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smorgasboarder
Jeremy Jones with
Chris Christenson in
his shaping room in
Encinitas.
Surfing was the founding influence of many
gravity-based sports such as skateboarding and
snowboarding.
Skateboarding was born out of a desire to have
something to do when the surf was flat. Many of
the initial tricks were surf-influenced manoeuvres.
The same could be said of snowboarding. The
mountains essentially presented surfers with the
opportunity to carve the face of a 200 ft snow
covered peak, enabling them to ‘surf’ all year
round.
Through the years, each sport’s influence has
waxed and waned. Nowadays surfers are
endeavouring to perform out-of-this-world
skateboard manoeuvres on a wave and more
recently, even more out-of-this-world snowboard
manoeuvres, pushing the boundaries of above-thelip
acrobatics with tricks like backside alley-oops.
In order to achieve this, surfboard design has
evolved to facilitate such. Surfboards have gone
shorter with a rounded snub-nose and mirror-image
tail, reminiscent of a twin-tip snowboard.
Surfboard design in turn is also having a renewed
influence on snowboarding as powder hounds seek
to draw new lines, particularly with reference to offpiste
backcountry adventures. Directional powder
shapes with an obvious surf lineage have come
to the fore. One such snowboard manufacturer
exploring design in the freeride market is Jones.
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