illBlood:i understand that you think shaun is a stuck up, overrated, whiney little baby, but i mean seriously, come on, give him a break. hes young as hell. and do you honestly think hed be on the burton team if he werent as good as he is? that dude has got more skill then a lotta people give him credit for. yeah, hes known for how hard he rips in pipe and park, but ive watched videos of him hittin crazy jibs wherever he can find em, doin *** that JJ does, goin powder riding with terje, and he can only get better. im sure all of his life hes been hittin parks, cause thats what young kids do, they hit the parks cause its bada**. but now thats hes gettin older, hes gettin into different things. hittin backcountry, bowls, all kinds of *** that hes never done. but when you seem him in a pipe, gettin as high as he does, doin the *** that he does in the air, its insane. feel me?
no one is arguing about his skill, thats obvious
Paulg:The thing I dislike about Shaun White is the fact that he and what he does is what everyone outside of snowboarding sees snowboarding as. I guess it isn't really his fault but it annoys me when you hear people talking about how he's the best snowboarder ever when that just isn't true. I'll agree, that he's definitely one of, if not the best at winning comps, particularly pipe comps, but as we all know that isn't what snowboarding is all about.I do have to agree with Ken and Doc here, skills are skills and while he chooses to focus them on pipe and slopestyle riding it isn't a hard stretch to believe that when he decides to retire from competition and go all mountain, he'll kill it there.
Iced_endeavor: You saying you know lots of guys who ride backcountry for a living. Well so do I, and when I see them in the park I have completely different expectations than when I see someone like JP. I don't expect some guy who drops cliffs into pow all day to be able to front board a huge kink when he hasn't seriously stepped to a rail, but JP is supposed to be the jib king, so the expectations I think are a little bit higher when he's in the park as opposed to say a Kale Stephens. Also I could also take the approach that JP should be pushing himself in the park since that's the training grounds for what he does. I'm wiling to bet most of the tricks JP's done over the years that were considered groundbreaking at the time he learned in the park, probably not all them but a lot of them. Anyone who's spent anytime in the shred industry knows how many insanlely cool people there are. Unfortunately there are poeple who just suck, not in their riding abilities but as a person. Just because a company has figured out a way to properly advertise a guy in magazines, and he's landed a couple small video parts doesn't mean he's a cool guy who deserves tons of respect. I think I may see he worst side of it all living in Whistler and getting to see just how douchy some shreds are on a daily basis so I may be tainted. the difference between pro women such as Natasha Zurek, Priscilla Levac, MFR and Annie Boulanger and some of the other ones out there is ridiculous.
confused:Here's another rant This winter I went on a trip with a fairly big pro. Someones Global rider. We were at this resort and some people noticed he was there. So we shred and whatever, we weren't really intown for the hill but more some other shredding the town had to offer. Back at the ghetto ass hotel(yes some riders don't stay in the 4 seasons everywhere they go) this group of workers were talking about my friend and our group. They knew every spot we were at on the hill. THey knew what happened and this one guy asks "so was he good?" one of the replied "ah he didn't do anything special" It's like, god damn, we're just on the hill shredding. Why is he supposed to do something "special" That *** bugs me, just how everyone doesn't even think about judging a rider they see on a hill. I sat there and laughed as they talked about him, luckily they were pretty nice but man, im glad im not a pro shred. They try to entertain you and you guys just keep pooping on em!
I hear you bro but not sure how this rant is warranted. If you are paid to shred part of your job is to "entertain" your audience/fans. I don't think anyone likes to continuously sign autographs or pose for photos but that's part of the job. In the same manner doing something "special" whenever you ride in public is part of the in-built expectations fans have of you. Everyone wants to know what makes you special since you get paid to have fun while the rest of us work at a desk. If you see Michael Jordan in a gym (in his prime) I guarantee you're hoping to see him dunk or shoot a fadeaway. Although it sucks it seems like a pretty normal reaction to me.
Ken: confused:Here's another rant This winter I went on a trip with a fairly big pro. Someones Global rider. We were at this resort and some people noticed he was there. So we shred and whatever, we weren't really intown for the hill but more some other shredding the town had to offer. Back at the ghetto ass hotel(yes some riders don't stay in the 4 seasons everywhere they go) this group of workers were talking about my friend and our group. They knew every spot we were at on the hill. THey knew what happened and this one guy asks "so was he good?" one of the replied "ah he didn't do anything special" It's like, god damn, we're just on the hill shredding. Why is he supposed to do something "special" That *** bugs me, just how everyone doesn't even think about judging a rider they see on a hill. I sat there and laughed as they talked about him, luckily they were pretty nice but man, im glad im not a pro shred. They try to entertain you and you guys just keep pooping on em! I hear you bro but not sure how this rant is warranted. If you are paid to shred part of your job is to "entertain" your audience/fans. I don't think anyone likes to continuously sign autographs or pose for photos but that's part of the job. In the same manner doing something "special" whenever you ride in public is part of the in-built expectations fans have of you. Everyone wants to know what makes you special since you get paid to have fun while the rest of us work at a desk. If you see Michael Jordan in a gym (in his prime) I guarantee you're hoping to see him dunk or shoot a fadeaway. Although it sucks it seems like a pretty normal reaction to me.
McBain:LOL we're comparing 1080s to dunking a basketball now.
MichiganBoarder19:ya people in michigan are just like that they think if you cant do 900s and stuff like that, that your not really snowboarding, its bull ***