US Open 2007 Slopestyle

Travis Rice says "Stop Over-Rotation." Photo by Jared Souney

A few weeks ago I wrote a story about photographer Dave Lehl pulling the impressive feat of all four ones. I gave it, complete with epic photos, to a “reputable” snowboard magazine, and although they thought it was “funny” they were concerned that their readers wouldn’t “care about Dave Lehl’s snowboarding.”

The story ran to little fanfare, but apparently, it had greater influence than said magazine ever could have imagined. Today, at the US Open Snowboarding Championships, one of the biggest events of the year, a reputable rider named Travis Rice showed he was paying attention.

Ok, so the quickly falling snow making the course slow could have also been a reason, but Rice used his first run to nail all four ones, a la Dave Lehl. Such a feat could not have been thought of without the assistance of my story, clearly. Needless to say, the crowd went wild!

We didn’t actually get to talk to Travis about how it felt to bring all four ones to a bigger arena, but had we, here’s what he probably would have said:

“You know, all these kids like Chas Guldemond and Shaun White are out there getting dizzy doing 1080s and 900s, but simplicity is really the future of snowboarding. I consider myself an innovator, and I really want to drive the sport in the right direction. That, and I screw up on my first hit. But seriously, Dave Lehl is my hero.”

Rice’s ones should have been the highlight of Friday’s slopestyle competition, but the kids insisted on spinning their brains out and forced him to spin as well. He ended up doing alright. If you want to know complete results, there are 4 or 5 “reputable” snowboard magazines websites to check out. We at Yobeat just make fun of stuff.

--Brooke Geery