Vans Skate Space, Williamsburg, NYC
686's Atlas 2 & Dustbox's Reptile Premiere
Photography by: Matt Norris and Ian Boll
Of all places, New York City has become a hot bed for snowboarders who have found a balance between the fast-paced lifestyle of the city, and traveling to other places to actually snowboard.
686 decided to take the world premiere of their newest release to Brooklyn, which is a newer occurrence in the snowboarding scene. However, given that Atlas 2 is an entirely street-snowboarding video, it makes pretty good sense to do so. Add the Dustbox into the mix, and the NYC snow audience couldn't be happier with a premiere lineup. The crowd was a crossover of skateboarders, hipsters, industry heads, and, of course, just regular-ass snowboarders.
Around 7pm, we walked up to the Vans Skate Space in Williamsburg to a substantial line out front. Inside, PBR’s were getting passed out, and the smell of cigarettes wafted through the open garage doors into the park, giving it a nice ambience mixed with the scents of NYC's streets. Snowboard chatter filled the space and within an hour or so of arriving, the new Dustbox video Reptile kicked everything off.
While some of the Dustbox soldiers filmed for 686 this past year, Ryan Collins, Jonas Harris, Sierra Forchheimer, Noah Brown, Brett Kulas, Noah Peterson, and Dan Mcgonagle held it down in the van with Nate Hanson behind the lens. They delivered everything I like to see in a Box video; personality, good spot selection, and stylish, tasteful snowboarding. This one’s definitely getting a rewatch as soon as it drops online.
Ten minutes went by for a short smoke break, and Pat McCarthy jumped on the mic to fire up the crowd for Atlas 2. As he put it, 686 is an independent snowboard company that does everything they can to keep snowboard culture cool, pushing for full team videos year after year. You gotta fucking love that. With a cast like theirs, including Cooper Whittier, Tommy Gesme, Riley Nickerson, Savannah Shinske, Robby Meehan, and Forest Bailey, I’d say they’re doing a pretty damn good job of pushing cool shit in snowboarding. Colton Feldman drove the ship last year, and let me tell you that, once again, he made another hit. He really has never missed on a video project, and that streak continues. I’m not even going to get into tricks, but the crew upped themselves. This is some of the best street snowboarding we’ve seen from these guys, and if that doesn’t mean much to you, you can reference their last project Atlas.
Like most good premieres, when the videos ended, hugs and congratulations filled the room. Everyone mingled about out front until the security guards herded the cattle the fuck out of there. The beers, smokes, and good vibes continued probably too late into the night, considering the NYC bar curfew of 4am — but fuck it, we were celebrating.
Thanks 686 for the solid times, and for continuing to support snowboarding in a cool, productive way. Can’t wait for the people to see this one for themselves.
