Snowboarding Vs. Skiing

9 Pages 2202 Words

History of snowboarding
It is hard to say who actually invented the first snowboard. People would have always figured out how to slide down a hill on some sled, thus it would be unfair to point out one specific person, who came up with the first snowboard.

There were some people, though, who built snowboard like sleds before. One of them was Jack Burchett. He cut out a plank of plywood in 1929 and tried to secure his feet with some clothesline and horse reins. Burchett came up with on of the first snowboards. In 1965, Sherman Poppen, a chemical gases engineer in Muskegon, invented "The Snurfer" as a toy for his daughter. He made the Snurfer by bounding two skis together and putting a rope at the nose, so the rider could hold it and keep it more stable. Many of his daughter’s friends wanted one of those new Snurfers, and soon Poppen licensed his new idea to a manufacturer. The Snurfer was sold over half a million times in 1966, but was only seen as a toy for kids, even though Poppen organized competitions with this new board. Jake Burton took part in those competitions and became really interested in the snurfer.
In 1977 Jake Burton, who now finished NYU, moved to Londonderry, Vermont to make some money by building different versions of the Snurfer, which he still remembered. His first boards were made of laminated hardwood. Burton shocked all the Snurfer riders by winning a Snurfer competition with his own board, which had the first binding. This first binding made a big difference for handling the board, and thus made it easier for him to beat the other riders.
Parallel to Burton, Tom Sims produced his first snowboards in 1977. Being obsessed with skateboarding, Sims tried to go out in the snow and slide down the hill with a "snowboard" he built in a junior high shop-class. He just glued some carpet to the top of a piece of wood, and put an aluminum sheeting on the bottom. After he focused on producing skateboards in his ga...