Blades Carve New Niche A Little Back-Room Tinkering Has Led, Perhaps Indirectly, To New Snow Sport

For those who, while on a ski slope, have stopped and stared at the people flying by on skis that look like they were sawed in half, they’re called snowblades and they’re the newest thing to hit the slopes.

A shorter, more compact version of the ski, snowblades resemble skis you might expect to find in the children’s department.

For two Spokane residents, they’re a familiar sight.

Klaus Pittman and Levi Barker have seen firsthand the quick rise in popularity of the sport they might have had a small hand in creating.

Pittman and Barker, who sell snowblades for Loulou’s , have seen their stock sell quickly. And they aren’t optimistic about refilling their stock room with them anytime soon.

“They just can’t make them fast enough,” said Barker.

Their adventures on snowblades began in the early ‘90s when, while experimenting in the back room with damaged skis, each created his own version of snowblades.

Where did the inspiration come from to create an early version of the new fad?

“Way too much free time,” they said in unison.

“(Creating new things) is something that goes on quite a bit around here,”added Barker.

“It is how things get started,” he continued. “People in the industry, tooling around and building things, a company sees it, they have the money to mass produce things and do the research on it and all of sudden you have a full-blown (sport).”

While it’s doubtful either Pittman or Barker’s version of the snowblade was copied by a major manufacturing company, the features that snowblades offer leave little doubt as to why they have become so popular.

“Because they’re so much fun to do tricks and things on, they really encourage you to just kind of screw off,” said Pittman. “You can skate up hill in them. You can do more tricks on them, aggressive skate moves like on the street. The moves are identical to the moves you’re seeing the pro in-line skaters doing.”

Besides an enhanced ability to do tricks, snowblades offer an economical advantage as well. With a middle-of-the-road ski package running in the neighborhood of $600-$800 (including skis, bindings, boots and the works), snowblades run about $250 for blades and bindings. Because they’re so adjustable, a family of five can buy a pair and share them.

“They are limited terrain-wise,” said Barker. “You get them in over a foot of powder, you’re not going to have much fun on them.”

Their short stature make them equally attractive to fans of inline skating, as well as the skier/ snowboarder.

“It’s definitively a nichey-type market,” Pittman said of snowblades’ dual appeal, “but I don’t think it’ll take the industry by storm and everybody will be on them in two or three years, but I definitively think they’ll be around for a while.

“They’re for real.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: RACING TEAM UTILIZES SNOWBLADES While many are out playing on their snowblades, others who take their skiing a little more seriously have discovered a practical use for the new, short skis. Chris Alberts, a coach for Gonzaga University’s ski team, has found them a training asset. “They’re fun,” he said. “They’re also a great tool.” Because of the short stature of snowblades they require a great deal of balance when using them at racing speeds. Lean too far forward or backward and you’ll likely be picking yourself up from the ski slopes. To facilitate the training even more, Alberts requires his skiers to use poles, something not normally done when riding snowblades. Having your arms free allows for greater balance. They were not a totally unfamiliar sight to team members. To aid in training, coaches used to chop off the tip and back of a normal ski to create their own version of what has become the snowblade. “We’ve noticed a difference,” said Alberts of his team’s performance after training on snowblades. “As we can afford to, we’ll get more.”