tricks, and a lot less flailing and butt checking. I'm sure a lot of that can be attributed to the above caveats, but I wonder if some of it is just that the FWT isn't regarded quite as highly in the snowboard community, and isn't attracting the top talent.

[altacoup]

All the factors you point out certainly affect the level of snowboarding in the FWT. Snow conditions bring the biggest one IMO. As someone who grew up surfing, none of my surfing buddies can understand why I ski. Snowboarding in fresh pow is awesome, but in anything less than that or a manicured park, skis are just such a far superior tool.

[claymond]

I mostly agree with both of you guys, toast and altacoup. I lose track of how many red bull helmets come through the start gate in men's ski. I'd debate if the guys in natural selection are actually better riders but really who cares. It does seem the FWT gets less attention from top snowboarders than top skiers. Add in how many skiers get formal race and/or comp training from a young age vs snowboarders. Thats huge. I don't personally know any snowboarders who raced or got structured freeride training until they were teenagers, if they ever did. And yeah, in rougher, bumpier, firmer conditions skis are better tools.

Anyway, in part because of all the above I'm super impressed with men's snowboard recently. I think some of it comes down to the viewer and which they're better at. A skier watches a snowboarder come out of a landing on their tail, get slightly turned, and it seems like a major flail, I watch a skier do something similar and probably think it's worse than it is. I do think the judges get it right, across categories, scoring wise on non-perfect landings.

[Spooky]

I was sitting at the bar at the ski hill yesterday and they happened to have a replay of one of last year's FWT stops playing on one TV, and a replay of one of the natural selection stops on another TV right next to it.

Granted, the natural selection comps are a bit different and tend to have better snow and more artificial features that are designed to be send-able. But the snowboarding on the natural selection tour is just a lot more fun to watch - big sends, impressive tricks, and a lot less flailing and butt checking. I'm sure a lot of that can be attributed to the above caveats, but I wonder if some of it is just that the FWT isn't regarded quite as highly in the snowboard community, and isn't attracting the top talent.

I think the terrain and features that best showcase snowboarding at the top level are just different to the ones that best showcase skiing, and so holding both disciplines on the same venues is always going to be a bit of a compromise somewhere.

And a lot of it comes down to the fact that having double the planks and double the edges allows skiers to counterbalance much more effectively, especially when it’s variable snow.

[bobinch]

Hitzig, Goguen, Palm, Bender, Ho, Chabloz, Loschi - these young guns are blowing the old guard away


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[powdork]

That's what's weird about the snowboarding. The young guns can't seem to touch the old guard. Her segments from early TB Films (mid 90s ) were awesome

[gaijin]

Good God, Thank You.

[gaijin]

[Could everyone please refrain to the white courtesy phone, please...}

All of you jibbers, if you could please slow down and start riding like the Jealouse's of yesterday-year... we'd be much appreciated.

P.S. That was a really nice throw back.

We love you, Victoria.

[powdork]

Afterword I went down the rabbit hole and bought the 22 minute segment from The Standard Show available on FuelTV. Definitely worth the $2.50
https://plus.fuel.tv/detail/d4f39e3a...ca5717/episode

[toast2266]

That's what's weird about the snowboarding. The young guns can't seem to touch the old guard. Her segments from early TB Films (mid 90s ) were awesome

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's great riding and fun to watch. And while good snow certainly helps, the snow in Georgia looked pretty damn good, and there wasn't any riding like Jealouse was doing 25 years ago.

[claymond]

I'm honestly really surprised by this whole conversation. It's interesting to hear how different we are seeing the men's snowboarding. I'm seeing very strong well put together runs, you guys think it's awkward and flaily. I certainly enjoy watching tour and qualifier snowboarding much more than other comp types. I love the skiing too.

Women's snowboarding on the tour is far behind and not getting better though.

[bobinch]

Bender FTW 🥳

[bobinch]

Bec is looking incredible

[gaijin]

Bro. I don’t recall that much fill ever.

Am I wrong?


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