Freeriding is a style of snowboarding or skiing performed on natural, un-groomed terrain, without a set course, goals or rules. It evolved throughout the sport's formative early years as a contrary response to the highly regimented style of ski competition prevalent at the time. Snowboarders primarily refer to freeriding as backcountry, sidecountry, or off-piste snowboarding, and sometimes big mountain or extreme riding.
Snowboarding is a recreational activity and Winter Olympic and Paralympic sport that involves descending a snow-covered slope while standing on a snowboard attached to a rider's feet.
Skiing can be a means of transport, a recreational activity or a competitive winter sport in which the participant uses skis to glide on snow. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Ski Federation (FIS).
Snow grooming is the process of manipulating snow for recreational uses with a tractor, snowmobile, piste caterpillar, truck or snowcat towing specialized equipment. The process is used to maintain ski hills, cross country ski trails and snowmobile trails by grooming the snow on them. A snow groomer is usually employed to pack snow and improve skiing and snowboarding and snowmobile trail conditions. The resulting pattern on the snow is known as corduroy, and is widely regarded as a good surface on which to ski or ride. Snow groomers can also move accumulated snow made by snow machines as part of a process, called "snow farming".
Freeriding incorporates various aspects of snowboarding into a style that adapts to the variations and challenges of natural, off-piste terrain, and eschews man-made features such as jumps, rails, half-pipes, or groomed snow. To master freeriding is to seamlessly merge these aspects of other snowboarding disciplines such as freestyle and alpine snowboarding into an all-around style - giving you the freedom to make the most of whatever terrain comes your way.[according to whom?] Whereas freestyle snowboarding relies on the use of man-made terrain such as jumps, rails and half-pipes, and alpine snowboarding is done on groomed snow, freeriding utilizes the random flow of natural terrain to perform similar tricks.
A half-pipe is a structure used in gravity extreme sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding, skiing, freestyle BMX, skating and scooter riding.
Due to their use of backcountry routes, freeriders are (proportionally) much more likely to become a victim of avalanches. One estimate considers that about 80% of all avalanche deaths in the Alps occur among freeride/backcountry riders.[1]
An avalanche is an event that occurs when a cohesive slab of snow lying upon a weaker layer of snow fractures and slides down a steep slope. Avalanches are typically triggered in a starting zone from a mechanical failure in the snowpack when the forces of the snow exceed its strength but sometimes only with gradual widening. After initiation, avalanches usually accelerate rapidly and grow in mass and volume as they entrain more snow. If the avalanche moves fast enough, some of the snow may mix with the air forming a powder snow avalanche, which is a type of gravity current.
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, separating Southern from Central and Western Europe and stretching approximately 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries : France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,810 m (15,781 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains about a hundred peaks higher than 4,000 metres (13,000 ft).
While the term “freeriding” originated in snowboarding, some skiers have adopted it in recent years. For many years, the skiing equivalent of freeriding was known as freeskiing and referred specifically to off-piste skiing. However over the years, especially since the arrival of snowboarding, the term "freeskiing" has come to refer to freestyle skiing. This has left traditional “freeskiers” without a name for their style of skiing, and so some now use the snowboarding term instead. This became somewhat official in 2013, when the “Freeride World Tour” absorbed the “Freeskiing World Tour” into its schedule of competitive events.
Freeskiing, or new school skiing is a specific type of alpine skiing, which involves tricks, jumps, and terrain park features, such as rails, boxes, jibs, or other obstacles. This form of skiing resulted from the growth of snowboarding combined with the progression of freestyle skiing. "Newschoolers", or those who specifically ski in this style, as opposed to traditional freestylers, freeriders, big mountain skiers, and racers, are often found in terrain parks, which are designed specifically for tricks.
Freestyle skiing is a skiing discipline comprising aerials, moguls, cross, half-pipe and slopestyle as part of the Winter Olympics. It can consist of a skier performing aerial flips and spins, and can include skiers sliding rails and boxes on their skis. It is also commonly referred to as freeskiing, jibbing, as well as many other names around the world.
Equipment
Freeride snowboards make up a large part of the market as they are the ideal choice for the all-rounder.
A freeride board usually has a directional shape and flex pattern with a nose that is softer than the tail - this helps with turn initiation and with handling cruddy/choppy snow conditions. Overall a freeride board is stiffer tip to tail and edge to edge for a more precise and stable ride. Boots and bindings are usually stiffer than their freestyle snowboarding counterparts as well.
Some freeride boards are designed more specifically for powder than for groomers. Many powder boards are tapered, which means they have a narrower tail than nose. Some have rocker, which means instead of camber these boards have their lowest point between your bindings and they bend up towards the tips. Some powder boards have a swallow tail design which allows the tail to sink easier which in turn keeps the nose up and some have pintails which make the board faster edge to edge in deep snow.
Personalities
Craig Kelly (April 1, 1966 - January 20, 2003) is known as the 'Godfather of Freeriding'; Terje Haakonsen called Kelly the best snowboarder of all time. He shocked the snowboard industry by walking away from multimillion-dollar deals to pursue freeriding.
Craig Kelly was an American professional snowboarder. Kelly is known as the 'Godfather of Freeriding'; Terje Håkonsen called Kelly the best snowboarder of all time. Over his 15-year professional career, he won 4 world championships and 3 U.S. championships; he won the Mt. Baker Banked Slalom snowboarding competition in 1988, 1991, and 1993.
The distinctive fluid manner in which he rode was recognized and acclaimed in the snowboarding community. He was called a "style master" by snowboard magazine editor Jon Foster. Kelly appeared in many video and photo shoots. He was known for looking straight at the camera, even in the midst of a difficult aerial maneuver.
Kelly was a Sims Snowboards team rider for a few years early in his career, but spent most of his life riding for Burton Snowboards. He was responsible for the design and development of many snowboards for the Burton Snowboards brand. The company's founder, Jake Burton, is quoted as saying, “When I started listening to Craig, that was when my company became successful and really took off.” He added, “… when the rest of the industry listened to Craig, that was when the sport really took off.”
Burton Snowboards is a manufacturer of snowboards, founded by Jake Burton Carpenter in 1977, the company specializes in a product line aimed at snowboarders: snowboards, bindings, boots, outerwear, and accessories. The company's flagship store is in Burlington, Vermont. The company is privately owned by Burton and his wife, Donna Carpenter, who has been active in the business since 1983.
Craig Kelly died on January 20, 2003 near Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada in an avalanche which trapped 8 people and killed 6 others. Jacques Russo's film documentary, "Let It Ride", celebrates Craig Kelly's life.
Johan Olofsson (born October 27, 1976) is a snowboarder known for being one of the first riders to take freestyle tricks more commonly performed in man-made terrain parks into the big mountain freeriding environments of Alaska. Originally coming from a freestyle background, Olofsson adapted his spin tricks and jibs to the backcountry environment. He gained attention and respect from the freeriding community when he started performing these tricks off natural features such as windlips and cliffs in the midst of steep lines in the Alaskan ranges.
Jeremy Jones (born 14 January 1975) is a former snowboard racer now regarded as a pioneer of professional big mountain riding. His style is a seminal influence on modern big mountain freeriding.
Travis Rice (born October 9, 1982) is regarded as the “Paul Revere” of the big mountain freestyle movement. Best known for his success in the realm of freestyle snowboarding competition, his ability to adapt his skills to extreme terrain has gained him legendary status in backcountry circles as well.
Competition
Freeride competitions basically involve negotiating steep natural terrain fluidly in a similar approach to slopestyle competitors in a terrain park. However unlike the freestyle discipline of slopestyle, there are no perfect man-made takeoffs or landings - each individual rider's route varies, and is personally plotted out in pre-run inspections. Constantly changing weather and snow conditions add an extra element to these events, and the unpredictably random aspect of freeride terrain contributes to a high risk of personal injury.
The Freeride World Tour is an annually toured series of events in which the world's best freeriders compete for individual event wins, as well as the overall title of World Champion in their respective genders and disciplines. The first event series under the Freeride World Tour moniker took place in 2008. Prior to that it was known as the Verbier Extreme, originally a snowboard only contest launched in 1996 - with skiers also invited to compete in 2004. For the 2013 season, the Freeride World Tour merged with the Freeskiing World Tour and The North Face Masters of Snowboarding, combining all three tours under one unified global championship series.
From 1995-2001 New Zealand's World Heli Challenge invited international extreme snowboarders and skiers to compete in New Zealand's Mt. Cook National Park. The helicopter-accessed competition occurred over a two-week period to allow for weather and snow conditions. In 2001, the tragedy of the 9/11 terrorist attacks interrupted international sponsorship support leading to an eight-year break. Footage from the previous years events continued to play worldwide. In 2009 the World Heli Challenge resumed and has been running annually ever since.
Related Research Articles
Boardsports are sports that are played with some sort of board as the primary equipment. These sports take place on a variety of terrain, from paved flat-ground and snow-covered hills to water and air. Most boardsports are considered action sports or extreme sports, and thus often appeal to youth. A large proportion of youth partaking in these sports, together with aesthetic damage to property from sports like skateboarding, has led to many board sports being marginalized by the greater world of sports in the past. However, many board sports are ever-more frequently gaining mainstream recognition, and with this recognition have enjoyed wider broadcast, sponsorship and inclusion in institutional sporting events, including the Olympic Games.
Ski touring is skiing in the backcountry on unmarked or unpatrolled areas. Touring is typically done off-piste and outside of ski resorts, and may extend over a period of more than one day. It is similar to backcountry skiing.
Backcountry skiing (US), also called off-piste (Europe) or out-of-area, is skiing in the backcountry on unmarked or unpatrolled areas either inside or outside a ski resort's boundaries. This contrasts with alpine skiing which is typically done on groomed trails benefiting from a ski patrol. Unlike ski touring, backcountry skiing can include the use of ski lifts including snowcats and helicopters. Recent improvements in equipment have increased the popularity of the sport.
Terje Håkonsen is a Norwegian professional snowboarder. He is considered one of the most influential snowboarders in the history of the sport. In the book The way of the snowboarder, Rob Reed wrote that "Haakonsen took the young sport of snowboarding and revolutionized nearly every aspect of it".
Freeride is a discipline of mountain biking closely related to downhill biking and dirt jumping focused on tricks, style, and technical trail features. It is now recognized as one of the most popular disciplines within mountain biking.
A splitboard is a snowboard that can be separated into two ski-like parts used with climbing skins to ascend slopes the same way alpine touring or telemark skis are. The two halves can then be connected to form a regular snowboard for descent.
Travis Rice is an American professional snowboarder. He is #13 on Snowboarder magazine’s list of the 20 most influential snowboarders of the last 20 years. The 36-year-old has featured in more than twenty snowboarding films. Rice’s biggest claim to fame was when he arrived at Snowboarder magazine’s Superpark contest at Mammoth Mountain and launched a 'mammoth' of a backside rodeo across a 117-foot gap jump. He has been considered "the Paul Revere" of the big mountain freestyle movement. In 2013, Rice was named the best contemporary snowboarder in the world by Red Bull; Rice was also hailed as one of the greatest snowboarders of all time by numerous writers and publications.
Slopestyle is a winter sport in which athletes ski or snowboard down a course including a variety of obstacles including rails, jumps and other terrain park features. Points are scored for amplitude, originality and quality of tricks. The discipline has its roots in action sports like skateboarding and BMX and has very successfully crossed over into the snow sports worlds of skiing and snowboarding. Skiers use Twin-tip skis for their symmetry since they often go large portions of the course backward and for their balanced weight so don't destabilize spins. Slopestyle tricks fall mainly into four categories: spins, grinds, grabs and flips, and most tricks done in competition are a combination of these.
Johan Olofsson is a snowboarder from Gällivare, Sweden, known for being one of the first riders to take freestyle tricks more commonly performed in man-made terrain parks into the big mountain freeriding environments of Alaska. Originally coming from a freestyle background, when Olofsson arrived on the Alaskan snowboarding scene he quickly adapted his spin tricks and jibs to the backcountry environment. Olofsson rapidly gained attention and respect from the freeriding community when he started doing these tricks off natural features such as windlips and cliffs in the midst of terrifyingly steep lines in the Alaskan ranges.
Backcountry snowboarding is snowboarding in a sparsely inhabited rural region over ungroomed and unmarked slopes or pistes in the backcountry, frequently amongst trees, usually in pursuit of fresh fallen snow, known as powder. Often, the land and the snow pack are not monitored, patrolled, or maintained. Fixed mechanical means of ascent such as ski lifts are typically not present, but alternative means such as splitboarding, hiking, snow shoeing and helicopters ("heliskiing") are sometimes used to reach the mountain's peak.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to skiing:
Nicolas Müller, is a Swiss snowboarder noted for his smooth riding style and his ability to read different terrains and adjusting his riding to the terrain. Muller's distinguished career and ability has led many critics and riders to hail him as one of the greatest snowboarders of all time. Muller has been voted TransWorld Snowboarding's Rider of the Year on two occasions and was also Snowboarder Magazine's Rider of the Year in 2013.
A freeboard is a specialist skateboard designed to closely simulate the behaviour of a snowboard. Freeboards were developed to allow snowboarders to transition to skateboarding without the need to adapt to a smaller deck and narrower wheel-base.
The Freeride World Tour is an annually toured series of events in which the best freeskiers and snowboard freeriders compete for individual event wins, as well as the overall title of World Champion in their respective genders and disciplines. The events take place on what's commonly referred to as "backcountry", "big mountain" or "extreme" terrain - essentially ungroomed powder snow on dangerously steep, mountainous slopes.
This glossary of skiing and snowboarding terms is a list of definitions of terms and jargon used in skiing, snowboarding, and related winter sports.
References
↑ "Gefaehrlicher Maerz". Der Spiegel, 12/2013 (in German). p.147.
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