I like the floating feeling you get on quarterpipes-it feels like you’re hanging in the air and you can easily grab anywhere on the board. One of the most fun tricks on a QP is the air to fakie. Just ask Terje Haakonsen-he does them all the time.
Airs to fakies are also one of the easiest tricks-all you have to do is ride straight at the QP on your shred stick. I like this trick because of its simplicity. An air to fakie is basically the same thing as straight airing a jump-except the QP shoots you straight up in the air … so you land in the same spot you took off.

1. When approaching a QP, pick a straight line up the wall and stay totally flat-based while riding up the transition. If you get on edge, you may go flinging left or right-you won’t go as big. Always keep your knees bent.

2. When you reach the top of the lip, you don’t need to pop much-keep your body solid and let the QP do all the work for you. Remember: Like hips and wallrides, start out small to feel out the transition-then you can “send it.”

3. So, now you’ve left the lip-try to stay composed. Fly up in the air and grab the board. I like to grab frontside and poke it out like Terje.

4. You’re floating and tweaked-out frontside now-look down at the coping to make sure you’ll land back in the transition. As long as the QP has vert on it, you should be fine. If so, then you’re good to go-if not, well, good luck, ’cause landing on the deck of a QP is sketchy. Check out Marc Andre Tart’s double McTwist to the deck at twsnow.com.

5. Anyway, as you come back down to land, you should land in about the same place you left the lip-nice and high on the transition.


Once you learn this trick, then you can move on to frontside and backside airs-maybe someday you’ll learn the double McTwist.

“All you have to do is ride straight at the QP.”-Chad Otterstrom

Breckenridge, Colorado. Sequence: Scott Serfas