This Sunday, I am taking 2 new guests/victims to Vebier for another “introduction to airboard” day. So far, these ended up always in 2 persons getting addicted and buying a new board the very next day :). As this is turning into kind of “routine”, I decided to post this “how to” video I found with the basics, which take 30 minutes to learn (a few more to master) on the field. We’ll have more people complaining about their sore arms (and legs) next Monday. By the way, an Airboard ranges from 80 CHF (that’s about 50 EUR) for the Softboard model (my 2 “spare/guest” boards) to 500 CHF (300 EUR) for this year’s pro model (mine). You can order or get more info at http://airboard.com. You’ll need normal ski pants and coat, an helmet (goggles recommended) and normal snow boots (no ski or snowboard ones). I also recommend some knee protection (in-line skating kind of). Of course, you also need to be slightly crazy. Since there’s not a lot of dedicated slopes out there, use sled slopes and not-very-crowded ski ones. Have fun.

[video http://fcolaco.com/blog/albums/videos/ablearn.flv]

I forgot to say that I was really glad to start see other Airboarders (actually a group of more than 10 last time). We are growing, even if the attitude from Skiers is exactly the same as when Snowboarders appeared (even when we are using mostly dedicated slopes or the sled/bob runs). Here’s a cool video, also in Verbier, from other airboarders:

First Airboard of the year in a nice sunny Sunday in Verbier (and introducing Roxa & Abdellah as the newest 2 addicts to the sport). And beating a few skiers and snowboarders.
This is in “La Rouge” slope (better for speed than La Tsoumaz even if way shorter).

Day started with the usual morning at the kid’s slopes learning how to steer and to stop. Then moved to La Rouge after lunch with the usual “You are crazy, I am not going down there on this thing!” reaction followed by the “Again! Again!Again!” reaction. Rinse and repeat over 10 times reducing (or eliminating, actually) stops and increasing speed each time.

Ok, ski season is almost officially gone (you never know if fresh snow will still appear now) so my Airboard stuff is going to the basement.
I started hiking again for the last 2 weekends and I guess it will be again like last year: every single sunday somewhere in the Saleve or Jura or around Montblanc.

I am just posting my 2 lame airboard videos of my first day because I had no blog when I started this new addiction. I should also post soon the videos I’ve done with my helmet camera.
Basically I found this because I can’t ski or snowboard (knee injury cause by coffee table accident with alcohol, to explain in another post some day). It is a mix of body/boogeyboard in snow with an inflatable board. Head first, with helmet at high speed. Quite addictive actually. You don’t see a lot of Airboarders yet but they start to appear. I bought 2 boards so I don’t do it alone and invite a victim.

There’s also these ones with more extreme airboarding:

A lot more airboard videos on my dedicated page (click).

Here it is: the very first post in this blog. And by the way, what is this all about? Well, this will be the place where I’ll post a lot of nonsense pictures, weird videos, useless articles I might come up with and whatever I decide to post, whenever I decide to post, after all, this is my blog.