Words by Henry Jackson

Do you remember back in the day… when the trick bag seemed to grow and grow?

I hope this isn’t going to sound too much like an old man rant, but as a growing majority of us snowboarders have long since waved goodbye to puberty and now suffer from aching knees (and more!) I thought I’d open up a discussion around the ‘one-in-one-out’ policy that has recently become the bane of my ever-shrinking trick bag.

Do you remember back in the day? Those glorious, sunny, slushy park days? Up at first lift – slightly foggy from the night before but raring to go – few speed laps round the mountain to shake it off, then into the park. Hours spent feeding off your mates’ energy – trying time and time again before finally landing that new trick, tweak or variation you’d been planning…

The next day – even with the weight of a few celebratory beers – you’d head back up the mountain, warm up and then pull out that newly learnt gem of a stunt almost to perfection… before riding away to start on the next one. Single tricks became pieces of your very own slopestyle run that you could pull out at will – staple parts of the “trick bag” that seemed to grow and grow.

Then, there was a point at which I think I must have reached maximum capacity. It seemed that if I wanted a new trick to join, I had to sacrifice an old favourite. “Right then, in you come back-lip – yep that’s right, plenty of room for you now we’ve told nosepress to fuck off.”

Nowadays it seems like they’re all abandoning ship together. Yes, age and less time in the park is to blame for this, but when I close my eyes and visualise, the rotation feels the same, the pop off the lip is there, everything feels good. Yet for whatever reason, in real life I end up flailing off the end of the jump like an electrocuted goat, or tacoing myself well and truly over the box (yes, box – rails are too scary these days!)

Anyhow – having mulled over this situation for a little while,  I decided to put the question to a few of the world’s top pros to see if they too suffer from the same affliction. Is it genetics, age or brains that keep them busting out their favourite tricks wherever and whenever they please?

Scroll with the arrow keys to browse.