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All right, all right, I know I should have posted this weeks ago so all of you folks who drive up to the mountain on a regular basis could have some new ideas for your in-car playlists! Even though the season is drawing to a close (argh, it was near 80 in some areas in LA last weekend), I know I’ll still be heading up to Mammoth a few more times.

With the long drive, in addition to the games and conversation to be had, good music is a must for passing the time. I asked the usual suspects what music they love to hear either when they’re driving, getting suited up to hit the hill in the morning, or having drinks while preparing to hit the town after a day of boarding! Ranging from punk to old school hip-hop, these choices will get you pumped up.

Eileen

Social D - Mommies little monster
Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
Offspring - Original Prankster
Linkin Park - What I’ve done
3 doors down - Kryptonite
Nickleback - Rockstar
Lenny Kravitz - Fly away
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

Stacy

Princess Pop:
- Britney’s new hits Gimme More and Piece of
Me…or pretty much the whole new album!

Hip Hop with a California twist:
- Biggie - Going back to Cali
- 2Pac - California Love
- LLCoolJ - Goin back to Cali

White Trash Rock:
- Ozzy - Crazy Train or I don’t know
- AC/DC - Back in Black
- Metallica - Master of Puppets

Lil Jenny

Old Skool Albums:

Jane’s Addiction (ALL OF THEM!!!!)
Green Day - Dookie
Offspring - Ixnay on the Hombre
Face To Face - Face To Face
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Hole - Live Through This
Alanis Morrisette (when I was with girls only) - Jagged Little Pill
Particularly You Oughta Know, Hand In My Pocket, Isn’t It Ironic

Nowadays add to the Old School:
Sum 41 - No Reason, love it!
Madonna - Sorry
80’s New Wave especially
B-Movie - nowhere Girl
Depeche Mode
Soft Cell - Sex Dwarf

Shannon from Shayboarder wrote a post about her music playlists back in December.

As for me, I’m partial to hip-hop… particularly Ludacris’ “MOVE BITCH” track… it’s fun to play in the car when we’re trying to find parking and people are being idiots

Jessie and I also love the Beastie Boys, Missy Elliot… and I really like the latest Kanye album. I’m also a house music head but that doesn’t always go over well!

What is some of your favorite music for snowboarding, driving to the mountains, or before you go out and do the apres-ski thing?

Man… I was born & raised on the east coast among snow and ice but I don’t feel all that confident driving in it since I’ve been living in Southern California for so long. Are you in the same boat as far as your winter driving skills are concerned?
This morning at the gym (getting ready for the seaon, ya know?), I saw a segment on the Today Show about the Bridgestone “Winterdrive” Winter Driving School in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Here’s a class that may be helpful for us snow betty’s that are snow-challenged!

They offer a range of classes, from a half-day of basic winter driving safety fundamentals for $245, all the way through to a high-intensity 2-day course for $2250 where you learn all the advanced tricks for winter driving as used by world-class rally drivers. (In that class, you’ll even learn “the ‘Scandinavian Flick’ as well as other rally-based cornering, acceleration, and braking techniques.” Wow! Sounds intense!)

On the show, they put a reporter behind the wheel to actually take the class in Colorado and practice his skills on the ice- and snow-covered track that Bridgestone maintains for lessons. Some of the tips from the segment included these that are most definitely applicable not just to driving, but to snowboarding as well:

1. Anticipate turns and stops. In the snow or ice, it’s slick, so a car needs about 4-10x the normal stopping distance as on a dry road. So proceed with the car in control, and always leave plenty of room for cars in front of, and around you, when possible. No rapid movements, which can lead to loss of control.
   • The same goes for snowboarding. Of course when you snowboard, you WANT to be going fast on the slick snow surface. But you can still ride safely, and anticipate your turns and braking in advance, so you don’t crash into other snowboarders. To that end, you should also be anticipating what other riders and skiers around you are doing… not everybody is as conscientious as us
2. Don’t oversteer. This tip, related to the above, referred to the tendency we have to assume that our cars will behave the same as they do on dry roads. Approach turns slowly and don’t whip the wheel around. Oversteering is likely to send the car into a skid, to which we usually overcorrect (spin the wheel in the other direction of the original turn) and make the car fishtail wildly.
   • In snowboarding, the tendency to overcorrect when turning due to an oversteer is oftentimes what causes us to catch an edge and crash. Take your turns gracefully - don’t jerk your hands or arms around to try to overcompensate for a badly-executed turn. This unbalanced, somewhat out-of-control upper body weight may cause an oversteer and you’ll find yourself flopping around trying to rebalance… you’ll likely end up on your face in the snow.
3. Look where you WANT to go. In the car, try to focus on picking the path where you want it to go. Instinctually, your hands will turn the steering wheel to keep it on that path. Do not look at obstacles, because then you’ll find yourself subconsciously steering into them.
   • This one really hit home for me. It’s so true for snowboarding, and for almost any sport that I do! You always pick the line where you WANT to go. One time I was mountain biking on a skinny pathway; I looked over and saw a huge cactus plant. As I rode past it, I kept looking at it, thinking “Man, it would suck to run into that!” Next thing I knew I was off the path and literally IN the cactus. That ride did not end well. Anyways, about snowboarding, yes - look down the mountain, assess the obstacles (trees, jumps, other riders) in your way, and figure out where you want to steer thru to get around. Pick your line. Keep the obstacles in your peripheral vision, but don’t look directly at them. It’s amazing how your subconscious keeps you on the path towards where you are looking!

Keeping these tips in mind may help you drive better on those foreign-feeling icy roads… and may also help improve your riding!

Ahh, the drive we love to hate. For those of us in Southern California, a trip to the mountains for snowboarding or skiing usually means we head to Mammoth Mountain. This drive can take up to 7 hours if you’re coming from the San Diego metro area. Luckily, since moving to Los Angeles, I’ve conveniently shaved about 2 hours off my trip. Still - 5 hours in a car is a mighty long time. You can only listen to so many hours on an iPod or CD player… Me, I like to interact with the people in the car with me - so it comes down to good conversation.

Good conversation can come about naturally, especially if you’re with a naturally loquacious carfull of buddies. But, sometimes you’re with people you don’t know that well, so it’s fun to “force” the conversation by playing games or asking personal questions of one another. Here are some of my faves, which I’ve been known to pull out of nowhere in dead silence in the middle of 395! I guess you could classify these as “the superlatives.”

• What’s your favorite place to snowboard and why?
• What was the worst injury you ever sustained, and how did it happen?
• What was the most embarrassing moment you’ve ever experienced? (note: these usually involve farts, sex, peeing, or some other bodily function, so this Q can be fun when everyone tries to one-up one another.) Also fun to break the ice in a group of strangers you may be car-pooling with!
• What was your first concert? First record you ever bought (bonus points if it really was a record! Damn youngsters…)
• What’s your favorite place you ever lived?
• What is the rudest thing anyone ever did to you?
• Describe the worst haircut you’ve ever had.
• Weirdest name of anyone you ever dated

You’d be surprised at how well these spark conversation and break the ice among strangers who you may be spending the rest of the weekend snowboarding with in your group Mammoth condo!

You can also play silly games like:

• Pick a category, then have one person start with an item in that category. Go thru the car taking turns naming another item that begins with the letter that ended the first item, and so on. Example: Category is Movies - first one “Transformers.” Second one “Silent Night, Deadly Night.” Third one “Terminator.” Fourth one “Rosemary’s Baby.” You get it! (and boy did I pull out some obscure ones there…)
• the old favorite, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (works especially well in carloads of snowboarders from Los Angeles, haha)
• Pick a category and see how many items in the category you can name without repeating one - for example “ice cream flavors…”

The games are fun but for my money, “the superlatives” are way more fun. What are some other (legal) ways to pass the time in a car?