PIMP MY RIDE
In our pursuit of snowboard perfection, Mike and I decided to get our act together and enrol on the BASI Grade 3 course in Zermatt. A late season jolly that would enable us to teach snowboarding worldwide. If only it was that simple.
Two weeks of total snowboarding mayhem. You've seen Pimp my Ride. Well this was not far off. Only we thought we were already pimped out enough. Little did we know. Every day for 8 hours our snowboarding was stripped from us and tossed in the bin. Then slowly a few old bits were chromed and put back in, pumped up suspension was added, our edges sharpened, wide boy stances tweaked and new paint job (sunburn) added the finishing touch.
It was crazy. We entered as blinged up Nova's and left as beafed up Hummers, or more commonly refered to as, BASI Snowboard Instructors. Our Instrutcor, Neil McTwist Air (McNair) did a wicked job on us. Not quite as ghetto as X to the Z, but enough to steeze us in the right direction.
Every day he would throw in a series of tests that challenged our very being, every turn working on correcting our riding and turning us into solid riders. Now he did not create robots, but made us more rounded riders, taking us from piste bunnies to mogul and pipe chargers and we were stoked that after two weeks we managed to survive and pass.
So what else went down in between piste bashing. Well we managed to get about 2 hours a night free, so that was mainly spent talking shit and wondering why the hell we were paying for this course and drinking cheap beer/wine, before we passed out knackered.
Yet at the weekend we managed to have some time to ourselves, so some quality powder riding was squeesed in between hitting offpiste booters and going for some crazy walks down abandoned gourge trails.
Back to our hotel packed of budding BASI recruits we managed to see the travelling 5ft palm tree move from room to room before it found it's final resting place in the loo of beavis and butt head (Josie and Charlie), our riding piss takers for the course.
Other choice moments included:
The singing midget in one of the local bars, who sparked up a wicked mix of Roxette, The Stones and Abba, with a nice 'We Love BASI' on our last night.
Phil thinking the Matterhorn was handmade.
Hamish getting locked up by the Police and having to be bailed out for 900Fr.
Terry our 50 year+ jibber and his amazing magic tricks whilst trying to teach our group to do syncronized 180's down the piste.
Mike and I getting the weirdest looks from Italians and we stage a photo shoot in Venice dressed in our snowboard gear and strolling round with our boards. Things you do with a spare day in Europe.
The Battle of the Britain warm up where we pretended to be German and British fighter pilots in our planes, kicking the ass out of each other.
Getting air out of the 20ft pipe for the first time.
A great game of shoe golf which started with Josie firing her shoe onto a balcony and having to retrieve it.
Stav and his Chamonix story of the bleeder bird from Bard-up - total classic.
I'm off to smoke another pancake.