THE 1st ANNUAL BLISTER AWARDS from SIA

 

* THE “GEAR I WAS MOST TEMPTED TO STEAL” AWARD:

POC CORTEX DH HELMET

The Cortex DH is a $500 dollar helmet, so it better be really nice. And it is. It looks great, and the carbon shell keeps the weight down – though I can’t say that it felt stoopid light, just light. But the real story on the Cortex DH is POC’s patented MIPS system, “Multi directional Impact Protection System.”

Traditional testing methods only test vertical falls, but when crashing at speed, the impact to the head will typically be oblique, and the helmet and head will rotate when hitting the ground, resulting in rotational forces to the brain. The brain is highly sensitive to this kind of violence. POC’s MIPS system helmets allow the in-mold helmet liner to break away from the carbon shell, reducing the rotational forces on the brain. And POC notes, “Experimental tests show a significant reduction of the forces to the brain. (You can find out more about the tests at www.mipshelmet.com.)

We want to dig around a bit more on this topic, but if POC has designed the safest helmet out there, well, that $500 tag may be worth it.

state of the art protection, but the price tag might make your head spin

One more thing: the people at POC were all really cool, so please don’t tell them that the whole time we were talking I was mostly trying to figure out if I could sneak this helmet into my bag.

 

* THE “CERTAINLY CURIOUS, DEFINITELY TERRIFIED” AWARD:

 

FACTION MONO BOARD

Walking up to the Faction booth, I was surprised to see a gorgeous snowboard in the middle of their ski lineup. Well, it wasn’t a snowboard, it was a mono board. I got to talking to a couple of the Faction guys about how weird and dedicated mono boarders are. Funny part is that one of the guys is a mono boarder, and he was just nodding along and smiling.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m going to go MONO. Well, I’m going to try riding a mono, and my first experience is going to be on this here board by Faction. The biggest questions I have are (1) how steep is the learning curve for an experienced two planker? (2) Why aren’t there any Olympic events involving monoboards? And (3) Can we all agree that any future Olympic events involving mono boards should also incorporate alcohol? The TV ratings for the Big Mountain Mono and Drinking Challenge would be through the roof.

Fortunately for my health and well being and social life, the Faction mono board isn’t available yet, so I’ve got some time before I have to dive into the league of the Weird and the Dedicated.

Wish me luck. I’ll let you know.

 

* THE “POSSIBLE CONVERSATION STARTER, POTENTIAL GAME KILLER” AWARD:

CHAOS HATS

At first, I thought this would simply be called the GAME KILLER award, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided that some guys and girls might be able to pull this off.

Moment of truth: could you?

 

IN CONCLUSION:

I think it’s fitting to end BLISTER’S 1st SIA AWARDS piece with a question, since questions are the big take away from SIA. So much cool stuff, lots of questionable stuff, and no real answers till we get it all out of the convention center and up on the snow.

But we leave SIA with a great sense of what we’ll be testing and telling you about at BLISTER for the coming year.

We’ve seen the future, now we’ve just got to go find out whether it’s any good.

Should be fun.