List-O-Mania!!

Onboard’s 10 Most Searched Snowboarders in 2015

Walking the tightrope between what people want and what people should have is a tough gig. As someone who writes about anything, you should be aware of what your audience wants but you also have a responsibility to show them what they need. It’s like parenthood – your kid loves pizza, but you need to make sure they eat their greens.

In the modern, interconnected world we live in it’s easier than ever to nerd off in Google Analytics to see what best struck a chord with our readers or who’s got the hype, and that extends to what people have been searching for on the site too.

Believe it or not, we have never planned our content around this kind of algorithmic approach, but it’s nonetheless interesting to see what riders you’re so into that you’ll put their names into a Google-box to check out. Turns out that for the most part you’re a savvy lot…

10 – Max Parrot

Max Parrot. Front triple 14 to win Air+Style Beijing 2015. Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

Max is a machine. His recent Air+Style Beijing win recently capped a year in which he also won the Ale Invite, the Shakedown and grabbed silver at the X Games, not to mention being the second dude to put down a quad flipper. Though his robotic consistency is not to everyone’s tastes, you can’t argue with his skills and we reckon 2016 could see Max snag a bunch more bling.

9 – Travis Rice

A little surprising to find Travis is not higher on this list, but perhaps to be expected as his follow-up movie to The Art of Flight has become a multi-year project that – until the teaser for The Fourth Phase was released – has been shrouded in secrecy.

As a result he’s not been as prolific in the last three years as the decade previous, but with The Fourth Phase set to drop in 2016 we’d put a pretty penny on Rice moving up the rankings next year.

8 – Jeremy Jones

Prime splitboard territory up there Jeremy. Photo: Swatch

The internet doesn’t know whether you’re searching for Jones the slightly unhinged big mountain rider or Jones the ex-Forum dude, but seeing as the former’s been more prolific in recent years we’ll assume it’s BMJJ. And it’s unsurprising, as if you want to see balls-to-the wall freeriding it’s him and Xavier De Le Rue who are your go-to guys. We reckon Jezza was also riding the wave from his epic movie, Higher, and he also had some buzz from releasing a coffee table book with images and notes from his journals this autumn.

7 – Danny Davis

Even though the Onboard crew has the combined snowboarding age of around 128 years, we still want to ride like Danny Davis when we grow up. Balancing contests with filming these days is a tough act to pull off, but not only does DD do it with aplomb, he does it so well that it’s easy to forget he’s the reigning X Games superpipe champ. Winning contests is great and everything, but we’re guessing most of you searchers wanted to see him bossing pow with the homies, although it must be said we’ve Googled his switch Method and McTwist more than once ourselves…

6 – Aimee Fuller

Rider: Aimee Fuller. Photo: Klaus Polzer

Aimee’s been a solid rider for several years now, but we’re guessing her popularity with Mr Google increased since she infamously gatecrashed to BBC commentary box at the Sochi Olympics – the lion’s share of the searchers came from the UK.

But gobbing off into a mic aside, Fuller’s been beating the globe hitting up the planet’s biggest women’s contests and throwing her back 7s, Cab underflips and the occasional double backie into the mix. She was also part of the epic Suzuki 9 Queens event that sent women’s riding stratospheric.

5 – Sven Thorgren

Sven Thorgren at the 2015 Suzuki Nine Knights in Livigno. Photo: David Malacrida

Another young super spinner who stays in touch with snowboarding’s more aesthetic lineage, Sven has been pumping out the goods on the regs and can be relied to triple dip with the best of them… but we’ve never seen anyone else pull his signature front 12 Roastbeef shifty-shifty.

4 – Torstein Horgmo

Torstein bossing the BEO. Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

Though Torstein’s had a bad run of luck with injuries the past couple of years he’s still – according to the internet – one of your favourite riders despite not being quite as prolific as he was in his Horgasm heyday. His juggling of style, tech, pow, park, streets and humour guarantee that when Horgmo drops something, he drops it like it’s hot.

3 – Ståle Sandbech

Quite possibly one of the greatest snowboard shots ever taken. Ståle Sandbech in Folgefonna at the Oakley ‘Snowboarding For Me’ shoot. Photo: Frode Sandbech

If there’s one dude who can make the podium in major contests but still maintain a healthy degree of style to the brutal level of progression required these days, it’s Ståle. Triple 14 Stalefish? Back 3 to Method? The dude’s got it all and you want it. It’s a shame he’s not better looking because then he might really go places…

2 – Halldor Helgason

The sunset shoot in High Cascade was all time. Halldor lays a front rodeo over some earthporn. Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

Halldor Helgason is basically you, just maybe a bit better at snowboarding and being loose as hell. But kids connect with Halldor so well because, when all’s said and done, he just pure and simple loves snowboarding, loves sending it and loves partying. And he wants – and succeeds – at transmitting that vibe to an army of eager acolytes.

1 – Scott Stevens

What is there to say about Scott Stevens that hasn’t been said? In an age where hyper-hucking, multicorking and increasingly death defying street hits transitioned to being the norm, Stevens came up by going the other way and just made snowboarding look actually fun again. The volume of full Gandalf-level wizardry he’s put down throughout his career is legion, and to this day there are few better dudes to search out online if you want to watch creative, weird, fun-looking snowboarding. The internet knows this.