I just read that Juan Pablo Montoya had his board stolen and it got me thinking about who rides. It comes as no surprise that Montoya is a snowboarder but I have noticed a couple of other consistent correlations: bikers and techies.
When I get chatting to other riders they often turn out to be one or the other, I can understand the link with bikers, who tell me that it is a similar sort of adrenaline rush, but what is it about computers and snowboards?
I'm a boarding software engineer, and so are a fair number of the other employees where I work. A few things suggest themselves:
- software engineers are often vaguely lefty, hippy types and the surfing culture carried over to boarding might well appeal to them (and this is based on observation, not a sweeping generalisation, honest!)
- the gadgety aspect of boarding (iPod jackets, new kit every year, long spec lists for boards, bindings and so on) is one of the things that attracts me like a moth to a flame, even though I try to resist it.
- I think sitting in an office all day, in a job that most of us would acknowledge is pedestrian in the extreme leads a lot of engineers to go in completely the other direction for their hobbies. We have MTBers, skiers, boarders and rock climbers at our work.
Just a few thoughts...
Posted by: OrkneyDullard at December 7, 2004 11:19 AMHi,
I work in IT too (a small consultancy in London). I would say about two thirds of the company are into some kind of winter sport with the majority being snowboarders. I think a lot of it is the contrast between having a fairly stress laden but sedentry job and a high(ish) adrenaline very active hobby. I also love being in the mountains and I've been hooked since day 2 (it rained on day 1) some 7 years ago.
Hmm, another IT bod dropping by and yep I'm a boarder of 10years+, mountain biker and ex-extreme rock climber. Clearly we're all in the wrong job!
Posted by: Phil at December 8, 2004 09:59 PMyeah another techie boarder here, although im in telecommunications now.
i skied on a dry slope when i was a kid at school, and it pretty much put me off for a long time. also im an ex-skateboarder and so snowboarding really appealed.
i had a mountain bike when i was in the uk, and did that regularly - so its definately something to do with the adrenaline. i never got into the whole football thing, so needed some other physical activities to get me out from in front of the computer.
Posted by: duncan at December 16, 2004 01:26 PMYou're going to get a skewed response here because, surprise surprise, most bloggers and blog-readers are techies too. I'm a non-techie but was introduced to snowboarding by my techie boyfriend, and although most of our group of boarders are non-techies, they were mostly converted to the sport by one IT bod or another...
Posted by: Ruth at January 10, 2005 02:32 PM