Xavier, Margetts, and Banks Make Superpipe Finals at Winter Dew Tour!

Tonight the Winter Dew Tour superpipe hosted one of the most progressive pipe contests to date, and it was only the semi-final.  To bring you up to speed since the last Dew Tour pipe event at Northstar: flat three is the new ten-eighty, more than half of the riders in the final have at least one double in their run, and as usual, the bigger the better with judging.

Banks Gilberti dropping first in the semi finals

Xavier stretching 

Xavier added a double to his run

Peter Olenick about to stomp his double flatspin of the evening

Marg

Kevin Rolland demonstrates a mute grab that would be solid with any pipe trick, but it's even better with a dub 9

Facebook photo!

RESULTS
1. Mike Riddle - 92.50
2. Xavier Bertoni - 90.00
3. Kevin Rolland - 88.75
4. David Wise - 85.00
5. Josiah Wells - 81.75
6. Matt Margetts - 81.25
7. Thomas Krief - 79.75
8. Dan Marion - 73.75
9. Banks Gilberti - 70.25
10. Matt Duhamel - 69.00

-- cut-off --

11. Peter Olenick - 66.75
12. Christian Allen - 65.00
13. Duncan Adams - 63.50
14. Noah Bowman - 63.25
15. Colby West - 62.00
16. Tucker Perkins - 57.50
17. Lyndon Sheehan - 51.00
18. JP Solberg - 41.75
19. Byron Wells - 36.25
20. Tyler Peterson - 29.75
21. Gus Kenworthy - 8.25
22. Walter Wood - 6.25
23. AJ Kemppainen - DNS

For more recounts of the preliminary pipe slaying check out the writeups on Freeskier and Newschoolers, and for a more visual recap of the action check out this quick edit of our favorite highlights from the evening...


Winter Dew Tour Ski Superpipe Prelims from Orage on Vimeo.

Photos: Felix Rioux

For more Winter Dew Tour coverage visit allisports.com.

Dew Tour Slopestyle Qualifiers

Slopestyle open qualifiers just wrapped up at the Winter Dew Tour in Breckenridge, CO. Among the fifty competitors battling it out for only ten spots in tomorrows semi-final and an automatic invite to the remaining Dew Tour stops were Orage veterans Matt Margetts and Banks Gilberti, along with newcomers McRae Williams and Colby Albino.

In practice yesterday Marg's run was something like double nine, switch double nine, and dub 10 through the jumps with rail game to match. To the disappointment of most of the people watching from the start gate, Marg couldn't put it together today when it mattered.

McRae Williams dropped next and stomped his run, earning a high enough score to claim a sixth place finish. Banks Gilberti rounded of the qualifier for the Orage team and after holding seventh place through the first heat ended up with a tenth place finish.  With todays results and a ninth place finish in yesterdays half pipe qualifier, it seems safe to say that Margetts has official passed the "bubble boy" nickname to Banks.

Throughout the qualifier today some of the prequalified riders were training the course giving a little preview of what we are going to see tomorrow...

One of Tom Wallisch' practice runs through the rail section

Both Matt and Banks are training in the pipe right now getting ready for tonights semi-final against the prequalified athletes. Stay tuned for another update after the event...

Hot Laps With Banks, Xavier & Margetts In Breckenridge

With only a few days to go before the Winter Dew Tour kicks off over in Breckenridge, photographer John Vandervalk had the chance to catch up with a few members of team Orage for a quick Q&A between hot laps in the park.

BANKS GILBERTI

Banks casually waiting for his government bailout.

JV: How was your summer?
Banks: It was really good! But it's great to be back on the snow gettin' ready for the Dew Tour.

JV: Are you going to be competing in both events? Slopestyle and Pipe?
Banks: Yeah for sure... I made the qualifiers for slope again this year as well as pipe.

JV: You're absolutely killin it out there today! Do you have some new tricks up your sleeve?
Banks: Well I'm workin on a few new ones and just havin fun out here today. The weather is perfect... the jumps could be a little bigger but are pretty good for early season. Can't wait for the big line at Breck to open up next week!

If you missed it last week, check out this edit from Banks & the Surface crew shredding in Breck's early season park...

COLORS: Early Season at Breck from josh bishop on Vimeo.

XAVIER BERTONI

JV: Xavier, it's good to see you again! How was the flight over from France?
Xavier: Long as always, but stoked to be out here in Colorado again!

JV: The halfpipe over at Copper is closed for a few days, how was it last week?
Xavier: Really good! The trannies are smooth and the pipe is almost as good as they get. Kinda frustrating not being able to ski pipe for 5 days, so I'm just cruisin Breck's park and workin on the slope aspects. Not really my forte though.

JV: You went down to New Zealand in August, how did that go?
Xavier: Well I would have liked to ski a little better, but over all it was pretty good. I'm really amped up for the Dew Tour this next weekend!

Xavier is clearly uncomfortable riding the park. He can't even decide which ski to grab...

JV: Rumor has it that you have some new tricks in your toolbag this year... what are you workin on now?
Xavier: I'm doin doubles this year and just workin on gettin the grabs down. There are quite a few skiers this year doin them, so I'm just gettin them more stylish right now and workin of some big flat spins as well.

JV: Well good luck and I can't wait to see you in the finals!

MATT MARGETTS

JV: Marg, it's been way too long! How was your summer, did you go down to New Zealand in August?
Marg: For sure, the weather didn't cooperate as planned and we only had about one week of good weather out of the 3 weeks I was down there... Then we headed over to Australia for a few days and pretty much burned the place down! (Laughs) It's great country and wanna go back some day.

JV: It's good to see you here at Breck finally, you pumped for the Dew Tour?
Marg: Super pumped, it'll be a good time as always! Legs are a little sore right now. Been hittin it pretty hard.

JV: Are you going to be skiing in both slope and pipe?
Marg: Definitely! Just gonna do my thing and see what happens.

JV: Let's get some shots for your fans, can I tail you off the first few kickers? Which way to you drift when you spin?
Marg: You're gonna go off the jumps with me?!? Sure man, I'll get blunted out for ya. Depends which way I spin, usually to the right. I'll just do some super tweaked cork 7's, will that work?

JV: Yep, that'll work... lets do it!
Marg: That's the first time I went off that last one, went a little too deep! Did you get the shot?

Large Marg- Back scratcher iron-cross. Look for this move in the finals!

JV: I did, went all the way to the bottom of the landing! Camera took a little spill, but still works! We'll have to speed test next time! lol I'll see you out here next week and rest those legs!

Marg: Sounds like a plan. Catch ya lata!


Stay tuned to orage.com for continuous coverage of the Winter Dew Tour stop #1 in scenic Breckenridge Colorado. We'll be on site dishing out more photos, athlete interviews, and maybe even some technicolor video (with stereo!). 

For up to the minute ramblings from the chairlift in Breck follow us on Twitter.

On the road with Kaya: Montreal to Mammoth

Whatup everybody!

Can't believe it's already that time of the year again... it's starting to snow and we are SHREDDING! Wooo!! So I just took the roadtrip of my life! I wanted my car over on the west coast, so me and Maude Raymond decided to drive from Montreal to Mammoth Lakes, Californiaaa! 4,625 km through Ontario, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada then Cali baby!

Day 1, point A: St-Laurent Street, Montreal

So we started driving, and about 4 hours in we got stuck in deadlock traffic. Turns out there was actually a truck that had been blown up (we saw it after, it was full of big black holes - crazy!) so we waited there for 3 hours. We sat there charging our stuff, watching a movie when suddenly I realize the battery is dead!! Great way to start out 50 hour roadtrip. Haha! So we got boosted right on time and went on our way.

Gotta get my stretch on since we're driving so much!

The first day was a breeze, we drove and drove and drove, taking turns to sleep (which was really hard in the car). The second night was when it  got a little rough. We pulled over on the highway for 30 minutes twice because we were both too tired to drive, but other than that we just cruised along.

Went out in the desert to soak up some sun

Getting into Utah, I got stopped because my tints were too dark. I mean really? Turns out they were fine and we kept on truckin, but common, don't you have better things to do!? Basically to keep ourselves busy we blasted a lot of lil wayne, jay-z, bob marley, zion i, moby.. (the list goes on) and I also whipped out some mags and books and started reading to Maude. Hey, 53 hours on the road and you need to find some time consuming things to do right!

Cute balloons, I know : )

We finally got there on Wednesday evening (we left on Monday afternoon) to Chris Benchetler's place, where we are staying. What a good feeling!!!

Stoked on the Cali sun!

We've been skiing the past few days here and it's been awesome. So nice to be in the Cali sunshine, all day every day!

Will keep you all posted, wait for our edits coming soon!!