SIA 2012: Day 1

Four days of 2013 snowboard gear. That’s what SIA is about in Denver, Colorado. Today it all went down, the opening speeches, the first glimpses at what’s coming out for next year and a whole lotta high fives and hugs on the tradeshow floor. This is my favorite time of year and the busiest since I’m a one-woman show but the show must go on!

Each day means appointments and meetings to check out the latest gear. Don’t worry though, this is only the sneak peak. There will be much more detailed posts and pictures on all the gear I’ve checked out at SIA coming up in the next weeks and months.

I was really impressed with Rome this year for turning up the heat on the boards and bindings. So far the women’s Lo-Fi Rocker (seen upper left) is my favorite graphic that stands out and they brought in a women’s splitboard called the powder room. It looks like the Hammerhead to see how that will ride with the crazy shape on the nose and tail. The Blue is now the gold and the new Mob Boss is pretty sweet with the LNP model.

Capita is known for their artsy style board graphics and they continue with a board line of new and old models that express their style of snowboarding. New for this year is the DBX: Dan Brisse x Volcom pro model, Defenders of Awesome FK and Women’s Birds of a Feather FK.

For some reason I skipped by Union Bindings in the morning but then came back to it later on where I was really stoked by the brightness and designs in the room.

Holden definitely has found their niche in snowboarding. New this year, they are really stepping up with the lifestyle clothing with everything from sweaters to jackets. They also have a sweet camera set that will be collectors edition coming out. Mikey Leblanc showed me the line and we caught up on the latest happenings.

Mark from Flow Snowboarding showing what’s inside the Rush board to help with dampening. I call it the boob board. Flow stepped it up with a new binding design NX2 Series

Earlier this year I received Darn Tough Socks from Vermont and found out they really are darn tough. I’ve been rocking them all winter without any issues and they’ve been holding up great. Today I checked out the patterns for next year and why the socks are so good.

I was really excited to see that Airhole Ninja masks and Endeavor would have a booth at SIA this year and they delivered with a great line-up for the 10th anniversary of Endeavor snowboards.

You can always count on Stepchild Snowboards for interesting graphics and good solid boards underneath them. In this photo you can see from L-R: Jibstick, Sleazy Rider, PMS, Simon Chamberlain, Joe Sexton, FTW, Wide Glide.

Timeless style combined with modern technology, that’s Vans snowboard boots. I stopped in to check out the upcoming men’s and women’s models, said hi to Eddie Lee the Vans PLM and shot him munching on the waffle on a stick. On the upper left is the Vans Hi-Standard Cheryl Maas pro model. I really liked the checkered boot, signature classic Vans style coming out for next year.

Stopped into the Swany booth to meet up and catch up with Joe for the latest on their gloves. I’ve ridden the Toaster series in the past and really like the inner glove design, especially now with the touch finger for phone use on the snow. New this year, they have a bluetooth glove so you can answer the phone with your glove on the slopes and hold up your glove to your ear to talk. Pretty rad to see it in person.

Art meets wood when it comes to Arbor. The line-up is a mix of park style to mountain shapes and new this year the Abacus is a splitboard with system rocker. Rider Nick Visconti has a Arbor Draft pro model that is much deserved. The Cadence is back with Slyvia J artwork.

After the success of the Proto this year, Never Summer set out to make the Cobra/Cobra X designed for powerful all mountain riding and versatility. The Raptor gets a 156cm size, the Premier F1 goes up to 170cm, the evo and revolver get a new matte topsheet, the Infinity goes dreamcatcher and gets a 142cm size, the Pandora gets upgraded to the three year warranty and the SL splitboard comes in a 154cm size for 2013.

Gotta admit, Ashbury has great handwriting! They had a full blown booth this year to add to their line-up with the new Bullet goggle that’s super slim, Warlock and Kaleidoscope goggles plus their sunglasses.

DCP was on deck at the YES. booth with his latest line-up before he heads up to BC for Supernatural with Travis Rice. I really liked the Greats of Snowboarding boards coming out with Farmer, Kelly, Lynn to name a few.

The day ended with a stop into GNU Snowboards and a fantastic surprise to the women’s B-pro boards that now have a splitboard option.

At the end of the day, I chatted with Board Insiders to talk about the gear I saw and a quick video on what’s coming out for 2013. Here’s the video.

This is only a sneak peak at some of the gear I saw today. I’ll be posting up a lot more product photos and detailed gear write-ups from SIA later on! Now it’s time to party!

For the evening, I headed out to the 686 Boxing night at Casselman’s. It was rad to see them bring back industry boxing and cool to see who was going to be on the stage. When we arrived, the boxing was already underway and the men were really into it.