Put it on your calendar now: This Saturday, Jan. 30th...Monument Square, downtown Portland, Maine.  Sunday River and Sugarloaf are bringing the snow to the streets for a handful of skiers and riders to hit a new custom staircase feature.  DJ, music and after party courtesy of Red Bull.  Check out www.thedowntownshowdown.com for info and stay tuned as more news comes out.

Check out the coverage of the Dumont Cup from NBC. Thanks Freeskier for the video!

Rocking Chair is closed down this week to build the slopestyle course for the Dumont Cup on Saturday.  The venue will include two hits plus rails, lined up down the skier's right side of the park.  Get on up here to check out the action on Saturday, or if you think you have what it takes to ride with with pros, visit www.redbullskiing.com and sign up...

The Downtown Showdown exceeded all expectations as the first urban rail event in Portland, Maine.  The crew built a sweet three-feature staircase in the operations garage here which was disassembled, trucked to Monument Square, and reassembled for the nighttime event.  Check out the Downtown Showdown site for more.

The crew is working around the clock building the staircase for Portland.  By the numbers: three 30-foot steel stringers weithing 800 lbs each, two complete sets of 8-foot-wide stairs, two handrails, one box, and a finished piece weighing nearly two tons.

At long last the Empire Rail is finished and was placed in Rocking Chair today.  It's huge, black and you couldn't miss it riding up the Barker quad if you tried.  Get up here this weekend and be among the first to hit it.

Be on the lookout for the new Empire rail we designed with Simon.  It's big flat-down running 14 feet flat then 24 feet down, all at a height of 5 feet off the deck and built with a large 4 inch diameter tubing.  Black with Empire logos on the sides.  Should be up soon and Simon's looking forward to hitting it the next time he's in town. 

As of today we've completed 15 brand new rails and boxes and the crew has pulled out all the old stuff and with some cutting and welding turned them into freshies.  Today we can proudly say we have 50 elements for you!  We also just completed a new entrance gate for the jib park.

We have had some good and some challenging weather.  Rocking Chair is slated to run next week to finish the left side.  This should give us a nice Christmas park and with some love from the weather gods the start of the stunt ditch.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the first contest of the year. Get your teams ready for the NBJ… This year we have a bunch of sweet prizes and a new format.  Music and Oakley will be here for some festivities.  Registration is day of so get it together and get up here.

On a side note Park Ranger Austin Ouellette has suffered a potentially season ending knee injury.  He is getting a MRI Monday and we wish him the best of luck.  He will be around all year designing and helping everywhere he can.  If you know him or see him dump your soda on the ground and give some love to our homie.

Roma

TBD 08: bigger & better.  Get on up for the 3rd annual TBD Open rail jam on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Register for $10 from 8.30-10.30 at Sunday Sessions then hit the event 11.  If compa aren't your speed, hang out to watch then get on all the new 09 gear through Demo Days. Prizes this year come from Red Bull, Hayes Brothers Snowboards, Smith Optics, Sunday Sessions and Steezin TV, who's throwing an afterparty at the Goggle at 8pm with live music from Surf Below Zero, TBD awards, swag and more Red Bull that you should safely drink in one night. www.steezin.tv for more on Steezin TV.

First in the northeast to open, again.  Riding on Halloween, again.  How do we top that?  How about having three rails and a small jump set up for opening day.  Thanks to everyone who showed up to ride on Halloween and over the weekend. 

Welcome back!

It is the time a year when we start working on park features.  We're collecting all last year's rails and boxes to clean 'em up and make them look like new again and building a bunch of new features.  The South Ridge park will have a new look this winter -- new features, wider at the top, more sun thanks to tree clearing for the chondola, and most importantly the park will be lighted to give you 12 hours of fun.  Stay tuned for updates about new jib production and the event schedule.

Also, we'll be down in Portland Oct 18-19 at Sunny Breeze to set up another rail jam.  This year a custom early season feature will be unveiled... Check it out!

Check out these links. The first is coverage of the recent Red Bull One Hit Wonder event. The second is from the Union Square Street Sessions in NYC. Note the quote from SR rider and park crew member Andrew K.

http://www.futuresnowboarding.com/2008/02/one-hit-wonder-sunday-river-2

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=8&aid=78242