As you might have guessed, we at Pleasure spend a lot of time talking to snowboarders and increasingly I hear how the old days of snowboarding used to be better. This surely must be a cliché in every sport and every scene in the history of mankind. But were the old days of snowboarding that much better than now? Surely, we don’t miss when our highbacks looked like they were made from an old plastic bucket, or when our ratchets would open mid run? Do we miss those slow as hell, two-seater wooden chairlifts that would smack the back of your legs when you got on them and would make you eat shit when you got off? Don’t tell me you miss wearing 20 layers of clothing because the fabrics weren’t as good, most of us looked more like an onion with layers than people dressed for the mountain. I heard being said a lot that the parties used to be better 15 years ago, but that might be because you were 15 years younger, you didn’t have work the next day at 8am and you could drink more than two beers and a shot of tequila, without feeling like you were on death’s doorstep. Or it could be that you just weren’t at the right parties. DIYX in Seefeld took many of us a week to recover, the Technically Doing It 6020 Show Up parties, would have your parents ban you from snowboarding, if we had those back in the day. And if we do say so ourselves, the Pleasure x YETI x Oakley party at ISPO, was very much like the good old days – almost eerily so. What could be more nostalgic than traipsing around ISPO with an anxiety-induced hangover and drinking a can of energy drink to perk yourself up?

Nostalgia can be a powerful thing and it’s part of the reason why we often take a look back in time in this very magazine you are holding in your hands right now. But once you take the rose-tinted glasses off, just remember there is someone out there that is new to snowboarding, maybe they are reading this mag for the first time and hopefully they will still love snowboarding way into the future. It’s even possible that someone new to the exciting world of snowboarding, will one day see this season as the glory days of snowboarding. Whether you have been riding for 40 years or 40 minutes, we hope that this season is your best winter ever.

Enjoy Pleasure 151,

Tom