The 12% Rule, By Colin D Watt

The 12% Rule

By Colin D Watt

At the start of that super-popular snowboard movie, Art of Flight, there’s some guy, Travis Rice, who rambles on about stuff and says, “If we want authenticity, we have to initiate it. We will never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it. It’s this self-discovery that inevitably takes us to the wildest places on Earth.”

At the start of every season, Travis Rice’s sponsors probably ramble on to him about stuff and say, “Hey, T Rice, we’ve got all this new-and-improved snowboard gear you need to try riding this season, it will make you snowboard at least 12 per cent better, guaranteed!”*

None of those people are completely wrong, but it’s hard to say exactly how much better new snowboard gear will make you ride this winter. Maybe you’ll go from barely linking turns to suddenly winning the Olympics. Or maybe you’ll progress from sucking at snowboarding to sucking at snowboarding just marginally less... but you won’t know until you get out there and find out for yourself.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re like those crazy guys in the movies going to Alaska and doing double Backflips into bottomless powder or if you’re trying your first Backflip on the icy slopes of your local ski hill. Chances are pretty high that you’ll do at least 12 per cent better * than last year if you get new snowboard gear this year... give or take, about 12 per cent, approximately. *

When you go snowboarding, all we want is for you to have as much fun as possible and share the joys of snowboarding with your friends. We also want you to know how much easier it will be to do cool tricks and initiate authenticity when you buy all of the new, cool gear that’s featured in this very magazine.

Remember that 12 per cent we mentioned earlier? You don’t want to miss out on all of that self-discovery and potential or whatever that Travis Rice guy was rambling on about. Last but not least, make sure you get one of those neat point-of-view cameras that goes on top of your helmet (like Travis Rice) so you can show everybody all of the cool footage of you doing all of those crazy tricks in all of those extreme places... or at least maybe you’ll get some funny bail videos of you and your friends. Realistically, more people are going to watch the videos of you and your friends hurting yourselves, but good luck either way!

*Some of these quotes and facts may have been doctored in order to convince you to buy new snowboard gear. Feel free to get in touch with us and let us know about that 12 per cent in- crease everybody has been rambling on about...

Scott Schneider, First Descent on Sulphur Mountain, Photo by Colin D. Watt