Mikey LeBlanc has been snowboarding longer than the average shredder has been alive. But the length of his career hasn’t hindered his ability to get after it. Instead each year, and video part, is a reminder to everyone just how good he really is. Mikey is honestly one of the coolest and most insightful people I’ve ever come across, and his journey is one that I’m interested in. So the question remains, how did Mikey do it? I picked his brain so we could all find out.

Part 1: The Beginning.

When I told Mikey we would be cutting his interview into three parts, starting with his past, he quickly cut me off to inform me he knows plenty about himself. Being ignorant to how interesting of a person Mikey really is, I shrugged this off as a joke. As it turned out, he meant it. “I have a past life as a cat, and I had a dude, psychics have told me I was a seeker, and that I traveled on the Mayflower to America. That bit is really weird, because I don’t get seasick,” he told me.

Now with a better understanding of just who Mike used to be, I figured I should ask him about his snowboarding career. I knew of his lengthy career, after all he’s been a big timer since I started boarding. I can still recall his head exploding, the triple backflip, and his KingPin cribs interview. But in Mikey years, that was yesterday. According to Mike this trip started in ‘82, however; he counts his true immersion into the snowboard world as the day his first mail ordered deck showed up, a Burton Backhill, in ‘84. Back then the only snowboarding photos around were in the legendary Thrasher skate mag, which suited Mikey and his friends perfectly. They were after all, just a skate crew from Maine. Yep, that’s how it all started, Mikey and his skate buddies in the frigid Maine winter shredding some bunny hill. No lifts, no plan, just doing what they could in the winter to avoid boredom. Snowboarding picked up though. Mikey got a Burton Elite, a 140cm swallow tail, and then it all changed, the local ski hill opened one lift for snowboarders… “Some kids were immediately killing it,” Mike said.

Rest of the Yobeat Interview…

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Read 2nd Yobeat Interview

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TransWorld Interview

photo: Andy Wright

Mikey LeBlanc has been a prime mover in snowboarding for over a decade. Through the years, his exploits have been chronicled in magazines and in movies alike. He has remained a rider’s rider all along, keeping the focus on the riding, rather than some outsized image or stylistic cliché. He is a well-rounded snowboarder and a well-rounded human. He was among that late-90’s vanguard who brought the tech-backcountry aerial movement into focus as well as being a rider who pushed the rail, jib, and street resurgence back into the foreground. Sh*t, the dude even rides pow on a toboggan with bindings mounted on it—in fact one of LeBlanc’s greatest contributions to snowboarding has been to make us all laugh. He’s a busy guy these days—I got him to answer a couple questions … read on.
So, Mikey LeBlanc…

What projects are you working on?
HOLDEN is my main project. We are 100% independent, we have 4 full-time employees to crank it all out. It is incredible the amount of things a few people can get done and done well when you are driven. I worked on a piece about progression in the new Matix book about it. It was a chance to explore a way to map the way progression happens. I am big on maps these days personally, a guide to the territory.

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