I've just spent a delicious two weeks immersed in a 1980s and 90s nascent world of British snowboarding. Geoff's stories of the birth and rise of boarding are told right from the heart, and he shares his experiences of thrills, amusements and frustrations in turn, as he describes, from the epicentre, the 'sport' (culture?) develop. I particularly loved the many references to Swansea; I had no idea that, for a while, I had co-existed in our lovely city with a crew of people so integral in snowboarding's birth. Geoff's story has made me proud of Swansea and those people who shaped the culture and formed its soul. There are equally many beautiful descriptions of the mountains they frequented, which put you so lucidly in the cold, crisp scenes you imagine you can see your own breath. Geoff pays equal tribute to our beautiful, rugged Brecon Beacons as the commercial ranges abroad. It was refreshing to read Geoff's accounts as a sportsman juggling his passion for the snow with a day job in South Wales. We can't all up sticks to the North Shore or the Alps, but it makes us no less devoted to our crafts. In all, a really beautiful book from an all-round nice guy, who, in his words, is like a stick of rock with 'snowboarding' and 'surfing' running right through him.