Here’s irony for you. I love snowboarding though I had never been in my life.
How is this possible? Well, obviously, being a child of my generation, it looks pretty sweet. I used to play all the games (SSX Tricky on PS2, Amped on XBox, 1080 on N64, etc). I adore the Winter Olympics and still my all-time favourite moment remains watching the ladies boardercross finals with Jacobellis bailing out of gold needlessly after attempting a trick when she had the medal in her gloves (Turin 2006). I wear items of snowboarding clothing, though at least I can argue I use them for when I occasionally go skiing. Most critically, I once covered my student diary in stickers of various snowboarding brand names, declaring myself cool.
But, despite this more than significant interest, I had never given it a try. The thing is when I rarely get that opportunity to go up the slopes, am I going to spend my time on the beginner slopes eating the white stuff or hit the top of the mountain whizzing down reds and blacks. Clearly the latter, which clearly means I’m gonna spend my money on skis.
But time to change my ways.
I stepped off the train at that glorious location: Milton Keynes Central. It went a lot smoother than last time I was here – as I stood up to leave the train, I knocked a bottle Lucozade over a girl’s Macbook pro. Watching the sticky liquid slip between the keys of the Apple product all I could do was offer my condolences and a couple tissues.
I left the station and entered the Americanized block structure that is Milton Keynes. More organised than an Excel spreadsheet, the town sprawls out ahead of me. All I have to do is locate Xscape, a Noah’s Arc among the flood of rectangular architecture. The problem is that MK has been built for motor cars not pedestrians.
I marched the never ending side-walks and subways to discover what can only be described as the very definition of a wasteland:
- An even distribution of trash as if sewn by a farmer.
- Graffiti, and not the good stuff – just incomprehensible tags.
- Loose floor tiles, one of which drenched my heel like a trap door giving way to a puddle of gunge might on Get Your Own Back.
- The relentlessly depressing dinge of the subway lights didn’t do much for me either.
- Once-promising business estates sit vacant like the town of Radiator Springs in the Pixar film Cars.
Cutting my path through this Harris fencing jungle, I eventually came across what I was looking for.
On entry it is a bizarrely thriving centre of youth. Having the door held open for me by a young chap watching on as his buddy is desperately trying to chat up the prime talent outside McDonald’s, I found myself in a shopping centre. I could be quick in calling it a post-modern tragedy of the relentlessly similar money-spending experience as every other in the country, but, I have those thoughts blown away with the abundance of specialist mountain and outdoor sport shops.
Pretty random you would think, until you come across that window that glances into another world.
Sublime it is, to discover a huge freezer sat in the middle of a giant shopping complex of a most normal temperature.
Catching the end of the FA Cup semi-final between Chelsea and Man City, I get changed into my Salomon ski jacket and pants – the same ones that caused a very minor bomb threat incident in Earls Court, but that is another story…
I pick up my size 11 boots and size 58 board. The guy seemed most surprised when I asked for a regular set up. Yes, I’m a beginner but I’ve given surfing, mountain boarding, skateboarding and Land Rover boarding all a try so I know the basics.
5 minutes later, our instructor Dwayne and his helper Jason were taking a group of 6 of us bright-eyed and nervous 20/30 yr olds into the giant freezer.
We began with learning about the board and how to fall over when attached to it. Valuable lessons I thought.
90 minutes later, and I still hadn’t fallen over. Clearly I was just amazing or just not trying hard enough, not quite sure which one. We had just done the basic toe edge slide down the slope as well as going side to side like this. The most miraculous thing of all, I hadn’t taken out some poor unsuspecting skier beginner. There were a lot of special needs children and disability groups taking lessons but somehow the board, the snow and my legs behaved.
The only things that weren’t happy were my calf muscles. With a large amount of bending and crouching involved, my vastly inflexible legs probably won’t talk to me again. Especially after I made them run the 30 minute journey back to Central station in 9 minutes to catch the train…
All in all though, snowboarding – easier to pick up than I had anticipated though I am very early on my learning journey. But I am determined to make it a journey. The next time I take tracks to the mountains, I am highly likely to give snowboarding a far greater chance than before.
