Shop Wars SUPERPOST

Greg Bokenkamp

Yesterday was Planet Earth's Shop Wars at Bear. If you're not familiar with the event, you should be, because it's brilliant. The basis: shops put their sponsored team up against other shops. There are three disciplines. Tranny, Jump and Jib. Each shop chooses one of their riders to compete in one area. May the best team win. It's simple, but potent, and shops are getting serious about it.

The first event of the day was on Bear's quarterpipe.

19 teams were entered, which means 19 riders were sessioning the quarter for 45 minutes. Cody Rosenthal won the quarterpipe overall and a grand in the process with huge inverts.

Jon Schurke was also boosting with McTwists, J-tears and, of course, methods.

Greg Bokenkamp soared huge alley-oop indys and seatbelts.

Then, on to the jump. I never got the actual measurement of the jump being used, but it was probably about 60-65 feet to the sweet spot. To make it more interesting, a pretty steady tailwind made overshooting easy. Jeremy Grendahl won the overall and a thousand bucks here with some heavy tricks. I believe that this was a back 9 Japan.

Nothing like a good method.

Kyle Lopiccolo decided to try a one-footer. He and his knee lived, but he couldn't hold on to the landing.

Mike Burton was announcing the action.

Next stop: jibs. This was a tough one to judge. It got easier when Harrison Gordon put together a line just before the buzzer that was unbeatable. He also won a grand, and didn't buy me a drink last night. I think that being under age had something to do with it.

Joe Mertes. Front board.

Lots of people were in "The Scene" watching all of the action go down.

Scott Vine got a nose press through the S-rail.

Fastplant on the tree stump.

Jeremy Grendahl hit up a few jibs, even though he wasn't competing. Front three indy nose tap.

Kyle Lopiccolo was also jibbing the tree. 180 rock, 3-out.

Grendahl, hiking "The Scene."

Greg Bokenkamp killed it all weekend.

DJ Slipmat was also busy all weekend providing quite the eclectic mix to ride to.

Melissa Evans and Chad Tarbell were in town from Breck.

Superstar Robbie Sell.

Speaking of superstars, Kevin Casillo was in town from Mammoth.

Exile also showed up with his nephew Joshua. Yesterday was Joshua's first day snowboarding, and from what I hear, he did pretty well. He was all smiles.