Vincent Cheung

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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Snowboarding in the prairies?

My rental



Frost Fire


It's funny how you don't speak to someone for 6 or 7 years, and even back then you didn't really speak, and then suddenly you're going snowboarding together! Similar stories has been told several times over for me. I didn't talk to Rob, Chris, Jill, Nusraat, and others back in high school. It's not that we didn't like each other (ok, well, I was predisposed to not like Chris, but that's a whole other story). We were all civil to each other. It's just that we had different social groups (I was obviously in the cooler group ;)). It was only after high school did I become friends with them, mostly b/c Rob, Chris, and Nusraat were in engineering with me.

I went snowboarding at Frost Fire with Christy just across the border in North Dakota. It was actually better than I thought it was going to be. The runs were short, easy, and there weren't many of them, but that was to be assumed. The vertical drop was about half of Blue Mountain's, which itself is about 1/4 the size of a real mountain. The "blues" were actually "greens" and the "black diamonds" were "blues". Despite all this, I still had a lot of fun! The snow conditions were pretty good and the runs were groomed well. It's funny that we weren't actually snowboarding on a mountain. The prairies don't have mountains. We were snowboarding in a valley!!! I donno, I found that funny. It was weird b/c when we got to the slopes, we started at the top of the runs, as opposed to the bottom of the mountain whereby you would then have to take the chair lift to the top :)

I got my ass handed to me time and time again. At the end, I was taking a head start and Christy still beat me to the bottom! In my defense, I haven't been snowboarding since high school :p. I also haven't ridden with anyone even half as good, as I have been going with people that just learned recently, so I haven't been going fast as it's boring to have to wait at the bottom. It's good to go with someone better than you so you can learn.

I tried jumping for the first time, which was fun :). I landed my first jump, which was more of a hop. The second time, I was a little too aggressive with my jumping and didn't land flat and took a bit of a fall. I just needed to test my limits. We also rode switch (other foot facing down the mountain) a few times, which was interesting. It's like trying to do anything with the other foot/hand. You end up having to relearn how to do things. Try brushing your teeth with the opposite hand. Riding switch obviously involved falling. After about 3 tries, I did manage to do a few turns and that was the only time I beat Christy down the slope (I'm refraining from using the word "mountain" or "hill", b/c it was neither). Let's not argue about how long I was riding switch vs regular, etc., etc. :)

I was able to get in and out of my bindings much faster than Christy (and beat her to the lift) b/c the rental I had had "flow" bindings, which with just one switch, my boot could go in or come out of the binding. I rented from Gord's b/c I didn't bring my board to Winnipeg as I didn't think I'd be going snowboarding. It was good though b/c it gave me the chance to try some good equipment. It wasn't however, good enough to convince me that I need new equipment considering that I just bought mine. The boots were a bit more comfortable than mine and the board felt pretty good, but not substantially different than mine, despite it being 156 cm instead of my 151. It was hard to really compare the two b/c the snow conditions were good (not bumpy, hard, crunchy, or icy) and I've ridden in a lot of crap. It was also a brand new board b/c all their rentals were out :)

6 Comments:

Anonymous said...

how much was it all? rentals, passes, etc? at what point do you buy your own board?

Anonymous said...

I am interested to know why you were predisposed to not like me. Is it because I went to CJH, and we were too cool? :)

Anonymous said...

I went to CJH, too, and he didn't talk to me either...

It was a good day, and I was more than happy to hand Vince his ass on a platter time and time again. And the one time that he "apparently" beat me, I let him. Really. Muhahahahaha!!

- Christy (who doesn't have a Google account)

Vince said...

Let's not forget who took the first fall of the day ;)

You can select "Other" and write in a name rather than non-anonymously commenting anonymously. Apparently all the CJH kids have problems with that, as I had to teach Chris as well.

Speaking of which, Chris, I was predisposed not to like you before I even met you b/c Anne, having had the displeasure of training with you in Manta, didn't like you. But you kinda grew on me after 7 years of school together :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah...well, the CJH kids like to...um... think outside of the box.

- Christy

Vince said...

Oh you CJH rebels! That's why that area is called the bad part of the good part of town (good part of town meaning the south).

Nusraat, if you get this message, the rental from Gord's was $25, the pass was $28 US. I got my own gear b/c last season I joined the U of T ski and snowboard club and I was going every week. Once I decided that I liked snowboarding and was gonna stick with it, I bought my own gear b/c it would pay for itself pretty quick going every week and it was better than the rentals from the ski resort.

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