Words: Louis Macindoe
Time, it’s not something we Australian Snowboarders have in droves. When it comes to winters on home turf, we’re working with four months max. So it’s understandable as to why we dig in our heels and ride the one resort all season long. Throw in other factors like rising fuel prices, resort ticketing, admissions and accommodation costs – all keep the leash short on the Australian snowboarder.
But we haven’t always kept to our kennels, and the maddog was once a real wanderer in the Aussie Winter. In decades of yonder, it wasn’t uncommon to skittle across the Barry Way at sparrows fart and sample some of Hotham chutes, or hit Falls Creek when it was the absolute rail strong hold of the early 2000s. We bounced around because no resort had it ‘all’.
Dare it be said, but the roadie was imperative to the progression of Australian Snowboarding.
So when a bone gets thrown, and a legend like Coors wants to go on a true Australian snowboarding adventure, a multi-generational snowboarding sabbabical was embarked upon.
The Transfer Tailgate Tour would not serve as cornerstone of progression, like those roadies that came before it. Rather reintroduce this concept of resort hopping between riders of past, present, future. There was Sturrock, Gee, and Caff. Truth be told, it could of been any set of friends, eager to embark on a multiday jaunt.
Woven in between it all would be a bunch of check points, that would be used in a Coors campaign. With the absence of actors or models, just real friends that can ride. You’ve got to give credit to a company that genuinely wants to use snowboarders, and are willing to support that.
It’s why Coors has a place in our hearts, and eskies – because that moment at the end of a good days riding, where the beers are cracked and the views are taken in, is a very real moment. One well indexed on this tour.
Who knows, you might be parked up watching the telly one of these days, and there you have it – just a coupla boarders right there on the big screen. Soggy footed, sun drenched and clinking Coors in the name of a good days riding.
And this is everything that just happened in between. It’s enough to send you packin’. So, let it be known, long live the Aussie winter roadie.
