Winning and Losing at the Dirksen Derby

When you look at it from a distance, The Dirksen Derby is a snowboard contest. It's a race from the top of a course to the bottom. Last one down's a rotten egg. First place gets the glory. That's pretty much where the comparison to competition ends. You see there's no money on the line (just custom walking stick and painted glove trophy along with some schwag), no energy drink sponsors (Drink Water provided 60 gallons of Oregon's finest tap water) and no drug testing (stress was the only 'banned substance').

The money raised over the weekend goes toward Tyler Eklund's medical bills. Tyler broke his neck in a crash preparing for USASA Nationals years back. Now he's paralyzed from the neck down. If you can judge a man by his friends, Tyler must be a hell of a guy. The way the snowboard community rallies around him at the Derby makes you wonder, "If the same thing happened to me, what would the reaction be?" Tyler's all smiles. He's got scads of great friends around him and the Derby raised over $30,000 for him this year alone.

Tyler Eklund, the man of the weekend, grinin' til the finish.

I showed up to Mt. Bachelor without much of an agenda. I have some friends in Bend that I don't see often. The Derby courses are always fun to ride and I figured I'd demo some boards between my runs on Saturday. Turns out, by the time I registered the courses were closed for maintenance and I didn't get any practice runs. I did, however, pick up some free ClifBars and Mountain House dehydrated food and take a few laps around Bachelor on a chilly, breezy day.

I guess I gotta go have fun instead of practicing.

That night was the kickoff party, but first I had to fill my belly. I wasn't able to stay with my Bend friends for the weekend because they had previously booked their space with family who was in town for a wedding (lame). They were also at the rehearsal dinner, so I was on my own for food. Not for long, though.

Baldy's Barbecue is always my first dinner stop in Bend. I showed up right behind another group of snowboarders and was seated right next to them. They let me know that their group was going to get much bigger and asked if I'd like to join them (or sit alone on the other side of the restaurant). So I shared chicken and ribs with 15 new friends from the Mt. Baker area including women's Derby champ (last year, this year, probably next year) and all-around ripper Maria DeBari. I also got to hear about the souped up Subaru Loyale headed out on the GO! trip from Kael Martin himself. How cool is that? Cool enough for me.

The GO! Subie. Mad ponies under that hood.

Next stop, opening party/art show. Artist find new ways to artify snowboards every year. Take something that someone shredded to bits, add some time and sweat to it and all of a sudden you get a thousand dollar charity art piece. I love that about this community!

Also, raffles. I took a load off and sat next to some old dude midway through the night. He handed me a gripful of raffle tickets as he up and left. Long story short, I won a bucket of Mountain House dehydrated food, a grocery bag of ClifBar product, a 24oz. Mizu water bottle and a half-gallon Hydro Flask thermos (for those times when you need 64oz of hot soup?). Not a bad haul for five bucks worth of tickets and a couple hours of partying. Seriously, I will always buy raffle tickets. Not only do I like to gamble, but I like to kick some money down to support a good cause and I like that feeling when they read your number. Maybe I won the smallest prizes they were giving out, but I won a bunch of them and that's a bunch of fun. You'd have to be raffling off the worst shit ever to not get me to buy one. I've bought raffle tickets for quilts before.

My eyes are drawn to the guy in the orange hat. You?

The next morning I woke up at 3am to an air raid siren! What the fuck is going on!? I don't see any smoke or fire. The building isn't shaking. I hear no jets overhead (or underfoot for that matter). The sound was coming from my phone. The National Weather Service was texting to inform me that there was a blizzard warning until 1pm. Thank you NWS, for rousing me from my slumber to tell me about something that I'd rather have slept through. Note to self: set phone to airplane mode before sleeping to preserve the alarm, but prohibit random acts of silence disruption.

Good night sleep: take two. Success. Breakfast was some Mountain House meat and potato something or other rehydrated by water from the coffee pot. The second run, of course, to clean out the coffee taste. I got to the mountain just in time to miss any chance at a practice run, but I watched a bunch of the first runs and felt like I had a good grasp of which course to take. I settled on the mellower green run (so as not to get bucked out of the tighter berms of the red course) and headed to the main base to take some fun runs and demo some boards (full posts coming soon on the Gnu A.S.S. Pickle, Capita NAS, K2 Ultra Dream and Never Summer Evo; not a bad quiver if you could swing it).

If you know me, you know that by the time I got back to the race area my number was up and they were waiting on me. No time to go to the car and get the race board and tune it up. Not quite enough time to adjust the bindings from the wacky stance the demo tech gave me, but I did that anyway. Just enough time to get to the gate and hear the timer count to three in poor German. Was it an attempt at a Cool Runnings reference? Did the green course signify something that I wasn't fully prepared for?No time. Dropping! Turns out the green course was mellower than I expected. Every bit of speed had to be pumped and fought for. At one point I was going so slowly that I felt the need to reach down and push myself with my hands. I did not qualify for Sunday's finals. Not even close. Not even in the old peoples' division (Seriously, Gerry Lopez!? I couldn't compete with him on a good day). I did qualify for throwing pow around (remember that blizzard warning), 'sneaking' into practice runs to get a peek at the yet unscoped red course and marveling at the spectacle that is the Dirksen Derby Splitboard Race.

Drink Water and eat Parrilla clam chowder. That's all you need.

The Derby Splitboard Race is the most entertaining race in all of sport. Near as I can tell, head honcho Josh Dirksen makes up the rules for each installment the minute before it happens. This year, riders started 100 yards downhill from the bottom of the courses' finish lines with their splitboards fully assembled and ready to ride downhill. They then break them down into split mode, affix skins and skin uphill. Upon reaching the finish line, they skin up the red course (reminder, that's the tighter course) to the staging area. At the top of the course, they reassemble their boards, strip their skins and stash everything in their packs. There is a 'no junk show' rule that Austin Smith (already way out of the running) hilariously disregarded as he skied down the green course, poles in hand, jacket flapping. Then it's a mad rally down the green course to the finish line to stop the clock. Only the top three finishers were placed with everyone else sharing 4th place.

That's the skin and bones of it, but here's the mucus. Everybody's ready at the bottom of the course except Alex Yoder who was trying to find his poles at the top of the course. Someone comes up with a pair of loaner poles (fixed ski poles) and Yoder hauls to the starting line (he would take his loaner poles to a strong 4th place showing). Just then, Dirksen fires the starting gun and they're off. Of course, by 'fires the starting gun' I mean he counts down from 5 and yells "GO!" What ensues looks something like a Rubik's Cube competition in a blizzard. Everyone is trying to find space to turn his splitboard into skis. The wind is whipping skins against people's faces. A tense minute passes and the leaders emerge shuffling uphill in huge strides. I get on the chairlift for a better angle, but the slow-ass double can't even keep up. Are you kidding me? They might not be high-speed quads, but their quads are moving at top speed. I reach the top just in time to see the leaders zip down the course. From mid-course I hear Temple Cummins cursing for air. He would finish a disappointing 4th. You know it's a good event if you can get that guy out of his comfort zone. Meanwhile, back at the top, the rest of the pack is still reassembling their boards. Some look like it's their first time putting together a bookshelf from Ikea. Some are blatantly disregarding the 'no passing on the course' rule with mixed results. Everyone is gassed at the top, but hyped, laughing and swapping stories by the finish. I gotta get in this race next year.

Dirksen, making up the rules for the splitboard race as he goes.

Oh wait, what!? There was a whole matter of fast-ass racers up in this mug? Terje, was there!? Overheard asking someone to tuck in his hood so it wouldn't slow him down?? Just in case you thought no one was taking it for real. Austin Smith and Curtis Ciszek boasted about spending 150 bones on a postage stamp-size wad of wax. Didn't save Curtis the utter humiliation of finishing third to Scotty Wittlake's second and Austin's champ. Bragging rights for a year and something about cock piercings. Not all the rights, though. Overall champ came from the men's division, not the previous-podiums-only Elites. That title went to local ripper and leader of the resistance Ben Connors. Thank God no one went back in time to kill his mother (if you don't get that reference I'm not spelling it out for you). Among other swag, he got an Aesmo powsurfer. Not only can you not find those things in the wild, if you wanted to buy one you'd have to sell some vital organs for it. Have fun ripping it and see you in the Elites next year, Ben. Unless the T-1000 gets you.

As we all exited the award ceremony, the snow was still coming down. Snowboarder magazine's Tom Monterosso was hoping his 5am flight the next morning would get canceled so he could rip a pow day. I was just hoping all the roads between here and home would be open and drivable. The blizzard warnings were still in effect as my phone kept alerting me, but the ride home proved uneventful if long. Nighttime winter mountain roads always make the end of a trip feel fully final. They also make it feel like turning a snowboard back and forth through a gully. Snow closing the field of vision. Nothing on your mind but the here and now. High fives at the end. Cold beer and hot cocoa.

Dirksen Derby Time!

Get aerodynamic

Subject to change

Bring your short board and your A-game for the tight banks. Also, if you have any inclination to splitboard, the Splitboard Race at the Derby is the funnest race to watch in all of racing. You can't even imagine it without being there. Thinking about it doesn't do it justice. They have a board demo going on Saturday, too, so you have extra reason to get out there and something to pass the time while you're waiting for your run if you don't want to mess up you precious race wax job. Because I know you're serious like that. Personally, I'll be lucky to even register on-time. I'll see you there anyway.

Happy New Year!

How do you measure a good year? By all accounts, 2011 was good to me. Since this blog is about snowboarding, let's review that.

Last winter was all-time. Snowfall was plentiful, the trips I took mostly panned out and I got a few firsts that blew my mind. Watching the gnarly sessions at Superpark 15 at Mt. Bachelor won't easily be topped. The highlight of the season was still my first heli trip as part of Tailgate Alaska, but I also had some of my best days at Mt. Hood Meadows, just finding new zones with my friends. When June rolled around, I was ready to hang up the gnar boots and lace up the hiking boots.

The one thing that bummed me out last year was a trip I took to Mt. Bachelor over Martin Luther King Jr. Day where it rained on the mountain the whole time and none of us so much as touched our boards. I even had a friend up from Colorado. And I forgot the shred flicks at home. We drank so much beer... During a normal year it would have been far more depressing, but last year turned the corner, just like this year is sure to do. Like Joe Walsh said, "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do." 

In the young 2011/2012 season, I've already had firsts. My first ever snowboard race was a couple weeks ago at the Dirksen Dirby. My result was as bad as it gets, but it was still a super-fun experience that I look forward to doing again in the coming years. Also, a couple months ago I wrote my first ever published snowboard article for Transworld Snowboarding magazine (Halldor Helgason's Pro Spotlight, Dec. 2011). Following that were two in their January issue (Ethan Deiss and Austen Sweetin interviews) and one in frequency: The Snowboarder's Journal issue 9.3 (Mike Parzialle profile). Theses I hope will be just the first of many gigs with the big mags and finding ways to get money for things that I like to do anyway.

The three best magazine issues yet!

The riding this year hasn't been amazing, but the season is long and just taking off. Starting in the new year, a friend gets a weekday off, so last year's Method Mondays will be this year's Tindy Tuesdays. Even as I mash this keyboard it is dumping snow both at Mt. Hood and my New Years destination, Mt. Baker, so things are turning around quickly. Maybe that Nina chick is going to show up after all.

Here's hoping that 2012 greets you with nothing but powder and smiles. Happy New Year from Boredyak!

Dirksen Derby: Survival

What it's all about

The Derby is demolished. The courses took 10 guys six days to build and brought over 300 riders to town to rip it up over three days. Why? Tyler Eklund, that's why. In 2007 he broke his spine practicing at USASA Nationals and is now paralyzed from the neck down. This year the Derby raised over $18,000 for him. The stoke he gets from it is immeasurable. He even takes runs down the courses with the help of Oregon Adaptive Sports. I'd imagine it's a weekend he looks forward to all year.

Parrilla, chowdering the masses

Terje and Dirks with super-secret tech

This year the Dirksen Derby was bigger than ever. More riders, more money and more buzz. Terje made the trip, but the deafening roar at the top of the venue was the chant for Curtis Ciszek. Haakon missed the mens' podium by a scant .04 seconds to speed racer Dustin Anderson who took the bronze glove. Bellinghamster Blair Habenicht had something, breaking the beam in second, but Norway was not to be denied as Knut Eliassen Nitro-boosted his way to the top. These top three will now compete in the Derby Elite division whenever they return. Speaking of the Elites, Curtis was getting so much noise because he was the defending champion. Scotty Wittlake and Austin Smith put down Ridgemont High-style fast times, but Curtis wasn't flinching. Repeat champ, fastest time of the day, bragging rights for another year. For all the complete results check out mtbachelor.com. Also, quality video on Yobeat and ESPN.

Austin Smith and Bryan Fox trying to catch Curtis

Knut, "This has been the coolest event I've ever been to."

If you're looking for my name, go ahead and skip to the bottom. I didn't belong in the finals (sneaked in on a timing error) and I went out and proved that. My run on the red line was as slow as possible without falling and then I fell twice trying to make up for it on the green line. You're welcome, Donny. You weren't last. The courses were super-tight, but also fun as hell, like Baker's squirrely little brother.

For the record, Jake Blauvelt qualified on a timing error, too.

If only we could get something like that together on Hood to benefit Snowdays. Did I mention they raised over $18,000 for Tyler? How rad is that!?

None more rad

As for the rest of Bachelor, they've got a hell of a mountain open right now. Yeah, there are some 'unmarked obstacles' (rocks and treetops, like those seen in the middle of the Derby courses), but they also have legit parks. We're talkin' real jump lines, not just rails, but some nice 40 to 50-foot booters in there. Also, they're only two lifts from being 100% firing. No Summit, no Northwest. Outback is a go for all your dingo- and kangaroo-chasing pleasures. For what it's worth, Saturday was 10-times busier than Sunday. All that only a three hour drive from Portland. Problem is, that's twice as far as Mt. Hood.

Dirksen Derby Day 2: Carnage and Tribute

I just got back from the A-Rob movie premiere and it put me in a bit of a funk. For his part in Manifest, Aaron Robinson could have been the next big thing. Or at least the next underground, cult 'big' thing. For those of you who don't know, Aaron died before the movie wrapped. His friends finished the movie for him and did their best to end it on a positive note. I can't help but think about the one guy who wasn't in the room, but should have been. The guy everyone was talking about, but not one said a negative word. The guy pictured on the commemorative snowboard up for silent auction (if it went for less than a grand, it's a travesty). I just can't help but wonder why.

In more amusing news, I made the finals of the Derby. Amusing because I fell on the right course and almost fell on the left. Timing error, they said. Come back tomorrow. OK.

Also, it was a demo day at Mt. Bachelor. Does it sound like a good idea to ride four different boards on race day and have some guy who is not you set it up before you race? I'm just sayin'. Keep an eye out for reviews of this year's Arbor Wasteland, K2 Turbo Dream and Lib Tech Travis Rice. All good rides, but my favorite was the Wasteland. Get to Meadows tomorrow (12/18) and get your own board swapping. I don't know where the demo tour goes after that, but if you live in Washington or Oregon, you might want to look it up...

Dirksen Derby Day 1: Practice

View from the cone's summit

Not much to report from day one of the 5th Annual Dirksen Derby. I only got here in time to scope one of the courses. It's quick and the berms are large. They cram 20 turns into a 30 second course. Gnarly. It was pretty shaded by the time I took any pictures, so I'll leave you with the following and say better luck tomorrow.

Bank swallows man whole

The big accomplishment for the day was climbing the cone at Bachelor for the first time. It was a mostly sunny 33°F outside, so the hike was tame and the view was endless.

Stay tuned for more Derby action tomorrow as I try to stay off my ass and wiggle my way down the dragon's back. Also, the premiere of Aaron Robinson's movie 'Manifest' is tomorrow (7pm at the 7th Mountain Resort near Bend). I'm looking forward to that and I'll let you know how it goes.

5th Annual Dirksen Derby Dec. 17-19

Here's what you need to know-

This is not a tightly regimented event, so details are still in flux.

The GOLDEN rule: All proceeds from everything go to Tyler Eklund, a friend and rad kid who was paralyzed while snowboarding. Paralyzed. Think about that when you reach for your wallet.



Dirksen Derby Kickoff Party: Friday, December 16th. Doors @ 7pm, Band at 8. Location: the Poet House in downtown Bend. All ages. Music, Drinks for 21+, Raffle, and “Broken Board” art auction.  All proceeds go to Tyler.

Racing: The whole weekend! Depending on weather, snow fall and poor planning, the schedule of the event will remain flexible. All participants are expected to be on-hill both Saturday and Sunday ready to either race the course, cheer on their fellow competitors, bash some windlips or stuff their faces with Parilla clam chowder. If everything goes perfectly as planned, Friday the course will be open for timed practice, Saturday we will hold both the Mens qualifier and the Splitboard race, and then Sunday will be everything else (the top Mens qualifiers from Saturday, Derby Elites, Womens, Older and Wiser, Groms and Sit-ski). But remember, the actual schedule can change quickly!

Registration: $25 per racer, per event. All proceeds go to Tyler. Racers can register online at MtBachelor.com or at Mt. Bachelor`s West Village lodge on Friday afternoon, Saturday morning (8:00-10:00) or Sunday morning (8:00-10:00). There will NOT be a limit to the amount of competitors allowed in the event. Discounted lift tickets will be available at registration.

Sponsors: Our exclusive list of sponsors include: Salomon snowboards, Patagonia, Dakine, GoPro, Mt. Bachelor, Hydro Flask, Oregon Adaptive Sports, Boneyard Beer, Smith Optics, Drink Water, Spark R&D, Rebound Physical Therapy, Parilla, Gummi Love, Skjersaa's, SideEffect, Aspect, Exit Real World, Mt. Hood 26, DeckTech, BAF, Mountain House, and Skull Candy.