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Legends On The Lawn
Arbor Snowboards has set itself up as a company for older snowboarders and especially crossover surfers who are looking for that surf-carving feeling on the snow. Bob Carlson, owner of Arbor Snowboards, wanted to get some surfing legends to talk about that crossover feeling for a shop-promo video the company will distribute this fall. So he recently headed down to Oceanside, California and interviewed surfing legend, avid rider, and snowboard manufacturer Gerry Lopez. The two met at surfboard-shaping legend Donald Takayama's factory. Arbor team rider and surfing pioneer Mickey MuÑoz was also present and added his thoughts on the whole thing. It was quite a sight. Three of the most famous surfers who ever lived were brought together for the afternoon all because of snowboarding and Bob Carlson seeking the roots of the sport in surfing. Want to know what they had to say? Check out the Arbor promo video this fall. Until then, SNOWboarding Business cornered Carlson and asked him a few questions about his company. —Kevin Kinnear What's new with Arbor Snowboards?
We've expanded and developed three separate lines. We've got our Woodie line, which is our hallmark product. That's divided into the Hawaiian Koa and Rosewood series. We're expanding our Mickey MuÑoz line this year and adding freecarve boards into that. And we've added a new line called the Heritage, which is a departure from what we've traditionally done. That line features boards with a wood stripe and color to balance the wood. It gives the boards a whole different look. We have two different series in this line, with the Legend and the Legacy. The Legend has dark blue stripes down the sides of the board with a Hawaiian Koa stripe down the middle. The Legacy series has dark green running down the sides with a Koa stripe down the middle. They each come in five sizes. We'll also have hats, T-shirts, and beanies with old style surf designs. Snowboards were originally made of wood. Haven't we moved past that? What a lot of people don't know is there are pictographs of Hawaiians on Hawaiian Koa wood planks riding down Mauna Kea on the snow, just like there are pictographs of Hawaiians surfing. No. You're lying. So somebody could make the argument that Hawaiians are the original snowboarders-just like they are the original surfers. I know a lot of the retail shops in Hawaii will tell you that. Snowboards were originally made out of wood-out of a plywood material where you had a P-tex base bottom and plywood bent to the shape of the board. What we do is make a modern, full-length, woodcore board just like any other modern board. It's made with a standard wet lay-up construction process with fiberglass and resin. The big difference is that instead of having a plastic topsheet, we use a wood veneer topsheet. The veneer is thinly cut wood, coming in at 1/32 of an inch and that wood actually is an ideal material for construction, because unlike plastic, it's porous and fibrous and absorbs resin. The resins go into the pours of the wood and locks the fibers into place. Then the topsheet, like fiberglass, helps hold the shape of the board. Consequently, you get several benefits. You get a more springy, lively board. You get more camber retention because of the nature of the wood grain. And like how trees blow in the wind and bend, but don't twist, you get more torsional rigidity. The wood is an active material in the board, unlike a regular topsheet might be. So you're getting the structural benefits of a good topsheet, plus the one-of-a-kind look and feel of a wood topsheet. Arbor has the oldest team rider with a pro model of any snowboard company. Mickey MuÑoz is something like 60 years old, isn't he? Tell us about his involvement with the company. Just so you know, we have a traditional team of young, up-and-coming riders. We don't have the traditional big-salary riders. We want to be product driven. We want the tone of our company to be set by the product. But if you want to talk about setting a tone for a company, Mickey sets it for us. This guy lives the lifestyle that we all want to live and he's been living it for 60 years now. This guy was on the forefront of surfing when it came up and he's been involved with snowboarding now since it started. He's been riding since the late 70s. Mickey is the legend's legend. How tall is Mickey? He's got to be about 5'5". For being such a big legend, you wouldn't think he'd be so short? He dropped into Waimea the first day it was ever surfed. Mickey was out there that day with Greg Noll and Harry Church. They don't like to say who was first. He's an amazing personality. His view on life is kind of what we believe. He's about lifestyle-being out there and experiencing nature and making a connection with the outdoors. He worked on and was part of the back-up crew on the Stars and Stripes. He helped build the catamaran that got the America's Cup back and worked with Dennis Connor. He's done several around-the-world sailing races. And he's a cross-dresser. He doubled for Gidget. [In the Gidget movies, Mickey was the surfing stunt double for Gidget.] And he doubled for Gidget. He's done it all. He's able to maintain a life where he has had children, surfed, sailed, snowboarded, and has all his hobbies and maintained his life. So you really hate him. I look up to him. He's a constant source of inspiration. Thanks for dropping by Bob. |
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