It never ceases to amaze me how much Ride can push the envelope with graphics on its board line, not just in terms of the quality of raw art, but also by reaching out to the unlikeliest of artists for its snowboard line.

Case in point: rather than approaching a coveted artist to drum up graphics for its ‘09/’10 Crush, Ride asked Pam Neithercott’s third period art class at Denny Middle School in its hometown of Seattle to create a mythical creature consisting of two other animals. Not only was the result a kick ass graphic reminiscent of doodling away hours of classroom time as a kid, it gave the school badly needed dough for art supplies and gave the kids a chance to go riding with an on-hill snowboard day. Good deed. Best part—the graphic can only be seen on the top sheet of the Crush when it gets cold. It’s just looks like an unassuming blank piece of paper at room temp, but as soon as it hits the snow—bam—the ink changes colour and this gnarly monster appears in black on the top.

But back to the story at hand. Ride has just unveiled the first of their DH2 limited edition, artist series decks. The art on the DH2.1, as it’s aptly named, was conceived by none other than Michael J Zepeda III of Volcom fame. A twin rocker that comes in both regular and wide in a grip of sizes, only 350 DH 2.1 snowboards will be available through select Ride retailers starting on October 1. Ride will drop the next deck in the series, the DH 2.2 on October 15 and the DH 2.3 on November 15.