Local boards for the locavore: Never Summer Demo Days this weekend at Loveland

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You pick up produce at your local farmer's market, support your local arts and crafts fairs, shop exclusively at local indie books and records stores, and generally buy local whenever you can. So why are you riding a snowboard made in China when some of the best boards in the biz are made right here in Denver at the Never Summer factory on Colorado Boulevard?

Brothers Tim and Tracey Canaday have been handcrafting their planks locally since 1983 (that's about three years before I knew what a snowboard was, and it's before a lot of snowboarders I know were even born) and officially operating as Never Summer since 1991, and their rides measure up with the best of them.

My favorite NS decks for 2009-2010 are the big mountain freeride Premiere F1-R (pictured up top) and the all-mountain, all-purpose Legacy. The pipe/park/freestyle stick EVO-R was a Snowboard Magazine Buyer's Guide Platinum Pick this year, calling it "unbelievably versatile" and "a precise powerhouse."

Don't take anybody else's word for it, though: This weekend, November 13-14, they're hosting the 15th annual Never Summer Demo Days event at Loveland. For the price of a lift ticket, you can try every arrow in the Never Summer quiver all day long, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., then ask the dudes who built them anything you need to know.