James Phillips: Tip Top Board Shop

James has spent half of his life as a seasonnaire and is completely fluent in French, allowing him to help snowboarders with their particular requirements regardless of nationality. I caught up with him to harvest some of his extensive knowledge about snowboards, Les Arcs and getting the most out of your winter holiday.

What’s the best thing about working at Tip Top?

I get to share my passion with customers. The best thing is when you get customers who really want to receive it, trust that you know what you’re talking about and want to absorb what you’ve got to share. I call it “sharing the love.” I’ve been snowboarding for so long and I’ve always been really into kit. I’ve worked in winter sports retail for around 14 years and I was really into kit from being a young teenager. When people come back to the shop after you’ve changed their bindings or sold them something new and they say, it can be English or French, “ahhh, life-changer, it’s amazing, I thought I couldn’t snowboard all this time” and all you did was change their binding angles, change their high-backs a bit, modified their boots or sold them new boots. It is the fact that you can completely change a person’s experience and they come back so grateful.

Also, we’re a small team: Alain and Isabelle who own and run the shop, they’re my friends, they’re colleagues, they are my bosses, but they’re like an Auntie and Uncle to me.

How long have you worked there?

It’s my eighth winter over fourteen years. I’ve got to meet loads of people from all over the world, all different walks of life, all ages, which is great.

Snowboarding is obviously your specialist subject. What changes have you seen in equipment, and how much has the sport changed over the last 14 years?

In terms of the principal equipment (the ‘boards, boots and bindings), the comfort has increased massively. One main difference between now and 14 years ago is that you can get much better cheap boards. High-performance equipment is way easier, much less physical to ride, so you have less foot fatigue and less leg fatigue. Powder shapes have come a long way (with all the mixes of camber and reverse camber, etc) so the shapes of ‘boards designed to ride powder have changed a lot. With smaller freestyle boards you can get a blend of flex, camber, reverse camber... that all translates to a ‘board which is easier to ride in deep powder and, more or less, centred over the ‘board (so less physical) than it used to be.

So is there more specialism with snowboards now, or are they all easier to use in all situations?

Compared to what they used to do, most ‘boards now work pretty well for everything. But then you have specific ones for street, jib, freestyle, park, hard-snow freestyle and all-mountain freestyle (those boards literally work for everything). After that you have high-performance freeride ‘boards which are much easier to ride, and therefore higher performing than they used to be. The change has a lot to do with the camber, reverse camber and the understanding of snowboard shapes. The length of board that you ride has changed as well, 14 years ago everybody used to ride longer, narrower boards with narrower stances.

So snowboards have developed in a similar way to skis in the recent past?

Many of the changes to ski design actually come from snowboard design: the evolution of powder skis, with skiers being able to easily ride powder, comes from snowboarding. So what has evolved skiing has actually come from snowboarding. Snowboarding borrowed from ski technology in terms of construction, making tougher and stronger kit, but then snowboarding evolved the shape. It was a snowboard brand who invented the sidecut in ‘88 and, at least 6 years later, you get carving skis and suddenly everyone’s got these skis with the sidecut in them. So when someone says “oh, it’s so great with these new carving skis,” that comes from snowboarding.

You’ve been doing seasons for eighteen years, what did you do the first season you came out?

I was a snowboard bum. Les Arcs was big on the snowboard destination map as it was one of the first resorts in Europe where snowboarding was done and learnt. There was a group of instructors who skied and monoskied and then some Canadians or Americans came over with a couple of Winterstick Swallowtail snowboards. Although they were virtually un-ride-able by today’s standards, a whole bunch of them tried it and learned it, but it was only Regis Rolland that really believed in it as an activity and, when everybody else kind of stopped, he was the only one that carried on. The mountain itself provided amazing terrain for snowboarding, especially back then when hardly anyone went off-piste. Even in my first handful of years the off-piste was tracked so much less than it is now: there were fewer pistes and the terrain all over Les Arcs provided an amazing playground for snowboarding.

In the mid- to late- ‘90s, Les Arcs was renowned for a really good snowpark and you had French and European pros based in resort and down here in Bourg St Maurice. We came here just to shred. It was quite an international scene with sponsored snowboarders who just wanted to push their riding. We didn’t come here to get mangled and party all season – we did party – but we came here primarily to snowboard and get better at snowboarding. There must’ve been at least 50 British people ranging from intermediate to elite, but there were a lot of elite snowboarders in Bourg in the first few years I was here. If you got together with four or six mates and sorted out somewhere to live, like I did my first season, you were sweet. I saved all the money I needed just for the autumn.

What do you do in the summer?

Surf, mostly in France. I started in 2010. It was something that I’d always knew I was going to do. I wish I’d started a little bit earlier but I don’t regret too much. If I had started it in my early 20's I might have quit snowboarding quite soon after. Really? It’s so addictive and I would have been fully absorbed by it when I was 21/22 years old. Even at 30 years old, after four months of surfing, I was considering “jacking it all in” to train to become a big wave surfer. I was that fascinated by it all. I’m glad I didn’t because I’ve had a great time snowboarding since then.

I noticed Tip Top also sell skate gear...

Yeah, mainly in the summer. We sell boards, clothes, everything you’d need. I’ve also been skating since about ‘86 or ‘87 or something like that. So you were about six or seven? Yeah. I grew up in Lincolnshire. Apart from a few Hollywood movies, like “Gleaming the Cube,” I didn’t know that people skated on ramps. In my early memories of skateboarding there was no tarmac. I lived next-door to a farm, so in the summer I’d skate down the polished hard dirt sheep trails through the fields. I’d sit on the board, lie on the board, kneel on the board and stand up a bit. In the early ‘90s I lived in Shropshire and it was a similar thing really; there was a lot of tarmac then but I didn’t know that people did tricks and ollies and all that stuff. We used to go to this slag-heap thing and try to find the hard dirt polished tracks and skate down hills and things. It was pretty funny looking back.

So what’s the best thing about Les Arcs? What keeps you coming back?

In terms of the riding, Les Arcs has a bit of everything. It has a really high diversity of terrain that changes every year, a bit, due to the wind and snow conditions: the direction of the wind is very important when the snow falls. There’s just so much to do and the variety is really cool. Sometimes I see a jump or natural feature and think “oh, I’m going to do that next year” and then I come back and don’t get it done because the snow conditions won’t allow or I’m a bit injured.

The last three seasons I’ve been back for the job. I put my guts into the shop for my friends who own it. It’s a good job, my bosses appreciate the work I do, and I like doing it too. In the last ten years it’s as much about having a interesting job with nice people to work for and actually evolve in a profession. Although I come to shred my guts out, and I want to ride, I don’t need 6 days a week to go riding.

What have been your best moments in Les Arcs?

The best moments have been when I’ve pushed the best as I could and being into competitive snowboarding: like a few night events and competitions in the day. When I’ve ridden my very best in big competitions in front of all the locals, friends and tourists, they’re pretty good highlights. I’ve performed in front of literally ten thousand spectators at big national invitational events. People would come from all the resorts, shouting and cheering. It was a big night out. Those are probably the best moments.

Finally, do you have any tips for holidaymakers coming to Les Arcs?

Well, it starts months before you come on holiday. Stretching, exercise, getting yourself fit, circuit training... So if you’ve got one week of the year have a great time skiing, and of course it involves a lot of partying and eating and stuff, why not train and get ready for it? It happens a lot where people get more tired and more tired. There’re the early mornings, long days, then après ski drinking (alcohol makes your joints and ligaments tight), so why not be fit and ready for your holiday? Training for your trip can start two or three months beforehand.

Be positive about your holiday: you do have snow in the UK but you don’t have big mountains like here. Make the most of the conditions that are on offer.

Be prepared with equipment. It’s better to be too warm than not warm enough. Be honest with yourself when you’re buying your gear; accept that you’re not a world champion, world champions are on the telly, and you’ll get more of your holiday. Invest in things that are made for you. Find a good shop with honest sales people, be it on your holiday or back home.

Go and have lessons at a snow dome as well, get a bit ski ready. Oh and bring sun-cream...

Tip Top Snowboard Shop - Bourg St Maurice.