Snowboard – origin and types

Snowboarding these days is as popular winter sport as skiing. It could be defined as the winter equivalent of the skateboard. Actually the idea for snowboard originates from the skateboard, surfing and the sledges. The sports appeared for the first time in the United States during 1960.

Poppens' "snurfer"

The snowboard in the very beginning was just a piece of wood, used from the kids to slide down the hill. After that during 1965, a man called Sherman Poppen, an engineer from Michigan, made a toy for his daughter. He put together two pieces of ski and added a rope at one of the ends of the board for more control. Poppen called it “snurfer”. It appeared that his daughters’ toy is raising a big interest and he decides to take out a patent for his invention. He starts to produce it and sells around a million during the years.

During the 1960, Tom Sims, who was a big fan of the skateboard, decides modify the “snurfer” and creates the snowboard of the 70s. Meanwhile, Dimitrii Milkovic creates as well his own variant and called it a “Winterstick”. Thanks to the creation of those new types of the “snowboard”, a publication in the Newswick magazine, appeared and this contributed a lot for popularization of the new sport.

Later, during 1977, Jake Burton Carpenter, who was born in Vermont, used his “snurfer”. Meanwhile he decided to create some kind of bindings, in order to keep the feet to stuck for the board. The public was impressed from his new modification of the snowboard. The same year he founded his company “Burton Snowboards” in Londondery, Vermont. In the beginning, just a few people buy his snowboard, because its price for the times was too high – 38$, however during the years, Burton becomes the biggest snowboard company in the industry.

The new sport started to gain more and more popularity, because the technique is easier to learn and practice than the skis. That’s why during the 70s and 80s the sport started gaining a foothold and became an alternative of skiing.

Snowboard types

In the snowboard exist several different types – freeride, freestyle, splitboarding and freecarve (also known as Alpine Snowboarding).

Freeride

Known also as “all-mountain snowboarding” just like in the skiing, freeride takes place again off-piste and gives you the opportunity to ride on any terrain.

Freestyle

This is the most popular type of snowboarding. Freestyle focusses on jumps, tricks, rail slides, halfpipes and switch riding. It is more suitable for professionals as the techniques are mostly aerial.

Freecarve

Also known as Alpine Snowboarding, it is all about speed and the ultimate carving turn in snowboarding. Freecarve takes place on hard pack and groomed runs and requires little or no jumping but requires a lot of strength and concentration.

Splitboarding

Riders can go skiing and snowboarding at the same time with the same piece of equipment in splitboarding. Splitboard has the same shape and construction like a normal snowboard, however it is designed to split apart into two to use as skis.

Browse through our various collection of snowboard and snowboard boots, get ready to embark on your new adventure! 

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