The 11th annual Ride Shakedown just invaded St. Sauveur in Quebec, Canada. The competitors were greeted with a burly setup, equipped with a big air section that ended with a few gigantic rails. This event garners a lot of attention due to the unique contest format where riders must call-out their tricks each run and can't call the same trick twice. The riders are forced to plan out their line and the pressure to land the exact trick is on. No room for last minute decisions here.

Local pro and all around slopestyle monster, Sebastien Toutant, took the win at the event. The 19-year-old has come onto the contest scene at full throttle and is the poster child of the young guns taking over snowboarding. Watch his winning tricks below.

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

One of snowboarding's most impressive contests is back for 2011. Transworld Snowboarding's "Team Shoot Out" is based upon four teams from different sponsors and judges them on their video submissions. This contest revolves around creativity, photo, video, and skill and by no means do the competitors hold back. Salomon's Team Shoot Out video took home the cake last year with their video at Keystone Resort. According to TWS, they've loosened the leashes a bit and are letting the teams run a bit wild.

The teaser has been dropped, teams been announced, and the anticipation has begun. The Northwest of the US and across the Canadian border are the locations - get prepared to see it all. Team videos start dropping July 18, who do you think will blow it up this year...?

2011 Teams:

Capita: Cale Zima, Dan Brisse, Scott Stevens, Laura Hadar, and Phil Jacques at Stevens Pass, Washington.

Ride: Alex Cantin, Austin Hironaka, Darrell Mathes, and Sebastien Toutant at Summit at Snoqualmie, Washington.


Technine: Jonah Owen, Dylan Thompson, Andrew Brewer, and Derek Dennison in the streets of Montreal.

Yes: JP Solberg, Romain De Marchi, Benji Ritchie, Helen Schettini, and Mikee Pederson in the Whistler backcountry.

Words: Pat Bridges
Photos: Mike Yoshida

For the past decade the Ride Shakedown events have distinguished themselves amongst an overly crowded contest calendar by having the most innovative and rider friendly format on the competition circuit. By mandating that riders call their tricks before dropping and abstain from repeating moves the spectacle remains fresh and progressive with only the best riders reap the rewards.

On Friday March 18th, 2011 The Shakedown made its second appearance at The Summit-at-Snoqualmie, WA and in typical Northwest fashion it was damp. Yet the moist conditions didn't deter the 40 riders in the invite only rail event from stepping up picking apart the two-feature setup. The lookers right of the course yielded a quad kink square bar while the left showcased a bloated round bar complete with a girthy donkey at the end. Two heats of 20 or so riders jammed nonstop for 45 minutes vying for a spot in the 8 man finals. Standouts like Dylan Alito, Garret Warnick, Seth Hill and Yale Cousino set down some of the best tricks of the night but they lacked the consistency and panache of the eventual finalists.

Full recap...

GrindTV Newswire via Ride Snowboards: Ride's 9th Annual Snowboard Art Contest will host a reception evening that will feature the top 30 participants and top 7 finalists in the running for the big prizes - including the grand prize of $1000 cash and a snowboard with the winning design! All top 30 and runner up's will be on display at the evo Timesinfinity Gallery in Seattle for the month of February and there will be a full slide show online to include all of the SBA9 participants.

There is still time to enter - Send us your intent to form by December 15th and your artwork by January 1st.

View contest details and enter the snowboard art contest