New Articles in the Bomber Files

[Jack M]

Check out the Bomber Files for two new articles about alpine snowboarding:

A Brief History of Alpine Snowboards

and

Bastard Child.

Hope you enjoy them!

ps- there's also a new article on Practice Drills in the Tech Articles

[bschurman]

Good job! Awesome articles, they were a good read and quite informative. Thanks Jack.

->Ben

[utahcarver]

You know, I've read that article in TW Business before about Mike Olson but it wasn't until I had a couple of muscle relaxers in me and a few PBR's that I paid attention to what he is saying.

Jeez, this guy is responsible for a lot of snowboard technology that's still being ignored or rehashed as a new technology. Kudos to Mike!

Mark

[Jack M]

I got the same impression from that TWSB article.... but the list of his claimed inventions is so long it almost becomes suspicious. I wonder if he can document it all.

[utahcarver]

Let's say that Olson got 'mouthy' and said more than he wanted to say over the phone for the interview. Lets also say, he 'overstated' some things. That'll come back on him eventually. But, if what he says is what happened, then here's a guy who's not being compensated or acknowledged for his contributions to a sport that (its modern adherents) now cares little for it's roots.

The thing that stuck in my throat was the photo of Olson trimmed out in a toeside carve back in the mid-80's. I remember seeing that in the original magazine way back when. That was a moment of clarity for me. Though it took me almost two decades to catch the vision of what he was doing then, I wish that I had caught on a bit sooner.

Mark

[Gecko]

there were actually 2 symetrical weapons, a 180cm and a 200cm (and 2 asyms). The reality was that the edge was actually about 5-6 cm less than the overal length though we all tended to cut the nose off making the the difference about 2-3 cm they were wide and heavy with a relatively soft nose...a couple of the 200cm's had a leaf spring to stiffen the nose (including mine). Awesome for early morning speedruns but a bear to do much other than gun it...I got a few lift tickets pull/threatened on that board. The 180cm was another matter...that board could turn. Mind you this was from a guy who drew his sidecuts in a parking lot with cardboard and kevlar kitestring (mine). It's sad that Stevie never made Flite profitable because we certainly made a good product just not a cost effective one...in this day and age he could have done well with boutique snowboards.

[Jack M]

Cool! Got any pics?

I once rode at Sugarloaf with a guy on a UFO who raved about it and the customer service.

[Neil Gendzwill]

I still have a Gnu Raceroom from '90 or so - can't fit my boots on the old Elfgen plates otherwise I'd take it out for a spin. That board was a monster in the crud.

[MozzMann]

Great insite to the evolution of the Sport Jack top stuff.

Mozz

[tilledog]

Yea, ...

Bring it

Davo

[gdboytyler]

In the Mike Olsen article, he talks about making bindings with tongues. Is he talking about bindings with Elfgen tongues? I used Elfgen tongues on my Burton soft bindings for years. I then switched to Flow bindings.

I remember the first board I ever saw with camber was a green Gnu. I demo'd that board, but couldn't ride it for sh1t. It just felt too stiff. Now that I can carve, I'm sure I would appreciate that board a lot more.

Mike Olsen really was ahead of his time.

[D-Sub]

werent the elfgens in conjunction with gnu? I had a few gnus back then, as did friends, and we all had elfgens

mine was a kinetic 168. I wonder how that would ride now?

[Gecko]

Originally posted by Jack Michaud

Cool! Got any pics?

I once rode at Sugarloaf with a guy on a UFO who raved about it and the customer service.

sadly no my boards, 172asym, 180(cut to 177) and 200 (cut to 196) with a leafspring, were stolen from my storage shed while I was living in San Diego. The 170UFO was far and away the best board Stevie ever designed/built...picture an Axix/AM type board 15years ago...that's what it was. It had carbon, kevlar and a nice Ash/maple (remember this is 88/89) core, the topsheet was Tri-D glass borrowed/bought from the boating industry if I remember correctly...and I so regret selling mine...raving about the customer service huh...that was likely me, Doug or Stevie (the owner/designer)...I didn't think we were anything to rave about but OK

Bindings...I remember that in 86-89 we (Flite) were playing with a Flow type design...it was way down the evelutionaly chain but we had a single strap with a tongue that ran from the shin to the toe. Another guy in the shop was playing with rear entry bindings though all I remember about his were that they had two tall towers on either side of the ankle...his were more geared to Alpine as he was not a freestyle type guy.

[ncermak]

Originally posted by Kent

Matter of fact, I re-hooked up with my Elan friends and bugged them for some new boards (SL and GS) last week. Being that I don't have a new snowboard lately (cough, cough), I figure new skiis might fill the void....

Kent...you'll love 'em those skis are the most carving skis ive tried...they will really get out from under you. If I hadn't put so much into board this year, I'd own the GS ski...and the slalom.

-Noah

Tilledog -

the steelers don't stand a chance

[LeeW]

Originally posted by utahcarver

Let's say that Olson got 'mouthy' and said more than he wanted to say over the phone for the interview. Lets also say, he 'overstated' some things. That'll come back on him eventually. But, if what he says is what happened, then here's a guy who's not being compensated or acknowledged for his contributions to a sport that (its modern adherents) now cares little for it's roots.

The thing that stuck in my throat was the photo of Olson trimmed out in a toeside carve back in the mid-80's. I remember seeing that in the original magazine way back when. That was a moment of clarity for me. Though it took me almost two decades to catch the vision of what he was doing then, I wish that I had caught on a bit sooner.

Mark

well, he wouldn't care too much for being compenstated or acknowledged for his contributions. Why? He's too busy having -fun-! I speak from experience from hanging out with Mike Olson on several occassion during my employement at Mervin MFG.

[Guest silversurf]

Having been around this scene in Seattle, I can vouch that Mike O is certainly out to have fun as is just about everyone at Mervin. I don't know him well enough to say that he doesn't care about being compensated (I think anyone would want at least credit and money never hurts), but if anyone recalls the early days, GNU and later Lib Tech really pushed the limits and were always way out there in their designs and materials use. The HyperCarve was so far ahead of it's time as was his manufacturing techniques (which he talks about in the article).

I mostly stuck with Burton at the time as they were the big player, riding the Safari and a couple years later the PJ (I started in 1986 on a Elite 155, yes w/ a metal fin). But my good buddy owned only GNU's up until the mid-90's. The one I recall being the most mind blowing thing we'd ever seen or ridden was a GNU board (the name is escaping me right now) that had MASSIVE flex and almost 90 deg. up-turned tip and tail, I wish I could recall the name. It also had HUGE camber and was like a spring. It carved, even for being as flexible as it was, and was a monster off jumps because it had a foam core and really light. The point here is that this board was out before ANYONE had a true freestyle board.

The HyperCarve was equally revolutionary, which preceeded this one the a year or two before was mind blowing as well. It had an upturned tail, which I think was the first rounded upturned tail I'd ever seen and the up turn on the tail seemed big, compared to the swallow tails and split tails sitting on the racks next to it. I vividly remember walking in to the Bike Factory (Bob Barci's shop) and just staring at the HyperCarve. I saw the picture of Mike (or someone) carving on it on edge and was just blown away. The big thing with all this is that these boards preceeded anything Burton was doing and other than that there were only a few other makers at the time, Barfoot, Winterstick, Sims, etc who were even close in terms of technology and I think GNU still was at least two years ahead of all of them. Mostly I think it was a willingness to innovate and just throw ideas at a board. Burton quickly was becoming a profit powerhouse and they were more concerned as time went on with making sure they could market thier boards to a wide audience (that not really being a fault of theirs) and GNU kept on pushing ideas which made for niche boards and great ideas, but not much of a true coherent product line.

He had the Elfgen bindings that used the tongue. Someone mentioned these and wondered if GNU made them or Elfgen, if I recall Elfgen made those bindings for GNU based on Mike's ideas. They kinda sucked as the buckles were plastic rachets and were hard to put on. I recall them hurting too, but that was because we all wore regular sorels as there were no snowboard boots yet with liners.

Burton was always close behind GNU, but I think Mike's statements are pretty close in that he was doing some radical things out there in his shop. Foam core was certainly his in terms of it's use in snowboarding and if I recall his 4-hole pattern was his as well (larger spacing than what's out there now tho). This list goes on, and alot of this I'm recalling off the top of my head. I can see GNU's (read: Mike's) pioneering all around me today.

In the end, I don't think there's any debate that Mike Olsen is a pioneer of the sport, maybe one of the most underrated ones out there. I think history will be favorable to him and if anything he has lived a life that many of us crave and that is doing what you love, not just for money, but for the love of it.

Even though I've ridden "alpine"/racing boards for most of my snowboarding life, I figured I'd at least share with the group what ended my days of riding flexible freestyle boards...my Burton Mystery Air, died upon impact 1989. I did a 15' drop down a creek bed following Chris Karol and some others (Chris was briefly dating a boarder friend of mine at the time) at Hyak on Snoqualmie Pass:

Mystery Air of Death

-colin

[nils]

As always euro side of things is a bit forgotten ;), but since Jack said it would cover mostly North america its not a shame ;)

Lets not forget the Hot One sixty from Serge Dupraz ( Hot Snowboards founder, now owner of Dupraz snowboards btw interesting concept he has now that is a reminder of the One sixty : its called the D1)

The One sixty is from 1985-86 winter and led to the extarodinary Hot Revolution series, that led serge vitelli to invent the euro turn

http://www.hammersnowboards.com/products/hotsnowboards/before_94_fr.php

http://www.dupraz-ch.com/index_en.php

Nils

[Guest Randy S.]

That Dupraz D1 looks a lot like a Funky board I had in the early 90's.

[willywhit]

Great article Jack. My first board was a used Gnu Antigravity from Madd Mike's and it had the little chemist on the nose. Slope Tools, I thought that was sooooo kewl. Gecko, I bet we've met in Newport way back. Sid from Water Bros.? I bet you've been to THOSE partys. Flite Skates and backyard halfpipes, those were the days.My dog was even born in Newport. Although with Gnu, all-mountain carvers actually came much earlier. Late 80s Gnus were shaped very similarly to modern all-mountains. Gnu founder Mike Olson didn’t call his boards "snowboards", he called them "slope tools" because they were designed to carve, first and foremost. His carvey shapes weren’t limited to only high end race boards like Burton and Sims, etc. In that sense, Olson could and probably should be considered the father of freecarve.

[gdboytyler]

Originally posted by silversurf

He had the Elfgen bindings that used the tongue. Someone mentioned these and wondered if GNU made them or Elfgen, if I recall Elfgen made those bindings for GNU based on Mike's ideas. They kinda sucked as the buckles were plastic rachets and were hard to put on.

Elfgen also sold the togues separately and I drilled some holes in my Burton strap bindings to accomodate the Elfgen tongues. Burton also sold a tongue kit, but the Burton version wasn't nearly as supportive.

[Gecko]

Originally posted by willywhit

Great article Jack. My first board was a used Gnu Antigravity from Madd Mike's and it had the little chemist on the nose. Slope Tools, I thought that was sooooo kewl. Gecko, I bet we've met in Newport way back. Sid from Water Bros.? I bet you've been to THOSE partys. Flite Skates and backyard halfpipes, those were the days.My dog was even born in Newport. Although with Gnu, all-mountain carvers actually came much earlier. Late 80s Gnus were shaped very similarly to modern all-mountains. Gnu founder Mike Olson didn’t call his boards "snowboards", he called them "slope tools" because they were designed to carve, first and foremost. His carvey shapes weren’t limited to only high end race boards like Burton and Sims, etc. In that sense, Olson could and probably should be considered the father of freecarve.

Good old days...I used to skate Sid's half pipe at the beach...and the Salve bowl, Seaside banks, Brick Market banks, Christmas Tree store loading dock, the Creamery, Post Office curbs, Perotti Park, the Wave. I miss that place a bunch. Now just puting a deck down will get you a ticket in most of downtown, Skater Island is closed for rehab/forever? At least Sid got his store back after the THPS3 fiasco...as for Sid's parties...I'm gonna take the 5th as I'm still in the Navy and well you get the picture

[Guest silversurf]

Yes, yes, Anti Gravity! That's the name I was thinking of!!! Thank you, it was bugging me all day.

And about Elfgen's, yes you're right, the tongues we're Elfgen and the base was GNU design.

-c

[willywhit]

In fact, the Gnu bindings were so terrible on the AntiGravity we swapped 'em for some sweet Kemper day glow green ones and they worked great. First pair of softboots were some used up rentals from Andy Coghlan's shop Boarding House in Burlington,VT. I traded him some "stuff" and off we went. GECKO, do you remember CF? ("Centrifugal Force") skate park in Seekonk or Zero Gravity in Cambridge? I'm talking '78-'79 ish. Sid's parties and that whole Newport scene was legendary. Dogtown Smogtown, Sid's halfpipe/shop on 1st Beach was the real deal. Man, those were the days.My Australian Cattle Dog was actually born in Middletown on Tuckerman's next to 2nd Beach. Where else can you surf in front of a row of mansions ? Ruggles, that's where. ;)

[willywhit]

GO PATS!!! Some say I resemble Matty Light.