On October 22, Travis Rice’s Pure Choice Tour (NST) introduced that it might be increasing past snowboarding, including ski and surf occasions to the calendar for 2025. It’ll even be morphing its partnership with Proving Grounds, a storied mountain bike occasion it teamed up with final season to supply mountain biking occasions as effectively.
The information made waves. NST is among the most prestigious snowboarding competitors occasions on this planet. It’s solely been round for 3 years, however its impression on the game has been large. If NST can replicate a fraction of what it’s performed for snowboarding throughout snowboarding, browsing, and biking, this enlargement could reshape the panorama of aggressive motion sports activities.
As Rice emphasizes, a lot of NST’s success in snowboarding has come from letting athletes prepared the ground. He and his workforce of athletes and advisors plan to do the identical factor with the brand new occasions.
“We really feel Pure Choice has a chance to do one thing very genuine, one thing very athlete-driven in these different sports activities,” NST CE Carter Westfall informed GearJunkie. “From a sustainability standpoint [and] from a enterprise standpoint, a rising tide can elevate all boats.”
GearJunkie spoke with Westfall and athletes Sammy Carlson, Casey Brown, and Chris Rasman about what this new evolution of Pure Choice might imply for snowboarding, browsing, and biking — and for the world of motion sports activities at giant.
Increasing Pure Choice Tour Occasions: Snow Bike Ski Surf 2025
If you happen to’re unfamiliar with NST, likelihood is you’re not a snowboarder. The tour encourages athletes to journey creatively utilizing pure terrain options as an alternative of sculpted takeoffs. Judges use creativity, danger, execution, issue, and general impression to attain athletes. It has change into a spot for Olympic athletes and likewise movie icons to push the game’s limits in a brand new competitors format.
When NST launched in 2021 with its first three-stop tour, it modified what competitions imply for freeride snowboarders. NST has allowed snowboarders to showcase inventive freeride expertise in ways in which they’ll’t put forth on the Olympics or X Video games.
Sammy Carlson, a Revelstoke-based professional freestyle skier, sees the potential for NST to do one thing comparable for snowboarding.
“We’ve had comparable occasions happen up to now. K2 Again 9, Crimson Bull Chilly Rush, and some different occasions that have been additionally toeing into this vein of snowboarding fairly early on,” Carlson mentioned, trying again.
As a substitute of beginning one thing from scratch, although, Carlson believes it makes extra sense for snowboarding to workforce up and construct off the momentum and infrastructure NST already has.
“To have the chance to companion with [Rice] has undoubtedly been an thrilling alternative,” says Carlson. “I’m stoked to be part of it. And for backcountry freeride, it’s been lengthy overdue to have an occasion like this that’s going to showcase snowboarding on the highest stage. That’s the objective right here.”
‘Mission Vital’: The Pure Choice Advisory Councils
Carlson is now a part of the Pure Choice Tour “Ski Advisory Council.” The council consists of fellow legends Michelle Parker, Chris Benchetler, Kristi Leskinen, Markus Eder, and Candide Thovex.
There are additionally advisory councils for MTB (Casey Brown, Emil Johansson, Carson Storch, and Cam Zink), surf (Rob Machado, Nathan Florence, and two yet-to-be-announced feminine surfers), and snowboarding (Hana Beaman, Chris Rasman, and Robin Van Gyn).
In response to Westfall, the advisory councils are mission-critical for the tour to efficiently department out into these new sports activities.
“For us, it was vital to grasp [the opportunity] in these different verticals. Who would need to get behind it and assist lead the cost?” Westfall mentioned. “[Rice] would by no means need to be seen as a snowboarder making an attempt to do a ski occasion or a surf occasion.”
Carlson affirms that this mentality was current from the start. He mentioned it was clear from an early stage that Rice wished to get the fitting individuals concerned to signify and oversee every class of the competitors.
Athletes ‘Main the Cost’
Casey Brown, a freeride mountain biker who simply got here off a podium end on the first-ever girls’s Crimson Bull Rampage, is an Advisory Council member for NST Bike. She emphasizes that having athletes form this occasion is completely crucial.
“You’ve gotten individuals which can be operating occasions, and so they run occasions rather well. However they don’t essentially have the finger on the heartbeat of the trade, whereas athletes, we’re in it. We perceive what’s happening and what the core of mountain biking is,” Brown mentioned.
“I feel that is among the most vital issues to deliver into occasion areas,” she emphasised. In any other case, the occasion can get overly commercialized, and athletes don’t need to present up anymore as a result of it isn’t “core,” she mentioned.
Whichever mountain bikers are invited to take part within the NST Bike occasion, they’re fortunate to have Brown in a management function. She intends to make use of her place to champion athletes and advocate for his or her wants.
For example of how she plans to form the competitors, Brown mentioned she hopes to restructure mountain bike occasions to have extra leniency for climate. Pressuring athletes to journey within the wind or in subpar circumstances isn’t good for them and is much less enjoyable for viewers. She factors out they do it for browsing, so it must be doable for mountain biking as effectively.
She’s additionally very eager on assembly all of the athletes’ wants round security and luxury. If they’ll prioritize athletes so that every one they should suppose or fear about is using, Brown is aware of from expertise that they’ll carry out at larger ranges.
Boarders, Skiers, Riders, Surfers: Stronger Collectively
Longtime NST followers may fear that the competitors’s loyalty to snowboarding may very well be diluted by means of this enlargement. Nonetheless, Chris Rasman — a Canadian snowboarder, backcountry freestyle specialist, NST veteran, and one other advisory council member — isn’t involved within the slightest. He mentioned he has religion that it’s going to stay a precedence for the NST workforce it doesn’t matter what.
“This enlargement is thrilling,” Rasman assures. “It provides these different sports activities a brand new sort of aggressive platform. However NST Snow will stay run by snowboarders, and NST Surf goes to be run by surfers, NST Bike by bikers, and NST Ski by skiers. There might be fully completely different groups for every sport, ensuring to maintain separation, creativity, and independence for every.”
Westfall additionally backed that sentiment up. “We’re not taking sources away from snowboarding or trying to cheapen that product,” he mentioned.
He believes that one of the simplest ways for Pure Choice to develop is to leverage the model and construct a stronger, extra sustainable enterprise throughout parallel sports activities. These communities have an overlap in viewers. He feels {that a} coalition is stronger than a handful of disjointed occasions.
Brown additionally sees the worth in banding collectively. “Having all these sports activities form of cross-pollinating one another does wonders,” she says.
Carlson factors out that whether or not you’re taking part in these sports activities or watching them as a fan, there are continuities that translate from the ocean to the mountains and again once more.
“That is the place the traces blur. We will all relate, whether or not you’re on a surfboard, bike, snowboard, or skis. While you see somebody journey a pleasant line, or rip a sick flip, or hit a pleasant air, everybody can relate to that, particularly whenever you step right into a big-mountain setting. I’m actually excited for snowboarding to be part of that. I can assure it’s going to be a loopy present, identical to the remainder of the occasions.”
