It’s impossible to watch Scottish bike ninja Danny MacAskill without thinking about Hans Ray, the undisputed king of trials riding and the man who two decades ago brought the twisted style of cycling gymnastics to the attention of North Americans (and for that matter, the rest of the world). Without Hans, there might not be [...]
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europe
Falling snow add a visual soundtrack to life. As you walk through it, drive in it, or lie on your back and let it cover you, the flakes soften and beautify the world, adding an extra dimension and making the mundane glorious. Geoff Charters would seem to agree–he bookends this lovely little video of Flims, [...]
What do yo do if you’re Giro and you’re trying to make the perfect helmet for Lance Armstrong, but because of his travel schedule the 38-year-old is never available for testing? Build another Lance. The California helmet maker, working with Hollywood special effect companies, spent $15,000 to construct a true-to-life replica of the seven-time Tour [...]
Two riders, two continents, two bicycles, one love. Snapshots of revolutions made one pedal at a time. You can view these two videos as some kind of window into the contrasting riding styles of San Francisco and Copenhagen, spend a bit of time thinking about the identity roles bikes play (transportation/fetish/corporal extension), or just enjoy [...]
So…that lighter you keep in your pocket when you’re shredding? Might come in handy some day in ways you never anticipated. Dominik Podolsky, a snowboarder from Munich, Germany, was riding in Austria and got stuck on a chairlift for six hours after the ski area closed, Der Spiegel reports. Only by torching every scrap of [...]
For American adventurers, particularly skiers and boarders, Europe has always symbolized the promised land of freedom. Ski areas don’t restrict your travel, you can hop off-piste and on at will, and you’re responsible for your own hide. That extends to rescues, too, where you’re still responsible—you can expect to pay the cost of rescuers fetching [...]
This whole Enya-Choir-of-Angels music applied to epic vistas is getting more than a little tiresome. Have you no imagination, people? Throw a little “Jaybird” from Comets on Fire in there to spice things up. Ah well, musical cliches aside, this aerial extravaganza of a sunrise over Norway’s Sunnmøre Alps is simply stunning. I’m heading over [...]
Well, we really can’t whine about the paucity of creative ski films any more. After a decade or so of superficial, formulaic entries to the culture of winter cinematography, we’ve been blessed with a number of ambitious projects. Signatures is the most soulful bit of ski movie to hit the screen in years, and because [...]
Solve the Mystery of the Unidentified Alps
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Here’s something to noodle on while you’re lounging in post-holiday sloth: The Library of Congress has piles of images in its collection that it can’t identify. It has crowdsourced the sleuthing work via its Flickr page, and here’s one from somewhere in the Alps shot in the 1890s, which commenters seem to think is St. Moritz. How about you–any ideas?…CONTINUE>
Have you noticed the webcam photos on the home page? There are three right now: Yosemite, atop the Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix, and Teton Pass, Wyoming. What you might not have noticed is that these are live images–every time you refresh the page, it loads the most recent webcam shot. Well, there have been lots of late nights working on The Adventure Life over the last week or two, where I’m refreshing the home page every minute or two, and right around 10:30 p.m. on the West Coast something has been catching my eye. It’s the sun coming up over Chamonix. At first there’s the glow on the horizon, then the sun kisses the peaks, and then soft blue light replaces the dark shadows in the valley below. No question, being there in person would be awesome, but the whole point of a webcam is that it takes you somewhere you aren’t. It’s comforting to know that every night as I’m ramping down, the crazy wild ski peoples of Chamonix, France, are winding up
It’s been more than a year since MSP was putting together Claim, but that doesn’t mean its footage isn’t worth dusting off now. This little seggie of Antoine Montant proves that being French requires imagination, balls, a more than casual flirtation with high-speed mishaps, and the embrace of what some might call stunts. Hey, today he’s Jerry Lewis, tomorrow a comic genius…CONTINUE>
If you have only a vague sense of Norway as fjords, cruise ships, snowflake sweaters, and dried fish, it’s long past time to update the internal wiki. Norway, as the talented cover blurb writers at National Geographic recently put it, is “Europe’s Next Adrenaline Capital”. In fact, Norway will blow you away with its beauty, its open space, and, most of all, its potential for adventure.
Coming across a Danny MacAskill video with only 81,000 views is a little like stumbling upon U2 in some dive bar with 20 other people scattered about the place. But here it is: A little commercial for a Scottish job recruiting firm, with Danny in white shirt and tie and super steezy urban moves. As always with this lad, sick.
Lest you decry the commercialism of today’s pro bike racing, take a look at this sweet old map from the 1957 Tour de France. Think you could squeeze another bottle of Perrier on it? Absolutely. Pschitt!
Say what you will about European fashion, the Euros know a thing or two about apparel technology. And every season, Polartec, the American fabric supplier that knit, wove, spun, or extruded 72 percent of your outerwear wardrobe, bestows awards on the designs using Polartec that it thinks kick ass. Well, they don’t actually say “kick ass”, but reading between the lines I think that’s the underlying meaning. There are two sets of “Apex” awards, American and European, and the American winners are plastered over everything stateside; you might wearing one now and if you aren’t someone who works for REI is. They are consistently, ridiculously good. The European winners? You never see them. Until now.
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Photo of the Day* for July 18, 2010
Madison Avenue Started Co-Opting Surfing A LONG Time Ago
