To kick off a legendary contest you need a legendary dude. At 12,000 feet on Colorado’s Loveland Pass Pat Abramson let all the young bucks know why we were there and how important the pass was the Colorado shred history.
"This is the same place Dale Reahberg, Jason Ford, Russel Winfeild and the ride team shot their '91 catalog and the 1/4 pipe has never looked better" Pat went on to add, "Love Games is a hands on history lesson in snowboarding. These are the jumps we hit and filmed before there were parks. Run-ins and jumps weren't perfect like parks these days. It was a challenge for some riders just to make it to the QP and the Ironing Board. Contests like this keep the roots of snowboarding alive."
With that the 2nd annual love games commenced. Riders had to navigate thin snow conditions a 10 foot ollie over rocks to a highway that led to the 12 ft 1/4 pipe, and it was Pat a who set the bar with some lofty mctwists earning a legend award by days end.
The crowd moved west like a pack of early settler dogs and babies in tow to the infamous ironing board, a feature that even Mikey Leblanc had filmed in the early days.
The ironing board would be the battlegrounds for best method and custom piece of art provided by vans. Again, Pat Abramson sent it deep showing the kids where they needed to land if they wanted any chance at method glory. James Fredrick and Casey Hinderman followed with respectful performances and with each run the bar was raised. In the end Erich Dummer had a little more that locked him in first place.
Next was an addition to the days events provided by Capita’s Daves Graves and Airblaster’s Andy Wise. The two decided to build a log inspired double feature that added a little more modern day jib to the event. Riders like James Mammele showed off period moves on period boards and added a creativity and freshness to new and old tricks. Courtney Cox along with Sandra Hillen showed the boys what was up with front 3's, methods and steez.
At this point nearly six 30-racks of PBR had been consumed and the crowd was getting feisty. Time to move onto the bush gap and really see what the riders were made of.
A quick hitch up the mountain and a mellow hike on the A-Basin side of the pass leads you to the bush gap; a gap that in normal years is mellow and a fun spot to build a entry level side country booter, but not today!
The run in was peppered with shrubs and rocks and the jump was built on a stack of rocks just to shorten the gap; the landing, a mere 3 feet in its deepest spot. Many people stayed at the bottom where they could get a good vantage point of the carnage that was about to ensue.
Richie wanted no test run and just straight sent it earning a winning spot for Pro-Tec's golden helmet award and $100 cash money! While the site of this should have made all the other contestants run home and call it quits, the crew was down and proceeded to send backflips, BS 3s, cab fives and BS 720s one after the other until it was obvious who the event winners were. More importantly, winners were awarded a trip to Tahoe with Analogs Dave Downing and Satellite to ride some of Norcal’s legendary spots.
Women's podium:
1. Courtney Cox
2. Sandra Hillen
3. Ariel Friedman
Men's Podium
1. Casey Hinderman (Trip to Tahoe)
2. Eric Dummer (Volcom limited board)
3. Jake Larue (NS Longboard)
