Now that VNTRbirds has relocated to the great state of Colorado and even greater town of Breckenridge, we finally got to experience the whole Dew Tour hype. Naturally, we were excited to see all of the pros that we constantly watch on videos and to attend all the Dew Tour parties that were going down in town every night. Though, we soon learned that it isn’t exactly how we pictured. What actually came into town was a mess of people that fed off of the hype of the contest scene of snowboarding.
Before the qualifiers and practice runs Breck’s main street was swamped with coaches bragging about who they are there ‘training’, academy high schoolers and those pro hoes we all love to hate. Even worse than the town was the actual mountain – no one could go on Freeway to hit the big park so they all flocked to Park Lane. And even though we love a good park party; having 50 kids dropping all around you when you just want to hit a few jumps is never a good feeling.
Notice all the coaches standing out front with no boards on, but still won’t move out of the way…
When it came down to the finals, I did luck out and scored a media pass from a homie so I was able to be slightly closer to the course than the general public at the bottom drinking beers and watching from the big screen. For the women’s slopestyle final it was a beautiful day with less wind than what the weather brought out for qualifiers. Aimee Fuller started it off with her signature laid out backflip over the second jump. After the first run Jessika Jenson was holding first with a low score of 35.20. I was getting chilly watching and becoming bummed on the first round of runs, but once the second run was on its way the ladies stepped it all up. Every new rider was jumping from their current place to first. Enni Rulajarva looked like she was going to take it home after she finished her run with a back side 720 on the final jump scoring an 89.40. Though, Jamie Anderson was the last to go and she had a point to not finish 8th of 8. Anderson ended up bringing her A-game and finishing with a 96.00 to take another Dew Tour gold.
First: Jamie Anderson
Second: Enni Rulajarva
Third: Silje Norendal
It’s always great to see girls really throwing it down, but as I lapped back to the lift I was reminded of the swarm of people that only cared whether or not Shaun White (who?) was going to win. I shook it off and took the gondola back down stopping by the liquor store to prepare for the Dew Tour activities continuing in a few hours.
The night life was even more wild than what we saw in the daylight. During the Streetstyle rail jam VNTRbirds realized exactly what a crowd was and we knew the same heads would be out at all the bars afterwards. Cruising into a few bars after work consisted of a ton of fist pumping bros wearing their stellar UnderArmor highlighter sweatshirts underneath the black light making the already Breck ratio of 7-1 dudes to ladies into 15-1.
Damn son!
Yes I’m complaining, but at the same time I did still go snowboarding and then out to the bars everyday of Dew Tour week even after I lost my phone in the bar (it was found two days later) so I must have been having fun. That’s also probably why this Dew Tour recap is a little late – need some recovery time!
-Kelley
VNTRbirds