Flipside team rider Alan Shaw

So ok, first up - basics, name, age, location etc.

Alan John Stuart Shaw, 23, bedroom in Fareham but soon to be somewhere in London. I classed Bath as my location for a long time.

Any nicknames that you also go by?

Spal or just Al

Nice. You're a professional web developer by trade, how much studying did it take to get there and how are you enjoying it now?

A shed load, School - College - Uni. It's cool varied work although people mistake me for a designer all the time. I can't really draw, I mostly build stuff. Weirdly I jacked it all in for snowboarding in NZ...heh

Don't blame you mate. That brings us nicely to the next question, which was going to be about New Zealand. How was it? We bet you have absolutely tons of stories?

Yeah a few, ha well yeah tons. I keep dominating conversations with stories about NZ and Oz. Basically, if I were to sum up, do a snowboarding season - chances are it'll be the best thing you ever do.

Any plans for more travelling in the future?

Yeah, I want to do another season (go figure!), but I'm not a millionaire so I'm saving to get over to Canada for the 2008 season (late 2008), with a quick top up trip to France earlier in the year. Basically my ideal life plan right now is - win the lottery, go snowboard.

Awesome. So going back to the subject of snowboarding, how long have you been riding for? What's your best achievement to date?

1 season, 2.5 weeks. I'm not all that really - just starting to be able to do anything that's any good. I love boxes and rails. It doesn't sound much, but my favourite trick to date is probably a nice 50-50 to boardslide on the flat down. First time I went I did skiing for 3 days, which was quite frankly easy. I then hired out some kind of ancient Santa Cruz board with some funky step in bindings for the last 2 days. I freaking loved it. I literally had no lessons, took the lift to the top of the mountain and found that somewhere near the bottom I was no longer falling about the place like a drunken chimp. That was cool, I blame the Streetboarding for the fast uptake.

haha, gotta love that drunken chimp steez

Indeed, and I was pretty much hooked after that. Wanaka (where I first stayed), has an awesome park.

That's always good to hear. What similarities would you say there are between Snowboarding and Streetboarding?

To be honest, it's easier to tell you the differences:

1. Spinning - I don't know about anyone else, but spinning seems broken in Snowboarding because you don't really have any friction to use to take off, its more actually hooning your body round. It's hard to explain, but if you Snowboard and Streetboard you'll (might) know what I mean :S