If you’re a teenager, hanging out on a boat with an iPod full of music, a cell phone to text your best friends and a world wakeboard champion to critique your moves would rank pretty close to nirvana.
At Freeride Wakeboard School, campers do just that. Wakeboarding wizard Billy Garcia picks them up in his version of a limo — a Malibu boat with built-in ballast tanks that create the perfect wake for flipping and jumping.
On this day last summer, he welcomes 13-year-old pals Tori Showalter, Sara Shaw and Claire Prewitt aboard at the Loop 360 boat ramp on Lake Austin. Once the girls settle in, boat driver J.D. Day revs the engine and they buzz up to Emma Long Metropolitan Park to pick up a fourth camper, 15-year-old Taylor Ferris…Â More info
Outdoor enthusiasts like Josh Manchester, Phillip M. Journey and Bucko Slabaugh don’t need to buy ski passes to have fun. Just give them a windy day, some snow, and they’re high as kites.
Not literally, though. That would be dangerous and call for swift action.
But the three do love kite skiing and sometimes do it at Montana State University. Manchester, of Great Falls, is a recent MSU graduate in microbiology. Journey, from Florida, is an MSU sophomore in construction engineering technology. Slabaugh, from Bozeman, is a first-year architecture student at MSU…Â More info
Airing Sunday, February 15, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time (5:00 pm Pacific Time), and re-airing another several times during the week, pro wakeboarder Chad Sharpe stars in FUEL TV’s signature 30-minute series “Firsthand.”
In this episode of “Firsthand,” we join Canada’s own Sharpe in the most progressive wakeboarding “Firsthand” yet. We begin in scenic Western Washington where Chad re-visits his roots riding on picturesque Lake Samish, then he heads down to Ronix Wakeboards’ own Radar Lake for a unique night-time rail session.
From there it’s off to Florida for a behind-the-scenes adventure as the Billabong team shoots for its up coming film Out of the Pond. …Â More info
The Monowheel has never come across as the safest looking mode of transportation to me, but shrink them down so they’re small enough to wear on each foot and you’ve got my attention. That’s what a company called Inventist did with the Orbitwheels, which they were showing off at this year’s Toy Fair. While they look like a monowheel crossed with a pair of inline skates, riding them is apparently more akin to being on a skateboard, though to propel yourself you have to make an ’s-pattern’ type movement with your feet… More info
Outdoor enthusiasts like Josh Manchester, Phillip M. Journey and Bucko Slabaugh don’t need to buy ski passes to have fun. Just give them a windy day, some snow, and they’re high as kites.
Airing Sunday, February 15, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time (5:00 pm Pacific Time), and re-airing another several times during the week, pro wakeboarder Chad Sharpe stars in FUEL TV’s signature 30-minute series “Firsthand.”