As a hungry young gun, Ahmet Dadali made a big impression in Freeskier's Road Trip Challenge. Since then he's been responsible for many a banger part with Level 1, his own web series, and much, much more. He's also one of the most interesting guys in the game and never one to shy away from speaking his mind. As a full-time nomad, he ranks among skiing’s greatest travelers too, so Ahmet has some of the wildest stories you can imagine. Ahmet crushed it with his answers to our members' questions and we couldn't be more stoked to share these highlights with you!

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@CatdickBojangles - Have you ever discussed bringing the I hate NY crew back for a revival?

Yeah bro! I actually had a long chat with Will Wesson about trying to get us all back together to finally drop Pterodactyl blood. For those that don't know, we put out a teaser in 2006 for a movie that still hasn't come out..... YET. You know, everyone has been doing these 2-year projects lately, I think we can make this into a 14-year project... But for real, I really think it'd be dope to put together a documentary about the crew, where we all came from, what each of our individual stories are since leaving New York and our different ski careers, talking about each other, and of course, put together some skiing together from the present. I really hope we can make it happen.

The crew growing up, for anyone who isn't familiar, was Will Wesson, Andy Parry, Ross Imburgia, Giray, Erik Olson, Shane McFalls, and myself. I think we have all been on some pretty interesting paths since NY

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/966710/Pterodactyl-Blood

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@Jpurd - How much street skiing are you still doing?

Man, I wish I was able to get into more this year. I absolutely love being in the streets. The idea of looking around you and making nothing into something incredible is awesome. The world is just a template for you to design your skiing on and I love it. But the 2018-19 season I was able to get into the streets for a trip to Bosnia that was in The Level 1 Movie and also a 3 part series I released last year "The Euro VanVenture"

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@nmwninjart - What is the weirdest thing you've seen on your travels?

I have a horrible memory but off the top of my head, and since I'm in Indonesia, a couple years ago on this little island off of North Sumatra, me and my buddies were walking through the jungle to try to find new surf spots. As we made our way to the end of some thick trees we seen too kids sitting next to each other on a log, pants down, dropping some logs of their own. Pretty funny to stumble on two 8-year-olds laughing while shitting off a log

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@jps2.0 - How do you live in Indonesia for most of the year?

It's way cheaper than living in the US the rest of the year. So i come out here when winter is done and save the money I make by paying way less than in the states. I eat way better, I pay around 200 bucks a month for a place to stay, and I have way more fun,. Plus I dont have to deal with the pigs in the states.

The last two years that I lived in the states I was out of an RV. I was harassed by the 12 so much and I couldn't stand it any longer. At my last confrontation before enough was enough, I had about 8-10 loaded guns pointed at me, shotguns and pistols cocked and ready to go. I really thought I would be shot. "Mistaken Identity"...

So now I stay in Indonesia and don't have to deal with that crap.

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@BigPurpleSkiSuit - Can I have all your old poles since you don't need them anymore? My actual question is, how did you and Giray get into skiing?

If I had old poles I would give them to you.

We actually grew up about 2 miles from our ski hill. I still remember the first day we got onto skis, I would've been about 6 and Giray 4. I had a Buffalo Bills windbreaker on and he had a Dallas Cowboys haha. We were on the bunny hill there and I can honestly remember skiing down and we were both already trying to jump off of flat. At that time there wasn't any "Freeskiing" and I don't know how the hell we would've gone from that, right into hitting every little bump we could, spinning 360s, doing mule, and tweaking mute grabs. We hadn't ever seen any ski movies until I was about 11 and popped in a warren miller movie. But already we were throwing backflips and doing rotations. Really kinda crazy to think back on.

Awesome to have a little bro to ski with every day and push each other.

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@fredyferl - What are some of your favorite street clips you've gotten? What is the craziest trick you've seen Will Wesson do?

I think it's pretty easy to say that s-rail in Eye Trip. But I was mad stoked on some of the clips I got for my XGames Realski years back. The up the wall to rail transfer was a really testy hit. The snow was mad sugary which made it super hard to get the transition into the wall right. The rail was also pretty damn high, it wasn't an easy hit so I was mad stoked to get it clean.

Also the billboard in there. That thing was really huge. We went up there the night before and ground the metal down with a portable grinder. Built the jump the next day in the rain. We started testing speed, and the jump which was way overhead. Winch broke down. Fixed the Winch. The police came, the guy was actually cool and let it happen. Eventually, after a few crazy test hits and fails, I was able to get it. And the picture on the billboard couldn't have been any better: "We Triple Doggy Dare You".

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/966719/Real-Ski-2016--Ahmet-Dadali

... And there's a lot of crazy things I've seen Will Wesson do. But I'm going to go with the first rail transfer in the streets I've ever seen done. Took place in 05-06 season and it's in that pterodactyl blood teaser I posted earlier

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Arthur74170What do you like about volkl?

Everything man. Honestly, so stoked on Volkl. They have had my back since I was 18 and just starting out. I've been with different companies that backed me and I had faith in but ended up really screwing me over. Volkl is like family and I don't feel this to be an option of happening, they really value me and their crew over there. I've also been able to create a ski with them in 2015 I believe, the Revolt. Now its the Revolt 95's and it's great that they are still working with it to innovate and make the best ski we can.

The "Built Together Project" is super unique and they worked with us tremendously to help create the newest freeriding skis in their line up the "121" and the "104". It's amazing the direction Volkl is going in at this moment. I moved to the European side of Volkl and honestly, the team is a family out there, I kick it with Tom Ritsch, Paddy Graham, Fabio Studer, and Markus Eder. Those guys are awesome skiers and it's great to know we are all on a team together.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/976029/ACTION-MEN---A-Skiing-Short-By-Legs-Of-Steel

Völkl's latest offering - Action Men

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@Julius_Steezer - One thing which I was always curious about was that you’ve been a guy who’s super passionate about supporting freeski companies (I can’t remember where but I’m pretty sure I read something you wrote on it a few years ago). Obviously, Volkl and UA aren’t companies that most people would associate as core freeski companies, was there a particular reason for staying with them over the years when you presumably could get the hookup with another brand? Not calling you out or anything, just genuinely interested if there’s a side to these brands which the public don’t really see.

Well, heres the thing man. I will always talk about how we should support core companies in freeskiing, this will help us to build a stronger base for ourselves so that our ski world will not be able to fail. Skateboarding has done this beautifully and this is why they can continue to have skateboarders with careers based solely off of putting together segments. In skiing we are starting to lost that ability because its mostly controlled by companies that do not truly have a basis to Freeskiing, instead are owned by parent companies that bottom line is profit.

With that being said, Volkl is owned by a parent company. However, Volkl has been producing twin tip skis since the beginning of twin tip skis. They were nearly one of the first rounded up tails that i seen on the shelfs as Freeskiing was being birthed. They have continuously supported competitions, Movies, Events, and different skiers both on the competitive side and the film side. Volkl is truly a great company with freeskiing very much in their interests and they continue to prove it by innovating a large line of newly designed skis using the athletes input, I cant say many other companies are at this level of support

Under Armour is a different story, but simply put, everybody has got to eat. There arent many clothing companies in the Ski industry and even less that can give you money to eat. I was honestly very skeptical to get onto Under Armour in the beginning but they helped me do many things in skiing and life i never wouldve had the opportunity to do otherwise. In the end, in true

big business form, they hired in a new guy to run the finances of the ski side, A true piece of shit, who did not like what my skiing represented. He came from the Matchstick side of things and hated the fact i used no poles and kept the jacket unzipped. This asshole who had worked there for 5 months was able to keep me from being resigned after i had been skiing with Under Armour for 6 years. No love.

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@NattyNine - Biggest pro-tips for affording/living life on the road?

Pretty simple, learn to live cheaply. Buy an RV so you don't have to pay for rent every year, and get ready to freeze your ass off. Or be a good couch surfer! Tom Ritsch let me crash his place in Austria last winter. That was so nice, that dude is the man! Things like that definitely save you some dollo, so make friends with awesome people and that helps...

Try not buying beer for a month, it would save you a tremendous amount of money if you could.

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@codizzle - Ahmet, in your opinion, which pro skier, past or present, was born with the most god-given, natural talent?

Candide Thovex, Tanner Hall, Henrik Harlaut, Phil Casabon, Markus Eder. There are too many that are just so unbelievably good.

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@appa - Hey Ahmet, do you identify as a person of color? If so, can you speak to your unique experience in the ski world as such?

Yeah bro for sure I do. I am not what is seen as a typical American. My Father is Turkish my mother is of European descent. I'm a Muslim. With being Islamic and of a different color other than white I have stood face to face against racism on many different occasions. I have had those movie-style instances where people in certain bars/gas stations stop and look at me. I have been falsely accused by police and had them aim their guns at me on 3 different occasions, one of which I truly thought one of those fascist fucks could get an itchy finger, pull that trigger, and my life, and walk away with it. It's crazy in America and I think I have lived in a far different America my whole life than nearly everybody in the ski world.

That's why, if you follow my Instagram, I have been very passionate about standing up with the Black Lives matter movement against this oppressive system. Many people in the ski world may not understand why we find it so oppressive but they have not lived in this country being different than the norm. When you are different you will understand the cruelty and brutality that exists here. If you're not of a different religion, race, gender, or sexual orientation than the norm, it will be harder to understand these perspectives but when you open your eyes and clear your mind of the falsehoods you've been tricked into growing up, I promise you that you will feel like a veil has been lifted from your eyes and you will see why so people are now protesting for their lives to "matter".

Sorry, this was a bit of a rant. To end this off and simply answer the question, The ski world is very typically an open-minded sport, extremely accepting because we have found our own world outside of the system where all we want to do is ski.

Still, there are some close minded fools and plenty of examples of unintended racism. It's been going on for so long with some people they dont even notice they are doing it.

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@wameron - What are your top 3 segments?

dave crichton- forward

Liam Downey - Long story short

Pep Fujas - session 1242

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@Lazylightning - What made you want to start LaFam and how has it been running a website without using ads to grt money? (I use the site frequently, the archive of edits is a literal godsend 🙏). I feel like I should mention, I bought a purple LaFam beanie and you should definitely make some more merch, I love that hat.

Yo brotha, thank you very much for grabbing up the beanie. I'm stoked you like the site. Its been really hard for me to keep it updated lately because my computer has been a bit spotty. It's better now and I'll keep it something great to look at.

I wanted to start La Fam because I feel like there's room in our industry for more media-focused websites. Freeskier is absolute junk, so that ones off the table, what else is there other than Newschoolers? NS is fantastic and runs it in skiing, but there's room for alternatives so you can go to Newschoolers to get a huge view of what's going on in freeskiing, and go to La Fam to get more curated content.

I don't get any money unless homies like you buy some of the merch I put up on Instagram from time to time. Other than that, I get nothing. So if anyone wants to support LA Fam through buying a tee shirt or beanie, hit a brotha up!!

For anyone who hasn't checked the site out, it's http://www.lafamchannel.com

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@asparagus - Wackiest injury? Doesn't have to be the worst, just weird.

I got a few, but weirdest wackiest one took place at brighton years ago. It was the first good powder day that year after a slow season so its busy as hell. I got off a little roller, nothing big, landed in a bombhole and did the simple front flip tomahawk. right to the feet and skied away, but in the midst of that front roll my boots had overflexed and the tip of my ski went into my mouth, as I flipped it basically spring loaded the ski and flung my front teeth out. I lost 2 teeth and broke my gums in two spots which put 2 teeth projecting straight out and way up. as I'm skiing away there was no shortage of blood coming out of my mouth, when i put my tongue up i felt no teeth up there, 4 of them missing, but actually it was worse than that and when i got to look in a mirror I definitely got woozy looking at the snaggle teeth in the mirror.

This one sucked!!!!