JAMES MACHON & ANDY BENNETT GO BIG AT THE VERBIER RIDE 07

Report By James Machon, member of LINE Skis UK Mountain Command

Last week, I headed off to the Verbier Ride Competition with my friends James Woods and Andrew Longley. We arrived to perfect conditions following a recent dump of 30cm of fresh snow.

Our first day's skiing was on Wednesday morning, so we were able to have four days practice before the competition! We caught the lift up to the top of the Televerbier fun park to check out the Big Air Jump. As we had arrived so many days before the competition, the jump had not been build yet so we hooked up with professional photographer Nick Watkins and went off-piste to shoot on a backcountry kicker.

For the rest of the week, we skied around the resort just hitting the smaller jumps in the park until the competition. Although the visibility was not that good for the first two days, we had powder for most of the week.

Everything about the trip was perfect until the day when I forgot some of my gear and lost everything! It all started on Friday when we had our daily 10 minute walk to the Gondola station... as we arrived at the Gondola I realised I had forgotten my helmet and gloves so I ran all the way back to the B & B.

Having made it back to the Gondola absolutely exhausted I then failed to put my ski in the slots correctly so it dropped out of the side of the Gondola! This resulted in my having to ski down an off-piste run on one ski through knee-deep snow... frustrating or what?!

Then whilst in the fun park later on that day I left the pocket of my jacket open and my wallet fell out! I couldn't believe it! Although this day was turning out to be the most unluckiest day ever, it was actually the luckiest as the legend Rob Taylor magically picked it up!!! I was so relieved!

The Verbier Ride is a European Pro/Am Big air and Rail Jam Event, which offers riders 500 hours TV Airtime and the chance to hang out in Verbier for a long weekend. This year's event was run from the 18th - 19th February. Many European and International athletes threw down some mind-blowing tricks in front of the huge crowd in the Televerbier's Snowpark.

The Verbier Ride 07 Rail Jam had some of the highest level of riding the event has ever seen. The Rail jam set up for the competition was a Flat Down Rail, Down Rail and Down Flat Down Rail. All the competitors came up to the Televerbier Snowpark early Sunday morning to session the rails.

There were some of the best skiers in Europe attending the event, so every competitor was pushing each other more and more. All the rails were quite thin which didn't much room for error. Unfortunately around 30 minutes into my practice I caught an edge and went spinning off the down rail. Although I was wearing a helmet, I smashed my head into the icy landing. After nailing myself in practice i didn't feel like pushing myself on the rails in competition so instead I decided to spend most of the afternoon hitting the kicker ready for the Big Air Competition.

Monday was the Big Air event. All the riders were super happy hitting the perfectly built 18 metre table, built by one of Europe's top shapers, Nico Mardu. My practice before the competition went extremely well, I was able to tweak out my mute grab and felt really comfortable hitting the Big Booter.

In the Big Air competition there were approximately 30 skiers. All the skiers were judged on Amplitude, Style, Technical Difficulty and Wow Factor. All the competitors had two runs, then the top 10 battled it out for the top three spots. My first run went well, tweaking a 900 mute grab for a safety trick to put me in a safe position. All of the skiers were stepping up their tricks so I decided to do the same to get into the final and on my second run I went for a 1260 mute grab! However as I failed to gain enough amplitude i slid out on a 1080 instead. Although I landed a perfect jump for my first run the competition was at such a high standard that I just missed out of a top 10 position, finishing around 11th or 12th place.

LINE UK Pro rider Andy Bennett (also from Sheffield), who is currently based in Verbier for the season and helps me with coaching, also competed in the Big Air and Rail Jam. He skied well too and managed to come 4th in the Big Air with some Switch 7's and 9's and was only 0.5 off 3rd place! Excellent result!

The Verbier Ride was an awesome event, which showcased some of the best skiing I have ever seen. I had a great time, met many new friends and will be back next year for a top 10 finish!

(Picture credits include Peter Charaf, www.petercharaf.com and Alison Ferte.)

See James in action pulling a Corked 1080 as one of the featured video clips on the BBC Ski Sunday website by clicking here.