Capital 17 Blog

Sweet Canada, land of opportunity, hockey, maple syrup, ceasar’s, B.C bud and snow ghost’s. It was late Feb when I set off to experience some of the Big White
champagne powder I hear so much about. Unfortunately Canada was experiencing one of the warmest winter’s for 100 years, so champagne powder, actually any kind
of powder was not on the playing cards.
Even without great snow Big White welcomed me with warm open arms, supplying me blue bird conditions 90% of the time, all the time. After Biggies we set off to Silver
Star the sister mountain which was just as great with many tree lines, jibba jabbers and a killer park. All in all, Canada was most kind to me and a big thank you
goes out to Rob at guest services who was kind enough to hook us up with free lift tickets… Cheers Rob.

After Canada I set out for L.A to visit a friend and experience some split boarding in the surrounding mountains. For all who don’t know, split boarding involves first
finding some shreadable terrain, loading a pack up with a shovel, first aid, probe and wearing a beacon in case you are crushed by a slide.
When all these are on you start the long hike ( skinning ) to the peak checking the snow conditions on the way up.
I have a new found respect for the split board community, this is not easy. You need to be extremely fit and have an excellent knowledge of the mountains
and snow types, both of which I am not. After sweating around 2 litres, I finally made it to the top, clipped the board back together and got busy choosing an un-tracked line to the bottom, sweet untouched lines!!!!.
In conclusion this trip was a complete success with many life long friends ( and a couple enemies ) made and many lines shredded to the maxi extreme limit.
I now feel more like a most vertical primate!.
peace’s Scott……..

If you like sweet mountains, rad scenery, flight of the concords, sheep, marmite, kiwi fruit, pavalova and fush and chups then New Zealand is definatley worth making a trip too. We at Capital are partcial to all those, so the logical thing was to bail there for some spring slashing.

Scotty, Andrew and myself along with some of our close hommies headed  trans tasman at the end of September to tour the land of the long white cloud. The trip ended up being quite eventfull with boards flying off car roofs, a busted knee, one hella dirty van, skimming rocks at the best lakes i have been too and heaps of snowboarding and skating.

As soon as you start driving across the country you think your going to see Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee cruising on there way to Mordor. The countryside is awesome with snowcapped mountains everywhere, super green hills and rad lakes better than the last. The resorts are killer too with lots of interesting  and challenging terain and most have well mantained parks to butter your muffin on. Stay posted for some photos and footage of the trip very soon.

Peace!

• The massive movie from Burton is about to hit the screens! Get tickets from us and come and see the biggest snowboard movie ever to be made. Shane tells me that all the Burton riders were  signed exclusively for this movie only, and that the Mack Dawg director made it for them. Here is the link for the teaser.
• 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPQP0tEAtzo&feature=channel_page

Capital17 Open Season Members celebration

Capital17 has finally re-opened its doors at 9-11 Hardware lane. To celebrate, we are throwing a medium sized party this Friday 19^th  in the new store to show off our new lay out and thank our loyal customers.

 Arrive around 6pm, we will be  serving FREE BEER all night and  giving away 150  Burton t-shirts. Also  to  all on our mailing list we would  like to give  a free wax and edge if you bring your stick down.

 Rustle, rustle,  that’s the sound of  150 shirt’s moving around a box,, yeah you heard free Burton shirts!!!!, So come down bring your mates and we will start winter 09 with the sweet taste of brews,,  !!

It was the end of April when I saw what was a huge cold front on the way which seemed to be cold enough to bring a substancial amount of snow. Surely not enough to warrent getting the board out? Sure enough, two days later I made the call to my mate Sammy, as soon as he answered the phone he said “When are we going?”  Luckily enough I had the next day off!  So I made a few phone calls to rally up the boys and before you know it we had a car load of eager snowboarders ready to hit the slopes.  We were up on buller by 10.30am planning to build a jump on the Chamoix aerial site. But when we got up there we saw that the road to the top of Baldy was open and clear.  There was about 35cm of untracked fresh snow covering the slopes and the sun was shining.  We did Paper/Rock/Scissors to see who was going to drive the car on the first run and drove up to the top of Baldy.  Three of us then proceded to ride down to the bottom Clock Tower in the Village while the fourth drove the car down to pick us up.  We did four or five runs in this manner before heading over to Chamoix to build a kicker.  The snow was the perfect consistency for the manufacturing of a jump.  It only took us 40 min before we had a nice sized 40 foot booter.  I offered to be the guinea pig and proceded to hike up and charge the jump for the first time.  We kept hiking and hitting the jump until about 4 pm in the afternoon, sunk a six-pack in the sun and headed back to Melbourne with massive smiles on our faces.     What A Day !!Building the kicker in perfect conditions.Chamoix at it’s finest!

As most of you would have noticed by now, Capital 17 is no longer at 17 Hardware Lane.  It has now moved upstairs in Auski which is at 9 Hardware Lane.  This means that you can still find a great range of snow boarding gear just down the road.  All the new stock has arrived for the up-coming season including brands such as Burton, UnInc, Ride, K2, Forum, LibTech, Gnu, Salomon, Analog, Capell, Sessions, Westbeach, 4 Square, Volcolm and many more.  We have tried to re-create the relaxed vibe in a self-contained store for all to enjoy.  We are planning a large re-opening Celebration in the next few weeks with heaps of give aways and free beer.  So we will keep you posted.  We have a shipment of 2010 Burton boards and heaps of 2010 LibTech Skate Bananas arriving early next week.  We look forward to you all coming in to have a look and let us know what you think.

 So this is it, some sweet lady snow has fallen on our hills to spark some love in our hearts and to give us hope for the Australian winter. Sunday we headed to falls to take a few slashes, get some sweet air time and pull a few hammies. We arrived around 12 thirty, after losing the boards and the roof racks half way up, there were no casualties though so we were still pumping the sky. Taking the first chair up we could tell snow cover was minimum, maybe 30 cents and they were in desperate need of more. The home runs were open but patchy and slow. Given the conditions though, with such a small amount of snow it was nice to see Falls had a small park pumping on drovers with a few jibba jabs, rails and jumps, nice one..Fun had by most summed up the day, but I think after the recent dumpage you best get up there and get involved,,, call in sick or quit your jobs and take some turns while the getting’s good.. peaz scott..   

ITS HERE!
SNOW HITS SLOPES AND KEEPS DUMPING… FRI, SAT, SUN

Hands up who wants to win a free snowboard comp.. 

This comp was definitely one of the craziest things i have been involved in for a long time (since world’s largest twister board) . The idea was to give a board, bindings and boots  to a person who really, really wanted it,(instead of a sponsored rider who wouldn’t give it the love and respect it deserves). all they needed to do was put their hand on a board above their heads(4 of them) and the last man/woman would win…Contact had been made with the possible 115 competitors.. that was quickly cut to 75 people and then to a dedicated thirty something crazy crew. The competition started with a party feel, smiles, chatter, basic board holding and beer. A group of focused guys… extremely focused ladies and even a mum and dad (who were to stay the entire night ands day…GO MUM AND DAD).,there to support their fifteen year old son .

These people wanted it so bad.. our plans of basic annoyance was just that.. basic annoyance. Even the continuous replay of a Rick Astley shithouse cheesy tune for over two hours didn’t even make a dint. As the night went on, the bond between the competitors grew.. groups on each board had found a common ground.. an arm outstretched above their heads and an interest in snowboarding.  Time moved on incredibly quickly, water thrown, legs were tied and still the group was only slightly thinner in numbers.. Random crew from the Melbourne CBD were entertained by the Capital 17 crew, ravers, drunk bastards and plain weird arse people loved the idea and stopped and chatted until the morning came,along with it, pythons. This was only a distraction to these hard arses and passing “off their face ravers” wigged out on the pretty colours and each othe’rs shithouse fashion sense. Twelve hours had now passed and now we were still down to twelve.. these people were never going to give up and now they had all bonded with each other and were having (dare i say it) a good time.

After their five minute break the game became harder, music was now gone, blindfolds were applied and left them with no stimulation and the reminder that their arm had been in the air for over eight hours… this cut down the field  down quickly and the remaining eight breathed a sigh of relief when  their eyes enjoyed sunlight again. Not even the prospect of losing the blindfold and having to have your hand on the board while being on your knees could cut the group down to less than four…

THIS WAS NOW FOUR O’CLOCK in the afternoon,the next day,TWENTY ONEHOURS..

The group was still fresh, joking and it looked like it was to go for at least another day. One final test would finish the competition… Horse stance. (squatting there as if you were sitting on a chair without the chair being in place).. so hard that the final person would be chosen in the space of five minutes surely.. This was not to be, two fell by the wayside with relative ease which left us with our final two, the fifteen year old with his parents still in tow and the madly focused asian dude who had been the silent weapon all night. For people who have tried this trial, it is extremely hard, five minutes feels an eternity.. these guys passed this, their muscles crying out after a night spent standing, onward to the fifteen minute mark (are you serious?) ,and after another five minutes with both hands aloft, sweat pouring  and muscles pounding,the winner was chosen.. The asian guy had taken it,the fairy tale fifteen year old had been piped by 30 seconds at the most.

Just incredible. Just absolutley nuts.  We learnt a lot about what to improve, the feel,the timing,the shit we could cause, the fun and what’s involved,we never expected to see the comradery between competitors (phone numbers exchanged and friends made) and a true story unfold before our eyes. This was the first annual comp with many competitors looking forward to next year and meeting them again,i hope they do.TO ALL THE COMPETITORS..YOU GUYS WERE AMAZING..SERIOUSLY FRIGGIN AMAZING….THANKYOU AND SEE YOU NEXT YEAR.! Regards,            

Brett the arsehole judge.

SteelCity2

Resident Evil ‘Ryan Grant’ has been putting his dirty little fingers in a fat ole pie other than Capital17.
Your Man Ry- has been putting together this skateboarding video for you viewing pleasure.
Its rad, expect logie / oscar / Emi nominations a plenty!!
Be one of the first to tell your mates whilst sipping on your fine louis 13th scotch, reading leather bound books and discussing politics with your cigar smokers anonmous buddies.
It seems to be getting a bit of airplay on the site that is bastion of all that is rad / fresh / just plain kooky: YOUTUBE!Click here for more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?