Sims Snowboard
History of Snowboarding – From humble beginnings to mainstream
Unlike skiing, which has been developed over thousands of years and is heaped in tradition and history, Snowboarding is a relatively new sport with humble beginnings.
The first commercial snowboard is widely recognised as being the Snurfer, and was the brainchild of Sherman Poppen from Michigan (US), way back on Christmas Day in 1965. The orignal concept was built for his daughter and was born out of an idea to fix a wooden platform across two children’s skis, with a rope attached at the front to aide steering and balance. This invention proved to be a big hit, not only with his daughter, but all her friends.
In fact, the Snurfer was so popular, Poppen decided to license the invention with a manufacturer, and over the next decade almost a million Snurfers were sold. Despite it’s limited steering capabilities, the Snurfer became an international sensation and the first ever World Snurfing Championship was hosted in Michigan, in 1979.
A young man named Jake Burton Carpenter (founder of Burton snowboards) caused controsversy at the event by entering with his own customerised board with large rubber band bindings to strap his boots to the board. A new event was hastily put together for non-Snurfer boards which Jake duely won – not suprising really, as he was the only entrant! Netherless, this event was key in the development of Snowboarding as we know it today.
Pioneers such as Jake Burton Carpenter, Dimitrije Milovich, and Tom Sims, continued to push the boundries by developing and manufacturing new ideas and concepts for Snowboarding. Dimitrije Milovich was a surfing enthuiast and one of his first designs was a snowboard called ‘Winterstick’, inspired by the design and feel of a Surfboard. Tom Sims was a Skateboard enthusiast, and his original designs for Snowboards reflected this. It is not hard to see how Snowboarding is influenced by Surfing, Skateboarding, and Skiing.
The pioneers were not all state side; in 1976, Welsh skateboard enthuiasts Jon Roberts and Pete Matthews developed their own snowboards to use at their local Dry Ski Slope. This ended in disaster when Matthews suffered serious injuries while snowboarding, resulting in it being banned at the dry ski slope.
The seeds were sewn, and throughout the late 70s and 1980s, the popularity of snowboarding escalated. In 1982 the first National Snowboard race was held in Vermont, and a year later, the first World Championship halfpipe competition was held in California. The first world cup of the sport was held in Austria, in 1985.
Unfortuanetely, the world of Snowboarding was not greeted with open arms by the Skiing community, with snowboarding being banned at most ski resorts. Even the resorts that did allow snowboarding, the snowboarders were restricted to separate slopes. For years, snowboarders were mainly restricted to the back country slopes, treated as outcasts by the Ski authorities. Naturely, tensions ran high between Skiiers and Snowboarders, and feuds were formed. These rebelious origins gave the sport urban roots and it has always been closely associated with the pop culture of the times with fashion amongst snowboarders never being understated.
The popularity of Snowboarding escalated throughout the 1990′s, with ski areas accepting the sport as a new market with huge revenue possibilities. Over the last few years, the numbers of skiiers has decreased, while the number of snowboarders have massively increased. So much so that Snowboarding is the fasted growing winter sport in the US. It is speculated that snowboarding will overtakeskiing in popularity by 2015. Not bad for a sport that started on the back country slopes of the US less than 50 years ago!
For more snowboarding articles, videos, photos, tuition, visit:
About the Author
I am passionate about extreme sports and and co-owner of www.extremestunts.co.uk; the adrenaline junkie’s guide to the extreme!
Sims Snowboard Team Video 09 (with music by Villains)
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