The wave of urban snowboarding has been making power moves the past couple years with things like Real Snow being added to Winter X Games allowing top street riders to compete in a video contest and rail jam at the event. Additionally, multiple mountain resorts have brought street feature replicas directly to the mountain to provide even more options for riders. This is the case with East coast resort, Seven Springs, in Pennsylvania with their release of "The Streets".

Forum team riders Pat Moore and Nic Sauve helped turn this idea into a reality and collaborated with Snow Park Technologies and Seven Springs' park staff to deliver a seriously impressive setup. Massive and intimidating, this new addition will provide for great filming and fun jib sessions for those East coast riders that are always fiending for urban shred time.

Listen to Pat and Nic talk about "The Streets" and it's official opening Thursday January 19, 2012.

Yeah, we can't even begin to think about the next Winter X Games either, however, we're being forced to. The second annual Real Snow all-urban video contest is returning in 2012 and the riders competing have been announced. With some returning snowboarders alongside fresh faces eager to get in on the action, this video contest adds a whole different side to the highly competitive X Games. 2011 marked the first year to include this competition and the first year to acknowledge street riding as part of the games. Along with the Real Snow video contest there is also a Real Snow rail jam held in Aspen and the setup we saw last year was a force to be reckoned with.

Eight riders and eight 60-second edits attempting to capture the burliest, most technical, and stylish urban riding around make up this showdown. Returning riders Dan Brisse (who scored gold last year), Louis-Felix Paridis (silver), and Nic Sauve (bronze & Fan Favorite) will join urban riding beasts Halldor Helgason, Jed Anderson, Scott Stevens, Bode Merrill and Pat Moore. Nothing like a heavily stacked roster to get your blood pumping.

Photo courtesy of SNOWBOARDER Mag, Huggy

Up until Winter X 2012 (January 26-29), this group of rippers will be combing the streets in an attempt to find and drop in to a spot better and gnarlier than the next. ESPN's words below with all the details of voting:

An expert panel of respected riders and industry heavies will decide who brings home the Winter X Games medals, but beginning in January, you get to decide the Fan Favorite -- the winner of which will take home $50,000.

All eight Real Snow video edits will be released on XGames.com/realsnow on January 10. Voting for the Fan Favorite will go down in a bracket format similar to July's X Games Real Street, with riders going head-to-head in two-man match-ups for one week at a time. On January 17, the four riders with the most votes will advance to a two-bracket semifinal. The final two will advance to a final, two-rider bracket on January 24. The winner of the Fan Favorite will be announced Sunday during the live telecast of the 2012 Winter X Games; medal winners from the judged portion of the event will be announced Saturday during the ESPN2 telecast (2-4 p.m. ET).

Be sure and keep up with these videos as they drop. Until then, check out the contest teaser below:

Two words can describe the snowboard street event that went down at Winter X Games 15: burly...and sketchy; which when put together equal bad ass.

This past weekend marked the first snowboard street competition to be held at Winter X Games and ultimately came about because of the inaugural video contest, "Real Snow". Seven of the eight riders that competed for a medal by putting together individual video edits also competed in the street event - bringing the urban side of snowboarding to the masses. Nic Sauve, Jeremy Jones, Seth Huot, JP Walker, Joe Sexton, Simon Chamberlain, and Louis-Felix Paradis were dropping in on one of the gnarliest contest set-ups they had ever seen. The riders faced the options of a concrete ledge, a massive yellow pipe, a janky-ass stair set (aka the cheese grater...and personally dubbed by JP Walker as the terror zone) set up with two kinked rails and an intimidating gap to down rail.

If there was pressure, no one could tell at first. The guys were all joking and having a good time - running the same attitude as they would if they were out filming with their own crews. However, Nic Sauve began to up the ante (to say the least) and the motivation to step it up was apparent. After Nic stomped the gap to frontside boardslide on the down rail, the others got the urge to start charging the hard side as well.

Jeremy Jones was going for it; fearlessly spinning into the double kink repeatedly however, never pulled it off. Nonetheless, he was no doubt charging and got the crowd hyped. Joe Sexton seemed to have a smile plastered on his face literally the entire time, even while he was pressing the ledge with all the style that he's known for, and also pumped up the fans. Fellow People crew members, JP Walker and Seth Huot were bringing the heat as usual but weren't getting the points needed to take out Nic Sauve.



Louis-Felix Paradis pulled out a switch 360 to switch 50-50 on the ledge to land in the second and silver medal spot while Simon Chamberlain's gap to nosepress on the double kink scored him the bronze. And last, Nic Sauve who seriously sent it the entire competition stomped a gigantic cab 270 to front board on the down rail and clinched the win and the gold medal.

It was a different feeling from the winners as you could tell that being in the X Games "scene" might have been out of their comfort zone but they were stoked to bring another side of snowboarding to the crowd and represent what they are all about. Hopefully this will inspire more progressive moves in the contest scene in the future.

Congrats to the winners.

Photo courtesy of Snowboarder Magazine/Huggy
Video courtesy of ESPN

ESPN.com illustration

Eight riders. Eight videos. One X Games gold medal and $50,000 to give away. Winter X Games 2011 is going urban.

After the first video-only contest, "Real Street" debuted at the 2010 Summer X Games and was a huge hit; ESPN decided to make the move and debut the "Real" series again at WX15 - resulting in the birth of "Real Snow". Eight pros will put together a 60-second video part filmed exclusively on urban terrain. The videos will then be judged by a panel of industry pros who will make the call on who wins the $50,000 and the X Games chunk of gold that you can drape around your neck. The medalists will be announced in Aspen after the eight riders throw down in the Snowboard Street jam session.

All the video entrees will be shown as part of the WX15 telecast on January 29th but will drop on ESPN on January 12 where you'll be able to vote for the "Fan Favorite" who will take home five grand.

Time to find out who these eight video phenoms are:

Dan Brisse
Simon Chamberlain
Seth Huot
Jeremy Jones
Louis-Felix Paradis
Nic Suave
Joe Sexton
JP Walker

GrindTV Newswire, Via Forum Snowboards: (June 28, 2010) All new for Winter 2011, Forum presents an urban-specific line of boards developed on the team's specific street-riding needs. With urban boards come the best in durability, exceptional ollie power, quick acceleration for short drop-ins, and ridiculously affordable pricing. And, no $90 lift ticket needed here--ride these boards wherever you want.

Leading the charge in the urban category is The Contract, now every team rider's go-to deck for slaying the streets. "The Contract is the answer to the need for an ultimate jib stick," says Forum Team Rider Nic Sauve. "Its unique shape allows more stability, better pop, and precise maneuverability. You'll have everything on your side to destroy any obstacle crossing your way in the streets."

Featuring some of the most iconic 70's-era images from NYC photographer Allan Tannenbaum, this board pretty much speaks for itself.

And hey, there's one more thing about The Contract: every person who buys the board is eligible to go online and sign up to be on "The Contract Team." Once on the team, riders can send in their best urban shots on The Contract and have the chance to score some photo incentives if the shot gets run! (More details will be disclosed once you log-in to The Contract Team webpage.)

Available this fall in select snowboard shops worldwide, the Contract is now available for demo at both High Cascade Snowboard Camp and Camp of Champions. Stay tuned for more at www.forumsnowboards.com and be on the lookout for Forum's other urban offering--the Rat.