Time away in Italy

Well our Will is  travelling home today , after almost 3 weeks away snowboarding. Its the longest he's been away and we are all missing him very much. Sounds like he's had a great time and he's managed to get some much needed practice on the larger kickers ,as that's  the only thing lacking here in the UK.

Its  going to be Will's 12th birthday on Tuesday and so he definitely needed to be home with his family for that, we may have another triple chocolate cake and request for his favourite meal- Peking Duck .

Will's got another 4 to 5 weeks before he's back out on the mountain, we're trying to get Will as much  mountain time as possible without compromising his school work . Back home he has got some fabulous opportunities coming up, ( will keep you posted on those ) including meeting the Red Bull F1 drivers and snowboarding with Eero Ettala at MK Snozone. 

Christmas Dragon News and DOA edit's

Its the build up to Christmas and both boys are really ,really excited. The Christmas tree is up and we've gone through a tub of quality street already.
Apart from Santa's  and family presents though piling up, ready for the big day , there has been some great snowboarding events happening too.

Will has  recently changed google sponsors, so he's moving from Ashbury over to Dragon Alliance. He  has recieved an awesome care package from Dragon Alliance that  he is,  and any snowboarder in their right mind would be, stoked with.

Then today the second edit of the Capita Defenders of Awesome Tour was released. It was a great reminder of a fantastic time for Will riding with some of his snowboarding hero's.


Capita Snowboards - D.O.A 2 Stay Bad Ass UK Tour - Episode 2 from The Riders Lounge on Vimeo.
In the 2nd and last episode of the capita uk tour the guys make their way from Scotland down to Manchester for a shop signing at subvert. After Manchester it's down to Milton Keynes for a short session in the dome. The final leg of the tours takes the team to London for the biggest premiere of the entire tour.
Part one of the tour
Capita Snowboards - D.O.A 2 Stay Bad Ass UK Tour - Episode 1 from The Riders Lounge on Vimeo.
Part one of two, documenting the Capita snowboard team as they tour the U.K promoting their latest movie D.O.A 2 - Stay Bad Ass.
This episode follows the team to Tamworth for a quick demo at the dome and then on to a busy signing at The Snowboard Asylum. The following day the guys make their way to Scotland and hit up Bearden dryslope. For most of the team it was their first ever time riding anything other than real snow.
Enjoy!

London's Ski Snow Show

Last week Will was invited to come and be one of the demo snowboarders at the rail event running at the Ski Snow Show running  at London's Excel . It was both a privilege to be one of the few riders asked to attend, and a challenge since, not only does Will not ride dryslope, he was also a little intimidated at the thought of performing to a large crowd.

Christian Stevenson commentating to the latge crowd

Will had a little ride at Gloucester's dry slope to see if he could ride dry slope, and that proved positive, so the next thing was to go down to the Show . Needless to say Will rode really well and ended up riding on three days of the show.
He got to catch up with some friends down there, and make some new friends too. Billy Morgan and Jamie Nicholl's came down and caught up with Will and the rest of the guys riding who included snowboarders Cody Heiron and the very energetic Sparrow Knox as well as  some of the very talented freeskiing guys too.

Capita Defenders of Awesome tour

Will was really lucky that school allowed him to have time off to join in with the Capita Defenders of Awesome tour. He's spent time both riding and hanging out with US Professional snowboarders Scott Stevens, Brandon Cocard, Dustin Craven and Phil Jacques as they toured the country visiting Tamworth Snowdome , SnowFactor in Glasgow, Chillfactor in Manchester and topped it very nicely in Will's home dome of Milton Keynes Snozone with his very own signature park night. The US pro's were lovely with our Will , really taking time to get to know him as he can be a little quiet. They were also very complimentary of the standard of Will's riding. .

Scott Stevens, Phil Jacques, Brandon Cocard, our Will and Dustin Craven

At his signature park night at MK Snowzone , Will had designed a super technical park ,was riding hard and having a great time, so much so he snapped his snowboard towards the end of the night! Thankfully the lovely guys at Capita are sending him a new board asap so he can go shredding again this week.

Scott Steven's was impressed with Will snapping his board

 Whitelines posted this great pic of Will on their instagram recently too 

Indoor Brits

Its been a real pleasure to watch Will ride recently, he has been having a great time and really pushing the envelope. And he has proved this by doing so well at the recent indoor Freestyle Snowboarding and Freeskiing championships.

Will winning the 12 and under with Lewis Moore 2nd and Lewis Hopkinson 3rd

By riding off the scale Will won the 12 and under catergory but also came 3rd in the overall category against the very talented Matt McCormick who came first and double front flipping 2nd place Cory Copeland. It was a really exciting day and he did us and himself proud.

Will coming 3rd overall after Matt McCormick winning and Cory Copeland 2nd

To cap it all Will is in the latest video edit from team Howl, riding with Will Smith and Ollie Dutton. An awesome edit and a its great for Will to be riding with such inspirational freestyle British Riders..


HOWL UK // RWND from RWND on Vimeo.

Summer Antic's

Thankfully Will's arm seems to have healed really well and he's been upto quite alot these past few weeks snowboard wise.
He had a trip with The Park and Pipe crew to Landgraff Snow World in Holland, his first time away on his own with Ben Kinnear and the rest of the Park and Pipe Crew. Then whilst he was up in Scotland visiting his Nana and Grandad , Will was invited to train with the main GB Freestyle team which included the Matt McCormick, Katie Omerod , Fin Bremner and Thom Robinson. He had a great time riding the Braehead dome as well as skating and having a blast with the team.

Since then Will has been building up to starting secondary school as well as filming a new video edit with Max Presky.

Injury Update and Summer Trip

We've been quiet on the snowboarding front for Will for a number of reasons..
The most obvious one, was Will injured himself snowboarding just after the English Championships. He fell akwardly and broke his arm just above the elbow. Thankfully it was'nt too bad a break and it wasnt too painful for Will.

So Will's been having a break from snowboarding for a while until he was all healed.
In the meantime its been a busy time as primary school came to an end, with a seemly endless ream of plays, assemblies and parties for Will and his brother. He's had a radical haircut too, getting rid of his long locks in preparation for seconday school..

So due to his injury Will wasnt able to go out with Steve for his summer Why Aint you Jibbing Camp, but he is all healed now and ready  to head out for some training with the Park and Pipe Academy out in Landgraff, Holland. This is Will's first time away training independently with Ben Kinnear, but I'm sure he will have a fantastic time.