Snowboarding
8 new snowboard tricks to learn, from easy to ridiculous
Add some awesome to your freestyle repertoire with these mind-blowing tricks courtesy of everyone from Marcus Kleveland to Mark McMorris.
One thing that never changes about snowboarding is how it embraces innovation. Today’s generation of slopestyle pros have such ridiculous control, they’re inventing and re-inventing tricks at a rate that’s as fast as any in the sport’s history. And it’s the riders below who are changing the game hardest of all – enjoy!
1. Mark McMorris – Front Board dub 12
Mark McMorris competes in NST
© Mark Clavin/Natural Selection Tour/Red Bull Content Pool
Difficulty: ridiculous. Here’s one for the In-Your-Dreams wish list – Mark McMorris has totally put that heavy injuries to bed with this crazy NBD; we’re not quite sure what to call it, but it’s basically a backside 1170-degree double cork out of a front board. Wow.
2. Marcus Kleveland – Backside 180 Rewind
Marcus Kleveland added Snowboard Big Air gold to his X Games collection
© Lorenz Richard/Red Bull Content Pool
Difficulty: easy when you’re Marcus Kleveland. The Rewind was the freshest move back in 2017, and it’s pretty much the hardest trick variation you can do now. Basically it’s when you almost complete a full rotation – 360, 540, 720, whatever – then at the last minute reverse spin direction and ‘rewind’ 180 degrees. In this case, Marcus is sending a huge, inverted backside three, but stalls, pokes and brings it back to 180. This is the easiest rotation done in the hardest possible way.
More from Marcus Kleveland
3. Tyler Chorlton – Elbow Carve
Tyler Chorlton in Levity
© [unknown]
Difficulty: Easy. The elbow carve is a direct descendent of the Euro carve, a stylised heel or toe side carve popularised by European hard booter Serge Vitelli back in the late 1980s. Today, style meisters like Tyler Chorlton are taking things to the next level of creativity and the variations seem to be endless. All you need to get your elbow carve going is a relatively smooth stretch of slope, edge control and a decent set of core muscles – what are you waiting for?
3. Alek Oestreng – Andrecht
Photo of the Week: Alek Oestreng
© Blotto
Difficulty: easy-ish. Handplants are a must-have in any decent riders trickbag: not only do they look and feel great, they’re pretty easy too – at least, a lot easier strapped onto a snowboard than on a skateboard. Alek Oestreng can do them on both, and it shows: this classic Andrecht hand plant is as smooth as it gets.
3. Rene Rinnekangas – Frontside Boardslide Backside Grab
Rene Rinnekangas World Snowboard Tour
© Krister Majander
Difficulty: tricky. This trick is something you’ve probably never thought of, but now you’ve seen it you’ll wish you could do it too. It’s probably not even that hard, if you do it on a long, widefunbox in the park. But Rene Rinnekangas prefers to do it on a legit rail, with one of the sketchiest in-runs ever.
5: Niklas Mattson – Backside Lipslide to frontflip
Difficulty: medium-hard. Niklas is a true rider’s rider – he might not appear on many podiums, but he’s as talented and enjoyable to watch as anyone in the world right now. So while he’s perfectly capable of blowing your mind with a backside 1620, it’s this silly, but incredible backside lipperfrontflip out that we’d like to draw your attention to.
6: Torgeir Bergrem – Switch Backside 540 late Method
Difficulty: harder than it looks. Torgeir Bergrem knows that triple corks can win contests, but style and creativity wins respect: this butter-smooth switch backside 540 to late Method might just be the most stylish trick ever performed on a snowboard.
8. Niklas Mattson – Backside double cork 1080 Rewind
Difficulty: crazy difficult. Backside 3 Rewinds are soooo October 2017. Niklas Mattson brought this tricky rotation variation to the next level in April 2018 when he rewound a double cork 10. Better learn this one quick, it’s already getting played out.