Viva La Slopestyle Revolution!

casual

casual

Active member
This is a post of mine from another thread about a "slope" course made up entirely of rails. Sounded like a railjam to me, but it got me thinking. I created a new thread because I'd like to hear other people's thoughts about a NEW kind of slopestyle contest that breaks away from the traditional "multiple hit Big Air comp with a few plastic and metal things in the way" slopestyle comps. that are en vogue. Here we go:
My biggest gripe with slope courses is that there is truly only 1 "line". Sure, there's usually a box option alongside a rail feature and a lot of courses feature jumps with two different takeoffs—and sometimes a jib option alongside of the takeoff—but at the start gate, all the competitors know that the podium runs will be pretty much identical save how many degrees of spin they contained, and how smoothly those degrees were...spun.
I'd rather see a slopestyle contest that is much more progressive with a true diversity of features. I'd like a course to have small jumps (or jumP...as in one of them), rails, an urban stairset/ledge, wall ride, a tap/stall feature, a roller/knuckle, a butter pad, boxes, some kind of gap/drop, a quarter pipe, a hip, etc., as opposed to what appears to be a nearly universal 2-3 jib into a 3-5 jump line slope format we see.
What makes "street" comps (skate, bmx, inline) so compelling and exciting is that riders all approach the course in distinctive ways and choose vastly different lines based on their own ideas about flow, rhythm, and capitalizing on their strengths. Basically, choosing a line, and being creative is ESSENTIAL to winning a street event. Obviously, skiing is a downhill sport and creating a course with a multitude of options is limited relative to other action sports where turning around and rehitting features is an option. But, in principle, it's possible to design a course with this idea in mind.
Bringing this sort of creative element to ski slope events and forcing riders to make choices as opposed to just tucking into the next kicker preparing to spin as fast as possible after barely touching down on a "cannon box" (ugh.), would make for much more enjoyable contests for everyone involved—other than gapers who are only interested in flips done over big jumps at high speeds.
How cool would it be to see riders like Max Hill, Adam Delorme, Brady Perron, Phil Casabon, and other versatile shredders who don't spend summers on water ramps and trampolines dominate a competition scene? A course like this would truly reward those riders with a staggering amount of diversity in their abilities.
Scoring would probably be a bit (read: a loooot) more subjective, but maybe any sort of pathetic attempt to "quantify" tricks relative to one another could be thrown out the window, and scoring would be based solely on overall impression....maybe even rider judged? Let's face it...the results wouldn't be any more controversial than they already typically are.
Thoughts?
 
its alot like what they were trying to do with the Orage Masters early on in Mammoth. I love the idea.
I was just talking to a friend about having jump lines that were set up like bmx trails...rollers, step up hips, transfers, etc. really coooll
 
i definately agree with this that would be sweet although you are right scoring would be very controversial
 
Of course...definitely still a place for the jump slayers in the competition world. I'm not really suggesting an out and out replacement, but the more progressive and varied course as an addendum and/or separate event.
Or maybe it would be like how certain golf courses favor guys who are long off the tee, where others favor guys with solid short games and precision. Another analogy would be that some ski race courses are slower and favor technical skiers where as others favor powerful/fast skiers.
So, maybe the Mt. Snow Open (totally hypothetical) would be a tech/flow/diverse feature course, whereas the Breck Dew Tour stop would naturally be a traditional slope course that favors jumpers.
ALSO....let me clarify....I'm not necessarily saying that this new style of slope course has to be minishredish or feature low consequence features. The new course type could still feature XL features but one's that are not traditional table/stepdown jumps intended to show off a rider's spinning ability alone.
 
ive always thought that having a run like a skate course, snow ledges, hubbas, drops, snow ramps and quarter pipes, amke the skiers think about doing stuff creatively
 
I agree....but is that truly an issue?
I'd argue that to a large extent current judging/scoring formats for slope events are largely subjective, are they not?
It appeared to me that Bobby Brown did more spinning and inverting than Tom Wallisch did at Euro X; two of the things that obviously play a major role in scoring. But, Tom Wallisch's run APPEARED (imo) to be cleaner and more cleanly executed. So, paradoxically, even though I think Bobby upped Tom in many of the tangible aspects of a slope run, I STILL think Tom deserved the win. Why? Well...I don't really know other than that my "overall impression" of Tom's run was that it was better (if I were pushed to say more, I'd mention landings, quiet upper body, length/type of grabs, speed maintenance—seemingly landing directly at the sweetspots).
And, no.....I'm not just on Tom's dick, nor do I think my preference for his run has anything to do with hyphiness, ignance, or outerwear choices.
Basically..tons of competitions are decided almost solely on subjectivity/personal preference/"overall impression". Cook offs are a good example.
 
Yeah....I don't know that the interest is there, or furthermore if our relatively small/poor industry could support an entirely separate competition discipline at this point.
BUT....I'd love to see just that. Thinking of Adam Delorme and Garrett Russell having a Tanner and Simon-like "rivalry" at X makes my heart smile. A non-competitor's competition if you will.
 
this, plus one idea to add...

spinning would still be great, just more creative, spins onto rails and wall rides, still great and could be awared for 'tech' or style, but the level of competition would certainly still stay high. There would just be a more fun vibe i think.
 
true, the cooking analogy is a good one haha. i guess i sort of meant that to the overall freeskiing community, it will appear to be an issue...but then again, so is the style of judging right now.
 
well said.

i actually think the breck dew tour stop started to do this a tiny bit, with the wallride and gap to propane tank.

xgames had the hitching post too, which was another awesome addition.

another problem however lies in how much more technical some of those features are. for example no one ever hits the kink rails, oping for gap to disasters because lets be honest, its a lot easier to get a solid 4 disaster than actually some swaps or pretzels through the kinks. and in the long run today its not worth the risk, since rails feature almost no value in most slope comps, its all reliant on jumps.

so judging would also have to be reformed, to actually have equal weight between rails, bonks, rollers etc, and jumps.

finally, theres only so many features you can put in a course before it just becomes too physically straining. look at euro x, half the competitors looked like they were going to have coronary's by the time they reached the bottom (lay off the puff puff guys). theres only so many features you can put in a course before its just too tiring, unless you allow competitors to stop mid run, in some sort of jam sesh (like the maloof money cup in skateboarding, where its basically just a mob of dudes hucking themselves around the course, and resting when they want, since its like a 15 min jam.)
 
Loon gives us a setup somewhat like this to do our weekend of contests on, makes for really great stuff. We've always tried to push for something like that, where creativity in lines plays a role, though when you're going down a hill there's only so much you can pack in a single run.

skip to 1:45 for the two final runs, then some of the Battle stuff after, there need to be more courses like this, or better yet, with more shit packed into it!

Courtesy of Newschoolers.com

flash_video_placeholder.png

 
X games hitching post was sweet. Somehow it didn't wreck the rider's momentum.

A comp like this would be a ton of fun to watch. It might feel more like a movie segment.
 
there could be two or three judges for each section of the course and each one scoring their section out of 50 or 100, averaging the two judges for that section's scores and then adding the average scores for each section to create a final score. this is how slopestyles are done at my home resort.
and i love the idea of this. it would be so much more fun to watch and it would definitely change up who would be on the podium in every comp.
 
thatd be sick, but it would be hard to get enough judges. idk how many judges judge x, 5 i think?
 
I remember seeing more hips and quarter pipes and wall rides and generally more variety back in the early days of slopestyle. Hips and quarters would be nice to have.
 
What about peer scoring? I've seen it in some comps before, maybe not skiing, I can't remember where actually. But once everyone throws down, the riders then judge which of them was best.

For big comps, where all the pros are pretty good friends, it would work. Because they know they'll look like douches in front of everyone else if they vote for themselves, or vote tactically.

Just a thought.
 
Yeah, I threw that out there in the original post....I think it could work. Who better to know how difficult a particular line or trick was on a particular feature than the other guys out there hitting the same stuff?
 
such a good idea. i've always thought that traditional slopestyle limits so many talented skiers like the TC guys, Garret, Max and others. this would be a great style of competition.
 
get behind this NS! maybe hold a NS open somewhere, have each ns member donate a few dollars to the purse and all submit potential features or entire courses? this could actually work!
 
there is definitely some potential with this idea. the setup could be similar to the stratton us open setup on some recent thread (can't find the pics but if you have of posting them would help) where you can hit the features both ways. in this case, the course would have to be bowl shaped and skiers will have to be very good at choosing their line in order to keep their momentum so they can get the maximum amount of hits. they also have had some similar setups for the dew tour a few years back where there were more options of what you could hit. quarter pipes would surround the bowl shaped course and rollers would be strategically placed to make this possible. once again, definite potential.
 
This was only the second year of the Winter Dew Tour...are you talking about the summer Dew Tour?
Bowl shaped course? That sounds a little far fetched. Want to elaborate?
I was thinking about an extremely wide slope course with a variety of features and rider's choice for a start point. The course would be built allowing the rider to weave back and forth while always moving downhill. The course would be much slower than a traditional slope course, and the bottom could feature a setup similar to that recent snowboard event where a bunch of "up rails" led into quarter pipes allowing the riders to the use the features as down rails.
The course could even feature a built in "pit stop". It could be a mid-course giant roller where the rider could stop in the middle of....catch his breath like most do in street skate comps, and setup for his last line. Orrr....the rider could treat the roller like a jump, butter pad, knuckle jump if he wanted to keep speed.
Possibilities are endless.
 
it was last year's winter dew tour. i didn't mean bowl as in the shape of a salad bowl i meant it more as how you meant it, a wide trail that is shaped like a bowl on a mountain with hide sloping sides, making it easier to traverse. and the stratton setup i was talking about is the same one you are thinking of. sorry for the confusion
 
ya I thought that was a really good idea. hopefully there will be more features like that so riders can get super creative
 
I know that spin-to-win is a stupid thing, and I absolutely agree, but I also don't like the fact that everyone is trying to change the sport by changing the contests. I think it's up to the skiers to change the sport. BUT the skiers want to win, so they do what the judges like.

I just think the sport should evolve naturally, without everyone trying to complain and change everything about it by doing drastic things.

(this quote was not meant as an attack towards you)
 
definetly a sick idea dude, really well summed up and everything. I fyou noticed the most variety was done on the hitchin post in the x-games, a more creative set-up. But one feature like that isnt enough. So i def. agree with ya on that.

And that loon mtn comp looked amazing
 
I'd like to think that if a setup looked something like this, skiers wouldn't blow it and do boring stock shit on it.

flash_video_placeholder.png

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top