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Issue #2 Vol #5 Febuary 09 FREE goblin mike olson interview issue bob stien

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Issue #2 Vol #5 Febuary 099FREE

goblin

mike olson

interview issue

bob stien

revolutionsnowandskate.com

509-665-6662revolutionsnowandskate.com

revolutionSnowskate Shop

Wenatchee, Washington

"I gave him my boob but he signed my collarbone." Merica on Adrian signing autographs.

"I'm not skating again till I get some Rocker Trucks" Blair Habenict after

his first time riding Rockers.

"You fuck" Ryan Gram on shooting the new

starfish t-shirt ad.

"That's a scary dude on the cover" Mack dog on the travel issue.

"This shits hand crafted, eyeball technology."

Adam B. on florida Powders incon-sistencies.

"Take this away right now or you wont get it back." MIic after his

Florida Powder demo.

I don't want to do an free advertizment for Florida, but Adam's boards are FUCKING RAD! Kurt Zapata

QUOTES

"I Noticed that, he's good in the air" Rachel on the bad boy jackson.

"Goblins freaking out, can i get a quote on that?" Danny sheehan on snowboards being aloud at starfish headquarters north.

"i'm not very smart"Goblin on his interview.

bob steinlift operations manager

lifty to lifty,straight talk.

Name?Bob Stein

Job Title?Lift Operations Man-ager for the Summit at Snoqualmie.

Hometown?Ellensburg.

When did you first see a snowskate?I can’t really remem-ber probably two or three years after I started working up here, probably around 2002 or 2003.

What was your initial reaction upon seeing a guy with a snowskate?Umm, What is that

guy doing here, he’s not supposed to be here.

OK. What was your role in getting snowskaters lift access after that?

Well, Krush had some influence and Dan (Brewster) had some influence and

I kinda pushed it a little bit just because it was a hassle, we had to monitor them and they were only aloud on certain lifts at certain times of the day. I think it was Dodge Ridge on Friday nights and PC on Wednesday and Thursday nights and it was just a big kinda pain in the ass. There was more and more skaters out there, and we were allow-ing different things on the lift and so it just seemed like it

“it just seemed like it would be a whole lot easier to let them on

all of the lifts, and not worry about it.”

interview by jack hitchcock

would be a whole lot easier to let them on all of the lifts, and not worry about it. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So how did it go with the skaters on the lift?It was actually a lot better after we let

them on the lifts be-cause we didn’t have the hassles and the phone calls and the people getting upset for letting them on the lift.

What are the problems you have encountered with the snowskaters

and lift access?I can’t really see any problems other than if there is a snowskat-er and he can’t ride it when he gets off of the lift and he post holes through the top ramp. That’s the only problem, other than that it has been pretty

good.

So, no major safety issues?No, a lift’s speed is allowable for foot traffic, it is acceptable, but there is a time when we may slow it down on a couple of lifts. We used to only let them on the high

wolle

photo by scott sullivan

andrew

buergin

speed quads, just on the quads. Now it is everything across the boards.

Why did they do that?Because we couldn’t think of a good rea-son not too.

Do you own a snowskate?No, but I have tried it.

What do you think about other resorts that do not allow

starfishsnowskatemagazine.com

snowskating?I think some of the resorts do it because they are picky about their clientèle and only richie people can ride in their ski areas. But I don’t see any reason not to recommend it to other ski areas to allow it, I mean it is growing.

Do you see any par-allels with the early days of snowboard-ing?Yeah, (Laughter) like

not letting the snow-boarders at the ski ar-eas because they were different and they are punks and wild?

Is that how it was?I don’t know I have only been in this business ten years. But it was defiantly the younger crowd that was coming in with the snowboards versus the older adult skiers... But the days have changed, times

have changed.

That’s all of my ques-tions what else do we need to talk about?

I think that was the big thing just getting it approved to where they can just get on all of the lifts and just forget about the hassles, not fight with them and have them fight with us and have to deal with it. It just made things so simple and everyone seems happy now.

“It just made things so simple and everyone seems happy now.”

photos by kurt reise

andrew

buergin

Pat QuinnTHEGOBLIN

Interview

Photo by PLWP.

Interview by Jack Hitchcock

who’s that knocking at the door?

QuinnName? Pat QuinnHometown? Originally from Tacoma,Washington and I reside in South Lake Tahoe California.

Why Tahoe? The weather, I honestly came here to visit almost ten years ago now... I came here to visit, I was supposed to be here like a month and two weeks in I was just like I’m staying. You know? It’s hard to beat the weather and there is a lot to do.

Who were your early influences? Did you Snowboard? Yeah, I snowboarded for years, I started skiing when I was like seven. I started snowboarding when I was like thirteen I guess.

Alright so did you win every event at every snowskate contest you went to last year? Yeah., I guess I did, I don’t know about one, but yeah I did good. There was the Ralston Cup and I guess I one that.

Was that rigged?

Oh, big time, nobody had a chance I can’t believe you guys showed up. (Laughter). It’s all Danny Sheehan he rigged it.

So what makes an event fun? Um, I had a lot of fun at the Shut Up And Snowskate, just the jam format was cool, the jam

format is less of a com-petition more just getting together and shredding and the Cup is more like; it’s a contest. You know? Which, I like to compete it’s fun. I’m not sure which one I like better. Probably which ever one I’m doing.

What would be your ideal contest format?Oh, man I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s hard to say, it depends on the course I guess? If that is any kind of answer. Like how the Shut Up And Snowskate was like a smaller street style

“It’s all Danny Sheehan he rigged it.”

Photo by PLWP.

course, you know that worked better with the jam style format you know, doing a contest run on a course like that would be kinda silly you know? It’s like you got four minutes, run up and down the hill. With the big jumps, it’s like you can’t even see the entire course, you know, like a jam format would be hard to watch the whole course. So, I guess if that is any kind of answer I don’t know. How about that? Final answer, I don’t fucking know man.

What about the races? Races are cool, I guess. I like the Chinese downhill style race better than I like going through slalom gates for sure or like boarder cross style, like a snowskate cross” I guess would be sweet. But just on a regular boarder cross coarse. That would be the shit.

What is your set-up like? I am rocking the Ralston ski with Jake’s Rocker trucks and I got a 36 inch deck by 8 and 1/2. I believe is what I’m rocking right now it’s actually the new one. We actually got our decks finally done the new Ralston top-deck, I

don’t know what you call it.

I don’t even know if it ex-ists.It does exist now, they are around. If you can fifind one get one.

What’s you favorite place to ride? Here, Tahoe, South Shore Tahoe pretty much anywhere that allows it I guess is my favorite place to ride you know.

What’s your version of Ralston snowskates what’s the deal? Um, well it got started, Sheehan got me into it. He broke his leg years ago and he couldn’t put on bindings anymore. I was still snowboarding

““Final answer, I don’t fucking

know man.”

Photo by PLWP.

Photo by PLWP.

at this point and then he’s getting into skates he had some Lib Tech or Gnu ones and we started riding those, we rode them in the back yard.

At first I totally bagged on them, like those things are fucking stupid you know? I was like if you wanna go big ride your snowboard, if you wanna skate ride your skate-board and I’d give them shit for it. Then I tried it and its been three full seasons and I haven’t

even rode a snowboard. Now it’s all I do, and then we got the idea to turn it into a company and the wheels are turning on that you know we’re not that far along we don’t have a factory yet but we’ve got a batch of skates out and sold. Hopefully this thing blows up.

How do you feel about Jan Terri capital-izing on your image?That shit is weird man. It’s pretty funny though. I have question for you. In the last STARFISH Is that Jan Terri all painted up? The big fat girl?

No, that is my roommate.Oh yeah? That shit is hilarious I thought that somebody told me that, that was Jan Terri.

No ,that chick is way hotter than Jan Terri dude.

“Tahoe, pretty much anywhere that allows it I guess is my favor-

ite place”

“Hopefully this thing blows up.”

Photo by Rusty.

Photo by Jim Callian.

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Podium

While ev-erybody else was waiting on their shipments from Rocker Trucks. Alan Gerlach filmed one of the sickest snowskate mov-ies ever. On a FLAT DECK. This Midwest kids got hops. For proof go to our web page. The fol-lowing is a public announcement from Starfish to flat deckers:

Fuse head-quarters was pum-meled by early sea-son snow. The fuse crew hustled and put out a new video before December.

Jordan Arm-strong became the first snowskater to decend Kokanee Glacier near Nelson BC. This glacier has been featured on the Kokanee Beer lables for years. When asked for comment Jordan

In other In-ternational news,

After four years of waiting Chiller snowskate finally mailed a deck to Starfish Head-quarters. It is of-ficial they are sick they are worth the extra money. Hand crafted fir decks with deep concave made by skaters? That’s about as good as it gets.

Starfish would like to apolo-gise to any of its readers attempting to spend money at Loveland Ski re-sort in Colorado. although listed on our resort list Loveland does not allow snowskat-ers to buy tickets at their mountain. The good news for Colorado skaters is that the superior resorts at both Vail and Beaver Creek now welcome skat-ers.

Florida Pow-der Dolphins have finally migrated out of the USA. Boards have been reported in Canada, Italy and Austria. Global domination seems eminent

Nollies board shop in Covington Washington is back on good terms with Mervin Manu-facturing and will soon be West Coast skaters “One Stop Snowskate Shop.”

Hyak1/7/09

The first annual Serpentine Massacre is being relocated to Silver Fir after a devestating landslide/avalance destroyed the chairlift at Hyak. Event format has not yet been decided, Stay tuned to Starfish-snowskatemagazine.com for updates.

some dude named Leo in Sweden has been seen walk-ing down the street wearing a Starfish T-shirt.

Veteran snow-boarding legend Mike Estes has been seen snowskating in Oregon. When asked for comment Mike ultimatly had this to say: “If I can’t skate- why not snowskate!”

Mike Estes

said “I hiked for like 7 hours and got like two hundred vertical feet.”

Covington, Washington 253-630-4440NOLLIES.COM

Tyson Butler

Photo by Jimmy Clarke

Clarke #3

Jake

Photo by PLWP

Photo by Jeanie Cavenaugh

Leavitt

For those of you that have been living in a cave for the

last 20 years and those of you under 15 we should probably introduce mike olson. mike is the inventor of

the snowboard and the co-founder of mervin manufactur-ing. mervin is home to lib tech and gnu, the worlds best

snowboards and snowskates. Mike is without a doubt the worlds leading authority on snowskate, snowboard and ski design. Prepare yourself, he doesn’t always speak in

complete sentences and you may have to read this twice but you will learn something, we garantee it.

Prepare yourself...

Mike Olson

Jessica

INTERVIEW BY JACK HITCHCOCK

Photos by Big John

Photo by Jackson

Name?Delbert de von Pumper-nickle

No, your real name, I just start them all like that.Delbert de von Pumper-nickle, That’s what I used to put on my snowboards in the early days before Gnu. They were called “D.P.” as in “Dill Pickle” or “dog poo”. “D.P. Gravity harness snow-boards no guarantee” it was like a whole phrase or sentence But then it wasn’t very market-able. I really did.all my first days at Ski acres for about four years, that was before gnu. It was DP gravity harness snowboards with a big No guarantee. How’s that?

OK, but your name tag says mike Olson. So lets state that for the record.OK.

And your job title?Well my little card says Banana enthusiast. Right between the pentagram with the poodle in it.

Alright, when and why did you start making skis and snowboards?Oh, boy this is a good one.

It’s gonna be like three pages.that’s gonna be three pag-es. Pause. I actually have an answer. Luckily I can come up with a right answer and nobody can correct it. In 1977 I was a wee lad I was

thirteen, or fourteen I believe. I saw a picture. This is pretty cool actu-ally, and I have it some-where, because nobody else that I know of in the industry has ever seen

“it felt kinda more pure.”

Clarke #3

Clarke #

3

Photo by Big John

this but I do have it. There is a picture of a guy, making a turn as like an extra at the end of the magazine. It was skateboarder magazine with surfer publications. It may have been an ad at the beginning... come to think of it, it was an ad at the be-ginning, showing a guy who I now know is Weber. His name was weber the famous weber that was originally playing with snowboards. But it is a twin tip, a black twin tip snowboard in 1977 with thermoform plastic and he’s got some Sorel boots on and it’s got a skate deck bolted to the top of it and he’s cranking out

a perfect, it’s kinda slushy, and he’s cranking out this perfect frontside carve. And that was the first time I ever saw what could be a real snowboard, of course I’d seen what everybody always talks about, snurf-ers you know? like oh,there was snurfers in the 60’s. That was the forefather that was the predecessor. I’d seen those before like at jc penny’s and all of the stores, they all sold racks and racks of snurf-ers. The first influence I had of anything like that was coleco. Which no one believed me when I used to tell the story About, Well

coleco was out at the same time or I thought before the snurfer, sure enough when I told the story to Denis at salty peaks one day, he sent me up a coleco, he has a few of them. It’s kinda cool it’s kinda more advanced than the snurfer. Way better contours, that was the first one I ever saw. Years later I opened up skateboard magazine, it

was kinda like my bible you know? And I saw what I now know is bob weber cranking out this legitimate look-ing skateboard turn on a snowboard. I saw that and I started dreaming about it and then a little bit later there was that picture in the extras of Lonnie toft. He was a pro skater back then one of Sims top guys and one of Sims good bud-

“I was like,this is cool”

sean davis

dies at the time.

Lonnie toft had a snowskate right?Yeah, he’s on a sims flying banana.

When did you first see the bi-deck design?The first bi-deck design was without a doubt...well, of course in the skateboard magazine in that era there was noth-ing like the bi-decks we see now but there was some interesting designs like the skeeter Was one of them there was a few companies where you could retrofit your skateboard and lock

some skies on your wheels. I Think skeeter came with the skis already on it. I was interested in them but I was like, “I can’t afford those and they were too hard to build.“ So, I never got real far on those. The first one I saw was matt Remine’s. Matt Remine had one that was from Steve Frink. He traded a snowboard for it or paid for it I don’t know how he got it but he showed it to me at Alpental one day. We were in the parking lot and we were kicking like a skateboard. You know pushing it along, I was going, “that’s cool” and at the time nobody was even

thinking or talking about taking one down a real ski slope. You’d just hike a little hill and go down it, you know and it’s pretty sketchy. So I though it was cool I was like “this is cool”

Did you start making your own boards right away?No, I didn’t. I started a couple of years later. I started when umm... I was out in the line-up surf-ing one day and Stany, a guy that works for us Tim staney he works for us still, he makes movies and stuff he makes home school. He goes “hey dude,

Frank got this board from Burton and he let us ride it” he described it and I was like,“that is a rip off of Steve frink’s board. matt remine has had one for years” He goes “it’s kinda fun, it kinda works, we took it up to hurricane ridge, you can kinda turn it. we wanna make them in our shop, you know? make some better ones” I said,“OK”, They brought it in to show to me and I was like, “you know what, let’s make one that you can take on the ski slope! that you can take up the chairlift.”

Jake

Shag

It was spring going into summer, so all spring and summer we went to obstruction point a place that, they don’t call it a glacier but it has snow all year long, they don’t call it a glacier but it’s like a glacier there is snow all year long. So we were in the worst conditions, sun cups , Dirt, ICE, crappy snow, slush. So, we got these things to work. We tried everything you can imagine. You would not believe some of the side-cuts and shapes we used but they worked! Even on sun cups. On the worst sun cupped snow you would get like five turns and fall off but

they were five good turns and it was crappy, I got to thinking you know if you had a snowboard up here it would be crappy also. So, I started trying to imagine how is this gonna work on good snow? We built jumps we built little micro jumps and banks and there was about four of us that would go out. Hendo, stany and the nib, Pete’s brother. No one else really cared, a couple of other people would straggle along and try it. Anyways, fall comes and we had made a little quiver of these things and with late November early Decem-ber snow they opened the pass. opening weekend at

snowqualmie summit I go up with my wife and kid and we go snowboarding, it was awesome nice dry, packed powder up there and anyway I had it in the car and I go “hey Dina, I gotta do this. I’m gonna sneak on” it was kinda snowing pretty hard and it was night. I’m just gonna skate up to the chair, look like I’m on a snow-board and try and sneak on with a ski instructor on the quad, just sneak in with a ski instructor so that nobody notices you... I just pushed along like I was on a snowboard sat down on the chair and as it slid by the lifty I just flipped the tail and caught it in my hand. I don’t think the lifty even noticed, people next to me didn’t even notice. When I got to the top I was like ”dang-it! what am I gonna do now?” So, I just ran off. I ran off and the ski instructor next to me

just kinda looked at me running off. I think I had a dog leash already. I can’t remember what I had for a leash but I think I had dis-covered the poodle leash. Anyways, this is awesome, this is actually one of the best days of my life because I was stopped at the top, I got my feet perfectly posi-tioned because I new where the sweet spot was from the summer. I take off, it’s perfect packed powder on dodge ridge. Do they still call it dodge ridge?

Yeah.Which was the perfect chair to first ever go down, cause it’s like perfect. It’s just steep enough but you can get some speed and I pictured that every fifth or sixth turn your gonna get bumped off or slide off right? With the sun cups that would always happen, especially the bump off.

“this is a piece of cake”

Photo by Ryan Davis

sean davis

Tyson

I go top to bottom and just lay out arcs. Like skate arcs, like I can’t believe, you know? In some ways, in a lot of ways it turned easi-er than a snowboard be-cause this was great snow. And it felt kinda more pure. I had my adrenaline going I was like “I didn’t fall off!” I get to the bottom and go up again. This time I get to the top and I’m like “dang’it I’m gonna try a different way to get off” and I was alone this time, the lifty didn’t notice. I planted my back foot, just like you do it now, I planted my back foot and just leaned for-ward with the front foot

and just rode off and I was like “this is a piece of cake, I’m in there now” So I go over to big bill. Go to big bill and do big bill and I’m thinking, “you know what they are not stopping me?” So I go to my wife I’m like, “I gotta keep going” So, I go to Julie’s chair. That was going and I’m like, “I gotta get every chair.” So, I go to thunderbird. t-bird has a bloody steep ramp, on a snowboard when you got one foot in it’s deadly. But this was epic. By now I was an expert, I was three runs into it... I planted my foot, I stood up and I s-turned all of the way down that ramp I was like this is easier than it has ever been on a snowboard ever. s-turned

down the ramp and I just kept going. I was like yeah, “I got t-bird” I was telling my wife how rad it was and she was like “let me try it” I was like “OK.”

So, she goes up the only chair I didn’t hit that day, little thunder. So she goes up and does little thunder, so officially we were like “Yeah, we got every chair that was running that night.” They ended up clos-ing the mountain. The little thunder person caught her and kinda gave her a little lip but we talked him into letting her get a run up and we were like, “yeah we got every chair and our explanation of course was “every other chair allows it.” Some young person running it was like “I guess I better run you up.”

Anyways, we get back and I show up at our company

“actually one of the best days of my life “

“In some ways, in a lot of ways it turned easier than a snowboard”

Photo by Big John

Photo by Rusty

Jakeparty and it is pretty much over, the bands gone and people are drunk and leaving. I got there for a minute and I’m like “you guys can’t believe what I just did but I just hit every chair at snowqualmie, it was unbelievable. I didn’t even come off! I was just arching it was unbelievable” and no one got it, they were just like “huh?” And some of them even made fun of me they though it was the dumb-est thing they had ever

seen. Especially the guys from the Seattle factory because we had two facto-ries and the Seattle factory just didn’t get it because they had never seen one in action.

What role did snowskating play in the development of magnatraction and banana technologies?Actually, it did have a big role in it and I will try and keep it simple, but... when we first started doing snowskates one thing it

proved, it was a theory I had used off and on but it really, really brought it on home... like on a hockey skate; less edge is actu-ally more as far as grip on ice, it showed that with no boots, no bindings and very little leverage, just the leverage of the height of your trucks you could lay it down on some boiler plate ice days and lay over and really hold a pretty good edge and so... it kinda brought in the theory. I’d had the theory since about 1996... I started theoriz-ing about bumps I had a theory on 1 bumps, two bumps, three bumps, some-where in the binding area and once we started playing with it on snowskates Cobb came in one day goes, “hey, lets do bumps the whole length of the edge!”

A bunch of little bumps and you know? I was like “right on, let’s do it, let’s see what we can fit in” so, he came up with the formula of maximizing the bumps even outside of the binding area and that is what kinda lead to magnatraction. He developed the five bump magnatracton. With ba-nana it also showed, once

again, that with a smaller contact you can really bite in and it kinda led to the idea, I’d say less so, more so with the magnatrac-tion... the banana came later but it showed that you could use this hockey skate theory between your feet and make it work. So, yeah mainly it was influential with magnatraction.

How do you feel about smaller companies like Florida Powder Skates and Rocker trucks making accessories for mervin boards?iI think it’s killer, I think it is the best scenario ever. The more the merrier, the more accessories there can be, the more other companies... I think it’s awesome that jake is doing the trucks and that other people are doing acces-sories because that is the way we are gonna keep this thing going because as you probably know from the beginning, I was like really pushing it, probably harder than anyone at mervin, like I was pushing, pushing, pushing. I truly thought...and I still think this, and I actually predicted this kinda right I said “it’s either gonna go huge and

“I thought it should go ballistic and be bigger than snowboarding, actually replace snowboarding”

Photo by PLWP

Tyson

Jackson

could even be bigger than snowboarding because of all of the areas like the mid west, places all over Europe that have tons of snow and the cold... well, they don’t have tons of snow, but it snows all winter, they have snow everywhere... it snows like 6 inches of snow or eight inches of snow but they don’t have big hills, they have little hills. I thought it should go ballistic and be bigger than snowboarding, actu-ally replace snowboarding. But I always said that there was one thing that can hold it back, the first year that we put them on the market, the one thing that could hold it back and a lot of other brands that came out and I won’t mention them but some of the huge snow-board brands (Burton) put out sub-par snowskates, that you know, you would never even wanna take out on the ski resort they don’t really work. They kicked around flatlands fine, but that was it, they don’t re-

ally work that well.

So, when option B. came through they killed the sport and it never took off as big as it could’ve and that was my theory, once those boards became a distant memory, which they are getting there now, there can be a resurgence and once it catches on and kids in the mid west... I think it’s gonna catch on really with kids in the mid west. It is ironic that the lead is in the northwest where we have spectacular mountains and spectacular snow of all places, where snowboarding works perfect, but once those mid west kids really catch on to it... that’s when it’s gonna take off.

Do your kids snowboard or snowskate?They um, Pelonia skiis. I built her skiis. Right out of the gate I built her skiis.

Bad question.No, no, it was a good one though. the skiis I built her were an experiment I used two snowskates, modified snowskate skiis and they were totally designed dif-ferent than any ski that’s ever existed with a wide point, equal wide points and a crazy camber where it’s flat between the trucks and a little camber outside the trucks. She actually

looked horrible the first couple of runs I thought I was gonna kill my kid. Her legs were going all over the place and then once she does her first turn it was like a pin-linned carve, like a snowskate. She ended up learning how to go down black diamond runs so fast it was insane. She was a skier for years and so was Pete’s (saari) son, that’s all they wanted to do was ski they didn’t want to snowboard right? We put them on some cambered snowboards and they were like “nah, this is not

cool” once we came up with banana snowboards now that’s what they do, so it’s pretty cool. They just wan-na ride bananas like “dad, I wanna ride a banana” so, she does both but she rides a banana now.

How many patents do you guys have?I got a few pending right now and I got one that is issued. The one that we have is the “air core” that we patented in 1997 and I got a few pending, the mag-natraction and the banana right now.

Photo by Big John

Photo by Tomoki

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Would you say you can pat-ent fun?Um, yeah we can patent fun. The banana patent will be fun.

What does snowskating need? Snowskating needs more humans that have actually seen a real snowskater in action, because once they have seen it they realize that they actually work. Because like I said almost every one in the world that has seen them, I still run into them all of the time, they think its a joke.

Some of the best dealers

around the country still go “oh, yeah it’s a joke we saw that one brand” I’m not gonna say it (Burton), but they put a lot out and the retailers are like “yeah, yeah” One particular re-tailer said “we used to have a contest where we would hike like 100 yards up the bottom of the ski slope at the end of the year and see who could make it down to the bottom first without falling off.”

I go, “are you kidding? We ride mountains with like 3000 vertical runs where you go top to bottom and never fall off. I’ve traveled the east coast, the Rockies and sun valley, Idaho even. Top to bottom. You don’t come off” and they are like “huh?” I think really they don’t believe it. They see the still pictures and they are like “oh yeah they’re kickfliping or they are doing a little air to bail” well they don’t understand that they work. In a lot of cases they work better than a cambered snowboard.

Are you going to make a super high end snowskate like the signus?No and yes, ours already is. it is kinda expensive right now. it pretty much is like the signus of snowskates. We had to raise the price you know? we have been making them a long time and we realized what it really cost us with all of the high end components, we make them all right here ourselves so they actually cost us a lot to make and we refuse to make them offshore with somebody else, we like to make them

our selves so we had to make them so we don’t re-ally make that much money we are barely breaking even but we will learn a more ef-ficient way of making them and make some that are easier to afford again.

What about china? We don’t wanna make them there, somebody else can do it. We just kinda like to make our own things at our own factory

Do you guys have a snowskate team?of course. They all know who they are. It’s pretty much, I would have to say probably almost every snowskater in the world other than a handful and I’m glad jake is working at it now with his trucks cause now we have a team together.

What do you like about starfish? The shirts. I have two star-fish shirts and most people at work harass me because I wear them Monday through Friday, I’m still wearing the same shirt. I actually wear it whenever I travel too. I don’t know if you caught it, but some mainstream snowboard interviews and things I’ve done I’m always in a starfish shirt. If you look I’m always in a star-fish shirt. Things come out online and I’m always in a

Leavitt

“Snowskating needs more humans that have actually seen a real

snowskater in action”

Photo by Big John

Jackson

starfish shirt.

What’s in the future for snowskating?This is my prediction and people can laugh at me once again but I believe the original vision I think there will be a day when it catches on and I think it’s the day that those guys in the mid west figure it out, I think it could be as big a snowboarding the day that the people in the flatlands that have snow figure it out. Not only that but the snowskate shoes, there’s not many of them out there but the ones that have been

made are really cool and I wear them all of the time when I am just kicking it around in the snow. I go, “man, if I lived in Minnesota this is what I would wear to school everyday” because they are comfortable, they are unbelievable. I don’t know does anybody even do a snowskate shoe anymore?

That’s always a gray area.but yeah the future I think it’s gonna take off, I think it is gonna do it but it might take a couple of years and by a couple I mean like five.

Anybody you wanna thank? Shag. Jake and I don’t mean the one with the B., The snowskate jake. levit’s furniture, Leavitt’s choice trucks. Did you know about that? We are gonna come out with a truck called leavitt’s choice, that’s for real. Matt remine, Matt remine, kyle Phillips definitely Steve frink. The first brochure we ever did said “a tribute to Steve frink the inventor of the snowskate” on the bottom. Stany, Hendo, Hendo won the Olympics. The three; Stany, hendo and the nib my

original snowskate crew. The Seattle guys all laughed at us. The cummins broth-ers and I remember telling Jamie and they all looked at me like “are you crazy?” The guys in Seattle didn’t know what was happening. I was like “we’ve been riding all summer its unreal” and they actually worked. So thanks to those three guys and matt remine. Steve frink. Jake for making it look so good, jake makes you proud when he hits the holy oly. The q.p. is like 24 feet and he goes like shoulder height out? Unbelievable.

photo by PLWP

STARFISHSNOWSKATEMAGAZINE.COM

Silver Fir MASSACRESaturday

March 21st at Silver Fir High noon.

2009 Event ScheduleMarch 8th Ralston Cup, Sierra Tahoe.

March 9th BOnser Pipe Classic.

March 21 Silver Fir Massacre.

March 28th Baked Slalom, Hurricane Ridge

April 4th Minus 7 Mellee, Donnerphotos by plwp

Action by: Alan Gerlach Photo by: Taylor Boyd

STARFISHSNOWSKATEMAGAZINE.COMAction by: Alan Gerlach Photo by: Taylor Boyd