As a snowboarder, I often gaze longingly outside ski resort boundaries at all the fresh powder. I snap back to reality when it hits me how hard--and dangerous--it will be to trek up to the ridge and make it down to the chair lift without an emergency Ski Patrol escort.
I was thrilled to learn about splitboards, just this week. A splitboard, according to splitboard.com, is a regular snowboard that splits apart into two halves that become skis. You can see how they work in this video. Here's another one; turn up the volume on your computer first (remember to close your door if you are in the office).
I thought I had discovered a brand new product, but splitboards have been around for about 20 years. A core group of backcountry snowboarders, who likely got fed up with trudging through the snow carrying a board on the way up and skis on the way down, stuck with the idea. A side benefit is that, even though splitboards will set you back several hundred bucks, you don't have to arrange or pay for a helicopter to fly you up the mountain.
Kudos to the people at splitboard.com, who, not long ago, decided to build an online forum for "splitters." This online forum pools together user feedback. The result? One, new ideas. Two, the product development process has greatly improved. Manufacturers have already modified snowboard gear to accommodate splitboards. And let's face it, the snowboard business could use something more fresh than hip-hugger pants.
It's inspiring to see an industry embrace customer innovation and feedback to fulfill an unmet need and expand the category in the process, without adding blue crystals.
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