Going Off Snowboard History Podcast

Every great subculture needs somewhere to tell its stories. In snowboarding’s early days, magazines like Thrasher, Action Now and ISM called it like they saw it. Later, Transworld and Snowboarder entered the chat. 

These raw and analogue pubs were the connective tissue for misfits across the map. They were a beacon. They were gasoline on the fire. 

In this episode, Jen and Tricia trace the arc of snowboard print magazines, from their birth in 1980s California to the 90s boom times and the death rattles came after … This is an unapologetically deep dive into the facts and true tall tales from snowboard media’s front lines. 

At the end, they bring in live-human-expert Nick Hamilton—photographer and total media legend who was Transworld Content Director for a cool couple decades—to talk choosing covers and blowing editorial budge, along with reminiscing on the end of a magazine era. 

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40 years ago, when racers were rockstars and carving ruled the day, an experimental technology was taking hold of snowboarding—born from the quest for the perfect turn. 

In this episode, Tricia and Jen dive deep into the explosion of asymmetrical snowboards in the late 80s. This movement was led by charismatic European rippers with a splashy “pastels and a ponytail” energy. Ringleader of this crew, Peter Bauer, joins the conversation to divulge about culture shock, international rivalries, and creating the Burton PJ series—one of the best-selling pro models of all time.  

The episode traces the Asym Revolution from its infancy in the Alps to podiums worldwide, along with dalliances into freestyle with boards like the Santa Cruz Tau and Burton Asym Airs. Finally, they submit to the truth that the Euro-carving movement had a seismic impact on snowboarding that’s still rippling outward. 

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Big ups to Burton for supporting Going Off. Head to Burton.com to join them in celebrating 50 Years of Burton, 50 Years of Snowboarding. 

Support Going Off at our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/GoingOff 

In the ’80s, a dispersed subset of renegade youth used all possible tactics to storm the gates of ski resorts amidst widespread snowboard bans. Today’s episode is that story. Tricia and Jen sit down with Brad Steward, one of the great pioneers of the snowboard industry, to divulge how he and other total legends claimed snowboarding’s place on the chairlift. 

At the turn of 1980, Brad was a teenage rider barred from his local hill—he was studying public-land-permit bylaws and hassling staff down at the U.S. Forest Service Office. Later when he got a job at Sims, no guerrilla tactic was off the table, from gifting boards to the grandkids of Mammoth Mountain’s owner (knowing they’d fall in love with the sport) to enlisting a Trojan Horse “adult” (Paul Alden) blessed with the buttoned-up energy and wardrobe it took to gain some respect from ski-area management. 

The crew talks certification shakedowns, trespassing arrests, hairball chairlift offramps, and other skier-on-snowboarder crimes. Finally, they discuss how, with 3 ski-only mountains still kicking it, Brad’s superhero days of fighting for access may not be over yet.

Support Going Off on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/GoingOff 

The 1987 Juicy Fruit Gum TV ad is an essential time capsule. The stars of 80s snowboarding—Craig Kelly, Terry Kidwell, Tom Burt, Jim Zellers and more—rip on proto-freestyle equipment, juxtaposed against footage of beautiful people having fun in the sun and of course, chewing gum. No hats or goggles were worn in the making of this. 

Jen and Tricia bring in a triple threat of live human experts—famed filmmaker Greg Stump (who shot the action), plus Tom Burt and Jim Zellers—to do a forensic deep dive on this relic of 80s exuberance. They unearth how the fresh subculture of snowboarding got in the mix on such a big-time Hollywood production. They divulge who the players were, how legit the riding was, and how much everyone got paid. 

Finally, lest the ad be dismissed as pure nostalgia-core, they discuss the seismic impact showing snowboarding on prime-time TV had on spreading the word to a new generation of would-be riders. 

This is an origin story and ode to the gone-but-not-forgotten summer snowboarding scene on the Blackcomb Glacier in Whistler B.C. How did the summer camps emerge? Who ruled the day, back in the day? Tricia and Jen dive in after downloading from a gang of Canadian legends. 

Up on the glacier circa ’92 few things were better than getting to see Marc Morisset, Kevin Young or Jamie Lynn bust. Wandering Whistler Village, young campers could see stars like Palmer and Salasnek, and certainly everyone was imbibing the spirits of the day. Climate change has a diabolical thirst, too, though. The talk also traces the melt and demise of the glacier that hosted this magical summer playland.  

Later in the episode, Jen and Tricia sit down with iconic pro rider and cultural shaper Jess Kimura to talk about the summer-glacier vibe when she was coming up in the 2000s.  

In the snowboard timeline, ’96 was a heyday. The scene was popping in Salt Lake City, where a newly relocated filmmaker known simply as “Whitey” documented a gang of talent riding under the radar—including soon-to-be-god-tier Brighton local JP Walker. Welcome to “The Warriors.”

In this episode, Jen and Tricia sit down with Whitey to expound on the making of this fun and raw mid-90s cult-classic snowboard film. Stay tuned for talk of technical powder tricks, pirated music, Blunt magazine hijinks, Brighton backcountry, Ingemar Backman, Timmy Ostler, Mikey Leblanc and many more. 

They dive into snowboarding’s real-time evolution from a jib-fueled frenzy to freestyle with a taste for powder. They divulge what it was like to be a rider in 1996, when no one was getting rich—but a gravy train of rent and beer money was free-flowing amidst scene. 

In 1992, pro snowboarder Dave Seaone did an inverted aerial at a world-cup halfpipe comp in Japan. He was DQ’ed and fined $100. Welcome to the prohibition era, when riders had to hide their McTwists and triple check for ski patrol before throwing a backie. 

In this episode, Tricia and Jen track down the first flip ever captured on film (allegedly), they delve into fun handplant variations and trace the origins of early tricks like the J-Tear and Crippler. After a deep dive into “hotdogging” (later known as “freestyle”), they unearth the source of the inverts ban—and why it plagued snowboard-dom well into the late 90s. 

Finally, they bring in live human expert Keir Dillon—legendary rider and inventor of the PA Roll—to describe WTF that trick is, as well as delivering some opinionated conversating on all things upside down. 

Cover photo: Bud Fawcett

Get prepped to go down the snowboard history rabbit hole in this casual, made-for-the-heads spring special. Jen and Tricia go BTS on the birth of jibbing in Colorado, do recon on an alleged parking lot brawl with the Burton A team, and drop in deep on the early 90s tech that enabled the ultimate tweak. 

From Trent Bush talking about the death of the “surf turn” to Jason Ford’s tale of the first time he saw Roan Rogers ride, this episode is a spring bouquet of unsolicited (yet highly interesting) information—plus bonus stories from previous episodes.

Thanks for listening—it’s been a great ride. Stay tuned as we sprout some new shows for Going Off Season 2.  

In historical snowboard time, “B.C.” stands for “Before Craig.” A god-tier talent in snowboarding’s early years, Craig Kelly helped forge the path of style, gear tech, and where riding could go. In this episode, Tricia and Jen examine the legend of CK and why a certain sect of core snowboarders still invoke the line “Craig Kelly is my copilot” 23 years after his death. They regale 2 special heads: Eric Blehm—author of “The Darkest White” and the definitive expert on CK, and Erik Traulsen of FnRad Podcast—a respected curator of many conversations about Craig. The gang dips waist-deep into 3 parts of snowboarding Kelly changed forever: riding style, “pro snowboarder” as a job description, and the world of freeriding and backcountry. Finally, they discuss how even in death, he’s still helping us navigate our path forward.Cover photo: Trevor Graves

In 1992, Canadian pro Jon Boyer hired his friend Geoff McFetridge to create some unlike-all-the-other-shit graphics for his new pro-model snowboard on Barfoot. They were loud, expressive and created to hang on the snowboard shop wall. 

In this episode, Jen and Tricia sit down with Boyer (now an LA director) and McFetridge (now an acclaimed illustrator and artist) to talk about how Boyer’s boards challenged conventional notions of snowboard graphic art—bringing a skate ethos to a surf and ski driven world. 

They dip into the rise of the pro model age, the very first digitally created board graphic, techniques, inspirations, production fails, and of course—what the piles of royalty cash bought for these two young hooligans from Calgary, Alberta. 

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