mike lewis


Born and bred in Colorado, I’ve been riding snowboards for 20 years and writing about them for 15. Damn that makes me sound old!


Articles posted by mike lewis

R.I.P. Ronin, Hello Burton Restricted

Burton will put its Ronin brand to bed after the 2008/09 season and launch a new, specialty retailer specific line called Burton Restricted.

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mike lewis

Snow Exposure Meter: November 2008

Travis Rice takes over.

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mike lewis

Jake and Donna Speak Out On Burton Graphic Controversy

Transworld Business sat down with Jake Burton Carpenter and Donna Carpenter to get their take on the Love and Primo imbroglio and putting it to bed.

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mike lewis

Moody’s Lowers Quiksilver Ratings - Stock Drops Below $1

Investor service company cuts some Quiksilver ratings due to weakened liquidity, reliance on short-term debt following Rossignol sale.

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mike lewis

Park City Blockbuster Goes X-Treme

According to an article by Andrew Kirk in the Park Record, Park City’s Blockbuster has created a section that features movies from the town’s “Extreme” film festival, the X-DANCE, which coincides with the Sundance Film Festival.


Photo by David Ryder/Park Record

Here are the highlights:

Blockbuster Video is now a little more extreme.

Winners of the X-DANCE Film Festival are now available at the Iron Horse Drive Blockbuster and will soon be available at the Quarry Village location.

Paul Nichols, manager of the Ironhorse Dr. store, said he was always frustrated with his offerings of ski, snowboarding and extreme-sport films.

“It was one of those little niches we had a hard time fulfilling until the X-DANCE section came about,” he said.

Nichols is friends with Brian Wimmer, the festival’s co-creator, and the two agreed the arrangement would be mutually beneficial.

Wimmer and his festival partner Eric Barrett are both professional filmmakers who started X-DANCE about nine years ago to promote better sport filmmaking.

The “X” in the name comes from X-treme sports and the “dance” part is because the film runs alongside Sundance and has been inspired by it.

Wimmer has been in the film business for 25 years and said his true love is action sports.

“As a filmmaker and an athlete, I wasn’t happy with anything I was seeing,” he said.

Most X-treme sport films are a lot of jumps and landings on skateboards, snowboards, bikes, snowmobiles etc. set to music.

“We call it ‘action porn.’ Takeoff, landing, takeoff landing, put it to music and call it a film. They’re really about selling T-shirts,” he said.

Growing up in the area, and having known Robert Redford since childhood, Wimmer decided he wanted to do for sport films what Redford did for independent films.

The X-DANCE film festival does not recognize the most “extreme” or entertaining films, Wimmer finds that far too subjective. Like Sundance, the festival uses experienced judges to critique filmmaking skills like cinematography, editing and the musical score. Most important to Wimmer and co-creator Eric Barrett is story.

“You don’t have to have a scripted story, but we’re wanting to get into the soul of athlete and the sport and bring that out. If I see a guy jumping off the cliff 10 times, I don’t care, I don’t know who he is,” he explained.

Wimmer is tired of seeing films with great athleticism but no story.

“Open the mic up!” he joked.

Barrett compares the films they award to documentaries. He cites Sundance premiers “Lords of Dogtown” and “Riding Giants” as examples of exemplary sport films.

mike lewis

Burlington City Council Passes Resolution Asking Burton To Meet With Protesters

The controversy over Burton’s Love and Primo graphics seems to take on a new facet daily. In the most recent step to curb Burton’s freedom to create boards with graphics that community members have taken offense to, the Burlington, Vermont City Council passed a resolution Monday by a vote of 12 to 1 asking the company to meet with the leader’s of the citizen groups protesting the boards that feature PG-13 Playboy centerfolds with no naughty bits, and drawings of hands being mutilated.


According to the Burlington Free Press:

The resolution, a softer version of the one originally proposed, doesn’t force Burton to take any action, but rather encourages the Burlington-based company to listen to the concerns of community organizations that say that the boards promote self-harm and misogyny.

The original resolution, sponsored by councilors Kurt Wright, R-Ward 4; Joan Shannon, D-Ward 5; Clarence Davis, P-Ward 3; and Jane Knodell, P-Ward 2, asked that Burton withdraw the boards from the market, a request that city councilor Ed Adrian, D-Ward 1, thought was unnecessary.

“My personal opinion is that people should be allowed to make choices, whatever they are,” Adrian said.

Russ Ellis, D-Ward 4 said he wasn’t interested in having the council censor any business and likened the Burton issue to Burlington Telecom’s decision to carry the Al-Jazeera network.

“I don’t think we want to get into the issue of being a censoring board. It’s really not appropriate for the City Council to be dealing with,” Ellis said.

“They don’t have to answer to us, to me, to anyone. But again, my response to that is I hope they would take the high road,” Wright said.

mike lewis

Nearly 100 Shops Hit The Slopes For Record Breaking Loveland Demo Days

The fourth annual Loveland Demo Days brought over 440 shop employees out to take this year’s gear for a test drive. Step inside and see what’s hot.

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mike lewis

Sales Jump At Colorado Ski & Snowboard Expo

Each year, the snowboard season is launched with a myriad of consumer shows around the country that help serve as bell weathers of the coming season’s sales. If the Colorado Expo is indicative of things to come, it should be a good year for softgoods.

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mike lewis

Keystone Kicks Off With Gondola Grand Opening

Friday, November 7th marked the start of the season for Keystone and it’s new River Run Gondola, and riders were keyed up to get crafty in the creative park.

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mike lewis

SIA’s Mile High Summit - 2010 Tradeshow Preview

Snowsports Industries America has been dotting its i’s and crossing its t’s in preparation for the move to Denver in 2010 for several years already. Transworld Business joined the SIA team on November 6th to hear what’s new and give the Denver Convention Center a look see.

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mike lewis

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November 6, 2009, 4:05 pm

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