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.

Christmas is closing in fast and it's giving us hot flashes. Stores are swarming with crazed and desperate customers, the shops look like someone threw up product all over the place, the lines are curving around the corner, and there are way too many toddlers screaming their faces off. To avoid serious trauma from these types of situations, we've attempted to provide a cheat sheet for gifts in regards to snowboarding. The featured item this week is somewhat of a necessity when it comes to going riding - a snowboard.

There are countless brands with their own collection of snow sticks ranging from expensive to affordable, powder boards to jib boards, rocker to camber, hideous graphics to sweet graphics...it goes on and on. We've snagged a few of our favorites to help you narrow down your search. So, take a deep breath, peruse what we've picked for this week's gift guide, and become everyone's favorite gift giver.

More options over at Snowboarder Mag's Buyer's Guide...

Arbor Blacklist $419.95

Arbor Del Rey $299.95


Restricted Burton Nug $399.95

Burton Custom X $649.95

Burton Lipstick Women's $479.95

Burton Flying-V Deja Vu Women's $399.95

Forum Destroyer Double Dog $439.95

Forum Youngblood ChillyDog $399.95

Forum Spinster Women's $399.95

Forum Sauce Women's $319.95

Flow Shifty $379.99

Flow Jewel Women's $369.99

Rome Mod Rocker $550.00

Rome Artifact Rocker $370.00

Rome Detail Rocker Women's $360.00

Lib Tech Travis Rice Pro $539.95

Ride Berzerker $489.95

Ride DH2 $499.95

Ride OMG Women's $439.95


Gnu B-Street Women's $449.95

K2 Fastplant $499.95

K2 WWW $379.95

K2 Va Va Voom Women's $379.95

CAPiTA Totally F*kn Awesome $449

CAPiTA Indoor Survival FK $399

CAPiTA Saturnia Women's $339

The trends of resort terrain parks are ever-changing. The types of jibs, highlighted features, favorite set-ups of the season, the go-to tricks each year that we all know exist - it's never predictable.

Cue the new winter season that has quickly dawned upon us and the declaration of multiple resorts to re-create popular local urban street spots. We can all understand the angle of this genius idea, can't we? The urban jibbing that a lot of riders dedicate themselves to minus an important hindering factor. No one yelling at you to pack up and leave and/or threatening to arrest you.

Forum Snowboards and Seven Springs have announced their partnership to create "The Streets", an urban park replica at the Pennsylvania resort.

This urban playground is the love child from Forum, their team riders Pat Moore and Nic Sauve, along with the park masters and builders of Seven Springs, saying they "pulled their inspiration from the surrounding area of Pittsburgh". The local riders of PA have got to be throwing a rager right now celebrating this addition to the terrain park. The Grand Opening of "The Streets" at Seven Springs is January 19, 2012. Think you can wait that long?

This latest announcement isn't quite surprising. Although awesome and exciting, it's playing along with the urban trend that is dawning upon multiple resorts' parks. Urban jibbing is a major part of snowboarding, especially on the east coast. Many riders have a special place in their heart for riding the streets due to a wide variety of reasons. It could be all they know. Or maybe riding street rails is how they first began snowboarding. Or it's simply what they prefer. Whatever it may be - park staff, companies, and riders are in on this factoid and have taken action. They've begun to answer the prayers of street shredders and make their favorite spots more accessible to session for hours upon hours with no interruptions.

In addition to Seven Springs' "The Streets" set up, Mountain High and Bear Mountain have joined the force of urban replication; Big Bear with their new "Red Bull Plaza" and Mt. High with the "Los Angeles Features". Bear's plan was to create a street set-up where people can just chill out while hitting progressive street features without a crowd or liftlines. Mountain High wanted to bring the City of Angels, that is their backyard, to the mountains. The first iconic street rail that was unveiled was the "Concert Hall Handrail" - an exact replica of the down-flat-down staircase in downtown Los Angeles. Throughout the season they will continue to release these real-life features originating from LA.

Impressive? Yes. Burly? Duh. Progressive? No doubt. The question is, does it get the job done? Will riders that will always prefer sessioning a street spot for hours upon end find the same kind of pleasure from similar features at a resort? At the end of the day, these snowboarders might just get some kind of thrill from discovering a new rail, staying up all night filming, with the possibility of getting chased down by the cops. And that's fine.

It's admirable and inspiring that resorts these days can even step back and appreciate the urban scene and it's following. This is one more aspect of snowboarding in present day that demonstrates how progressive and forward-thinking the sport and industry surrounding it actually is.

Being part powder junkie and part park rat myself -- I think this new movement is a great step in a new direction. If only because it is an example that embraces all parts of snowboarding because as we all know, there are many parts. So here it is, the new era of urban. Ready and accessible at your local resort. Are you ready for it?

Top photo courtesy of Forum, middle photo courtesy of Snowboarder Magazine - Mike Yoshida, bottom photo courtesy of Mountain High

The crazy kids at Forum know how to bust out a quick video premiere from time to time. They have a tendency to produce award-winning snowboard movies so experience, style, and talent is on their side. Last night, right smack in the heart of Surf City, Forum hosted the world premiere of their latest project, "Vacation". Literally steps from the sand, a giant screen was set up for the hundreds of fans that came to see what they had come up with after an epic winter.

With the entire team there to stoke the crowd out with autographs and product in Huntington Beach, we all took a mini vacation for a while. "Vacation", plain and simple, will make you want to ride. Yeah, it's cliche to say because realistically, most snowboard movies have this effect. The aspect that separates Forum's latest video is the all-around vibe, humor, laid-back attitude, and the incredibly sick snowboarding that backs it all up. The audience was cracking up and cheering as they witnessed some serious hammers.

"Vacation" brought it all to the table. The intros to each rider's part were hilarious and unique. They gave us banger urban jibbing, stylish and technical park riding over massive gaps and booters, and of course, ridiculous backcountry shredding. The team was absolutely sending it but making sure they were enjoying every second and taking it all in. The premise of this video was to let all the bullshit go and just have an awesome time together on their shred sticks. (That's what she said?)

Luckily for us, this mentality worked and provided for a stellar snowboard movie. Stevie Bell, Daniel Ek, Andreas Wiig, Austen Sweetin, Jake Welch, Cameron Pierce, Alek Oestreng, Niko Cioffi, Nik Sauve, and Pat Moore with the two-song mind-blowing and well-rounded ender made us all wish we'd been on every vacation with them. I was so overwhelmed. There's too many things to go off of here - each part was insane in it's own right, proving to everyone once again that this is one of the best snowboard teams around. SNOWBOARDER's T-Bird goes more in depth on each part HERE.

After the premiere concluded the masses migrated to the after-party at Black Bull. Unfortunately, the mechanical bull was out of commission because otherwise that would have provided for some excellent comic relief and photo gallery. Instead, everyone raged and spilled their drinks all over the dance floor. Ultimately, good times were had by all.

The crew is now embarking on their European movie tour to get the entire world hyped on what they put together. Or maybe they just want another vacation. Regardless, we think they are going for another "Movie of the Year". Find out for yourself and go see it.

Forum Snowboards just dropped the World Premiere teaser for their newest flick, Vacation. No need to pack your bags or hop a flight, just settle in and be transported around the world with some of the best shredders in the game. This teaser is a sneak peak of some of the action the full length film will feature. If this doesn't amp you up for the September 28th World Premiere, then we don't know what will.

Words: Forum â¨

Get ready for the biggest beach party of the year with none other than your favorite Forum team. Check out this all-new sneak peek of what's to come at next week's World Premiere of Vacation, taking place Wednesday, September 28th at the Huntington Beach Pier, 8:30pm. After party will follow at Black Bull Chop House.

If you can't make it to So Cal, there are many more opportunities to get your Vacation on with Pat Moore, Jake Welch, Andreas Wiig, Nic Sauvé, Stevie Bell, and The Youngbloods: Daniel Ek, Cameron Pierce, Niko Cioffi, Austen Sweetin, and Alek Oestreng. Just when you thought summer was coming to an end...â¨â¨

North American Tour: â¨

Oct. 13th Calgary, AB CAN - Plaza Theater
Oct. 14th Vancouver, BC CAN - Forum Sports Bar â¨
Oct. 15th Portland, OR - Mission Theater â¨
Oct.19th Detroit, MI - Crofoot Ballroom â¨
Oct. 20th Montreal, QC CAN - Boulevard 44 â¨
Oct. 20th Denver, CO - Summit Music Hall â¨
Oct. 21st Reno, NV - The Freight House District â¨
Oct. 21st Plymouth, NH - The Flying Monkey Movie House & Performance Center â¨
Oct. 22nd Salt Lake City, UT - Complex â¨
Oct. 23rd New York City, NY - The Red Bull Space â¨â¨

European Tour: â¨
Oct. 1st Feldkirch, Austria - Poolbar â¨
Oct. 3rd Barcelona, Spain - Shoko Club â¨
Oct. 5th Marseille, France - La Friche et Le Cabaret Aléatoire â¨
Oct. 6th Bozen, Italy - Halle 28 â¨
Oct. 8th Landgraaf, The Netherlands - SnowWorld