Friday, June 20

Burton Summer Session -- Keir Dillon

By Dave Finger
EXPN.com

What happens when you take three pro snowboarders out of their element and throw them into New York City? We found out when we interviewed Keir Dillon, JP Solberg and Kelly Clark of the Burton Snowboards team last week in their pimp-ass NYC showroom. Besides the summer shred, we touched base on scoping hotties, killing sleds and shark attacks. First up in this three-part Summer Session is Vancouver, BC, local and all-around backside wall blaster, Keir Dillon … enjoy.

J.P and Kier outside Scandinavia House, Burton's media center for the week. Norwegian-born J.P. felt right at home, and even treated us to some swedish meatballs -- NYC cafeteria style.

EXPN.com: New York City is the last place I'd expect to interview a professional snowboarder. What's the city been like for your mountain-trained mental?

Keir Dillon: It's been good. Having meetings, going out to good dinners, staying in nice hotels, going to parties … I got taken by some ghetto locals in pool the other night at the bar … that was fun.

Do you even think about snowboarding when you're in the NYC?

I don't think about snowboarding while I'm here. I only grew up an hour west of here, so I'm kind of at home when I'm in town. Like last week, I went home and golfed with my dad. It's more like a vacation. I'm enjoying the city. I mean, we snowboard year round, so when I'm not snowboarding, I wanna pretend like I'm not a snowboarder. I love the city. I don't think I could live here, but to come here and get away from the mountains and everything the mountains have to offer is so nice. In fact, the city is what helped inspire my board graphics.

Keir Dillon lights up the well-cut Aspen pipe with his signature style -- Mctwist from Winter X Games VII.

And everything the mountains don't have to offer, like girls.

Actually, no. I'm not picking up girls, first of all, but there just aren't any here. No girls. I'm a married man, but there haven't been any girls in New York City. Not one. We've seen two, I think. We saw Topanga from Boy Meets World and she was decent. There are way more girls in Vancouver and Scandinavia.

And Mammoth, of course.

Maybe not in Mammoth.

Are you going to be up at camp at all this summer?

I'm gonna ride in August, but I don't think I'm gonna guest coach anywhere.

You got hit with a couple of injuries recently.

Yeah, I did my heel first. And then at the European Open. I bruised it there and kept riding when it was bruised. Then I flew home for the X Games and tried to drug myself up enough so that I could ride with it. But that just completely destroyed it. Then I didn't ride till the U.S. Open and I kinda tweaked it again there. Then I was all better and I flew to Norway and met JP and his (bruised heel) was all healed too. So we were stoked. Then the same day at different resorts we both tweaked our knees like the first day back. Since then I've just been kickin' it. JP and I have some crazy injury connection. We showed up in Norway together with crutches. Since I can't ride, I've been rehabbing my knee and playing a lot of golf. Doing as much off-snow activities as I can.

Ahh, the rough life of a professional snowboarder ... free food, free gear and a couch full of homies -- Keir, Kelly and JP hold it down in the NYC.

How'd your filming go this past season?

I started filming this year, but we kept getting shut down (because of poor conditions). We filmed a little bit before the European Open and then in Norway. I have some shots, but I only filmed eight days, so it's not gonna be stellar. They're all like jib shots and booter shots and they're all pretty solid and were on good days. Most of my filming was in Europe. It's so nice over there. You go over and you wake up around 9 or 10 a.m., the light hits your jump around 12 and stays until 7 p.m. You take the lift up, hike over and there it is. It's not like Whistler where it's like the waaap-waaap (of the sled) for a half an hour to get to your spot.

And the spots were getting worked because the season was tough.

Yeah, I moved to Whistler. Got a pass. And went to the mountain three times … but I got to hang out a lot with the wifey.