January2012

EARLY SEASON EDIT

Mr.Jon Weaver and David Doome of Shadowplay Films put this edit together for me. Some contest footage, early season Hintertux footage and a little interview. Thanks so much guys, stoked on how it turned out! I need to film more ha.

 

Enjoy and let me know what you guys think!

 

S.

 

 

Spencer O’Brien getting after it. from The Good Life on Vimeo.

DAVOS

I decided to stay in Davos after O’Neill Evolution because it wouldn’t stop snowing and I had some time to spare in my schedule. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stay and ride powder so my Nike TM Jon Weaver called up Cyril Muller to come shoot me and Jan Schererr for a few days. We spent two epic days riding a deserted mountain and shooting in the trees. Cyril is an insane photographer and so awesome to work with. I’m always super stoked when I get to shoot with him, even more so when it’s in conditions like we had. It was such a nice change of pace to do something spontaneous and get to ride out of my element. I miss getting to go out on my sled and following the snow. I grew up looking up to Brian Savard, Victoria Jealouse, Jamie Lynn and DCP so it’s fun to get to go out and emulate them. Snowboarding like that makes me remember why I do it, it puts the biggest smile on my face.

 

Anyways, here’s a few shots, mostly courtesy of Jon Weaver. Check out his blog here, it’s a keeper. I’m in Breck right now riding with the Megamo and the TOC crew. That’s Tons of Cash for those of you unaware. Fun to shred for a bit with a good crew and practice some tricks before X Games. That beast is only a week away, oh shit.

 

Talk soon,

 

S.

 

O’Neill Evolution

After a week of family time in Vancouver and Whistler over the holidays I flew to Zurich, Switzerland for the O’Neill Evolution in Davos. I don’t really do big air contests but I needed about 15 more points to get into the top 12 on the TTR Slopestyle Ranking list so I decided to go. World Championships is in February and the top 12 women get to skip pre qualifiers so I really wanted to move up. The first day of the event was good, sunny all day and decent snow. The big jump had a lot of compression though and most people weren’t feeling it. I did my best to get a few tricks on it and get used to it knowing that they’d mellow it out for the next day. The following day it had snowed a solid foot and a half so I skipped the first half of practice and did some epic powder runs with Jon Weaver, Sage Kotsenberg, Jamie Nicolls, Ethan Morgan and a bunch of other homies. The next two days all it did was snow and all we did was ride powder. Davos has some insane terrain that you don’t even need to hike to get to and no one rides it!

 

The mornings of the event we were lucky to have a bit of a break in the winter. No snow and in and out sun. Semis went alright, I did a decent run but got a pretty bad score and by the time my 2nd run came around I was sitting on the bubble in 8th, not a good spot when girls like Kjersti and Enni aren’t ahead of you and still have to drop. I landed the same run and got bumped into 3rd place…don’t know why but screw it, I’ll take it haha. Finals went really well and I landed my first two runs of a front seven to gap front lip and front seven to gap front board. I fell on my final run, but I was sitting in first with only two girls left to drop. Isabel didn’t get her back rodeo as clean as she would have liked and Sina ended up under rotating her seven a little bit so I came out on top. I’m super stoked to win a TTR event after all these years. Believe it or not I’ve never won one before, they have never really been my forte ha. In the end it was me in first, Sina Candrian in 2nd and Austrian rookie rider Anna Glasser. I had to media the rest of the day, so no more powder for me but that meant I got to spend time with the lovely Fabia and Ingrid! Was nice to get some girl time in as well and catch up with good friends. All in all the O’Neill Evolution might be my new favourite event, next year they should just have a powder contest.

 

Check out the photos and a few videos below.

 

Talk soon,

 

S.

Watch more snowboarding videos


More Snowboarding Videos

Breckenridge Dew Tour

The 4th year of the Breckenridge Dew Tour went down a few weeks ago. Yes, I’m aware that this blog is long over due and that a contest held in December is pretty much irrelevant a week after it happens never mind almost a month after, but I suck at blogging. Deal with it. I love competing at the Dew Tour, the courses are always on point and they treated girls equal from day one. That isn’t the case this year as they’ve cut women’s snowboarding (pipe and slope) from the 2nd stop in Vermont. I’m bummed, it sucks and it’s a huge step backwards for our sport. We were never given a reason to why this happened and I hope that something will be done about it for next season because to me the girls have been stepping it up so much the past few years and it’s a huge let down to have something taken away when we’ve all been working so hard.

 

On a lighter note, the Breckenridge stop was on point. The course was one of the best ones I’ve ever ridden, it had four jumps, three rails and super good flow. On top of an all time course we were blessed with a week of sunshine and one day of snow to keep things nice and soft. Perfection. Semis came and I was feeling good, I had a mellow run planned out and a harder run if I needed it. Things have changed since last season and as I watched the girls practice I realized that my safety run was way too safe and wasn’t going to cut it. I decided to go for my harder run out the gate and fell on the first jump. Rattled. It sucks not landing your first run, it really blows, especially first event of the year when you’re nerves are not in check. I was able to keep mind from blowing things out of proportion and landed my second run, it wasn’t very pretty but I made it happen and qualified through to finals in 4th. The girls were slaying it, I have never seen that level of riding in a semi final ever. Those runs last year would have won any of the events and now they’re just getting us into finals. Yeah girls.

 

The next day Possum Torr, myself, Sarka Pancochova, Enni Rukajarvi and Charlotte Van Gils met up with Jamie Anderson for the finals. Practice went really well for me, I landed my run a bunch of times and was feeling super good going into my runs. I was nervous that what I had wasn’t going to be enough, but it was the run I had planned going into the event so I was stoked to be landing it. In the end I landed both of my runs and ended up winning the event, with Enni in second and Sarka in third. Everyone rode so well and I’m so stoked on the level that everyone is riding at right out of the gate. It was a great way to start the season and it felt really great to win in Breck again. To add to everything my older sister Avis was there and she’s never seen me compete before, it was really nice to have her there, I guess she’s good luck.

 

I’m in Davos now for the O’Neill Evolution and it’s been dumping like crazy. Powder day tomorrow, can’t wait. I don’t think I’m taking this event seriously enough, but I can’t help it when there’s so much powder to be had. Loving it!

 

Talk soon,

 

S.