Snowboarding Avoriaz 2002 For a number of reasons, young, wealthy and good looking English folk decide to leave their home island to spend time out in the mountains over the coldest period of the year. This may seem ridiculous to some, going from a cold place to a ridiculously cold place, but to others it is a great idea. Lets face it, most of the Sidcup crew, and probably our readers too, enjoy copious amounts of skateboarding, going fast in general, drinking booze, smoking blunts, and of course sexual intercourse. You can do all these over in the Alps, and the only place you can skate in London over the winter is Playstation, which is often dripping with condensation and exhaust slime. Think also about the added attraction of flying around on a snowboard jumping off everything in sight as fast as possible, coupled with not having to work (unless you're a mug), the bonus sun tan, young and foolish rich girls, and booze at half price, you can see why it makes so much sense!
Recently, the popularity of doing a winter season has spiraled out of control with year off students poncing beer off each other in mountain bars all over the European and American mountain ranges, dickheads in snowparks trying to do misty flips before they can do a backside air, and even stupid TV programmes about posh seasonaires. Back in '93 when I was in Grenoble this was not a problem, it was me and the French skaters on freestyle snowboards, leaving the rest of the billy bunters (punters) to wear Oxbow and ride hard-boot alpine carving boards, mono-skis and skwals. So how do you tell the wood from the trees? Who's cool and who's fool out there in the hills, now that everyone wears snowboard stuff and looks like a skater? Well, my first proper season in Avoriaz in '95 taught me a lot. The legendary crew of Rhys Crabtree, Sasha Hamm, Mark Kent, Graham Curtin, Mark Munson, Jamie Mason & Rich Kirby with the "Bulldogs" crew taught me the ways of the wise. I found the best way is to go as fast as possible and jump off everything (and land it) whilst snowboarding during the day, and drink as much booze as possible at night, grabbing a blunt or two on the way for good measure. Sure, everyone makes mistakes, I took a load of slams, had 16 stitches in my face in total, became an alcoholic for a while, and was ceremoniously "de-bagged" (removed of my trousers and pants) outside 'discotheque opera rock' in Morzine High Street after doing a "chuck and run" on red wine in the dog pound (bulldogs house), but hey! That's the way we play it.
So what has this got to do with all this story, I hear you ask? Well I am not going to tell you who's cool and who's fool in these pictures, that's for you to decide. There were a lot of Sidcup affiliated crew in the place over various periods: Prawny Naylor and Pea Horse, Mr Weller, Kenty K, Tim the Posh Rapper (the sire from the Shires), Paul Moore, Jamie Mason (with bird), Mark Munson (not with bird), Rich Kirby & N21 massive, Tom Van Bo (Cockfo' massive), Ramraid, the lovely Spam, Boney G and Tats, little Emma from Gravesend, J-U-Ice, and various other hawks who I'm sorry I've forgotten. We had a lot of fun getting real "extreme" out there, Ram even became Ram Shady with his radical snow-surfing attitude and broke a window (ooooh!), the Spam and posh rapper celebrated their birthdays by CD mixing it up in the Cavern, and Greener was the Greener. During the day I led the crew all over the mountains in my beacon-like Rossignol outfit (until I sprained both my ankles & couldn't walk for a week), whilst at night Van Bo was captain of the wobbly booze ship, leaving others trembling in its wake. If this story made enough sense to have a moral, it would be land your jumps, grab your grabs, don't grab your no-grabs, tweak your indy's (Naylor), drink your beer and smoke your rear tyres. Big up to all real snowboarders and skaters, actually fuck that, big up all boozers! See you at the bar!
Downlow Matt signing off
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