Entries Tagged as 'Business'
Pete Wagner, a ski designer from Telluride, CO and owner of Wagner Custom Skis, believes in detailed personal surveys, talking to his his customers directly, and having his production team listen to client playlists as they construct your new pair of $1,700 custom skis.
“Wagner has read The Hidden Messages in Water, the book that claims vibrations can be trapped, and therefore, things like ambient music can affect structural integrity of materials. Pete believes. And he exerts a calming influence on his product—a factory soundtrack of reggae and world beat. I told him he’d been living in Telluride too long, and, just to smite this new age bullshit, I sent him a playlist composed of early ’90s metal. All Pantera, all the time,” writes Jake Bogoch of Skiing Magazine.
Christian Beckwith, the former founding editor of Alpinist magazine, will be launching an online multi-sport outdoor magazine crafted around the Alpinist/Surfer’s Journal/Ski Journal/archival quality content model later this summer.
“Over the course of more than a dozen road trips across the U.S., and international journeys to Mexico, Europe, Japan, and Africa, I met with adventure athletes, web developers and entrepreneurs from numerous walks of life and industries… The result is OuterLocal.com, a website that takes as its foundation a simple premise: the fullest measure of life is experienced in those moments when we test ourselves against the wildest features of our environment,” Beckwith tells Dougald MacDonald of The Mountain World.
Cross-country Skiing Course - Liechtenstein
Reuters reports that the U.S. Nordic skiing market–estimated to be nearly $100 million a year in equipment and resort ticket sales–won’t garner much of a sales bump from U.S. success at the recent Winter Olympics.
“For the first time since 1976, several Americans won medals in Nordic, or cross-country, events at the Olympics. But despite that success, most amateur skiers could not tell the difference between Nordic combined skiing star Johnny Spillane, who won three silver medals in Vancouver, and Mickey Spillane, the detective novelist, said George Hovland, who owns a Nordic center in Duluth, Minn,” reports Ross Kerber.
Snowfall appears to be a key factor influencing the market: “Nordic skiing, especially, struggles to connect Olympic airtime to commerce. It depends on natural snowfall more than skiing and boarding centers that can make their own snow to keep the lifts running all season. Reduced snowfall in many years cut annual cross-country ski sales to about 1.2 million pairs worldwide from 2 million pairs in the 1980s, according to industry data.”
Intrawest Holdings (Resorts), Canadian ski resort operator and owner of Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia (site of the Olympic downhill events), is in discussions with its lenders and private equity ownership (Fortress Investment Group) to refinance nearly $1.7 billion in debt.
“Fortress has reached a deal to restructure the debt, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The firm will inject some $150 million additional equity into the business, but it will retain its entire stake, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter,” reports Reuters.
“Among Intrawest’s other holdings are Stratton Mountain in Vermont, Winter Park in Colorado and Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia. It has sold other resorts in recent months as it reorganizes its finances, and on Monday said it sold Squaw Valley in California last month.”
In February, Portland, Oregon’s City Council voted unanimously to adopt the 2030 Portland Bicycle Plan, which the city, its residents, and the Office of Transportation hope will create inertia towards their collective vision of turning Portland into the United State’s most bike-friendly city.
“The plan calls for an expansive interconneted bicycle network, new street designs and an array of education programs. It also mandates studying funding concepts in coming months,” writes Joseph Rose of The Christian Science Monitor.
Some detractors, like John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute, are wondering if the 20-year plan is thinking too far ahead: “[He] wonders why, when technology and culture are changing at a rapid pace, Portland is planning 20 years into the future. He compared it to a business in 1980 committing to 20 years of IBM typewriter purchases, unaware that the computer revolution was on the horizon.”
Vail Back Bowl
Daniel Gross of Slate investigates the concrete steps Colorado’s Vail Ski Resort has taken to cut energy use and implement green technologies with its “system-based approach” since announceing in August of 2008 that it would “cut energy use by 10 percent.”
“When older snowmobiles break down, Vail purchases new, four-stroke numbers that get much higher gas mileage. A companywide policy against idling vehicles for more than five minutes is rigorously enforced. When it came time to replace the metal roof on a midmountain lodge, the company chose an asphalt shingle with a high R rating—reducing the unit’s heating bills by 20 percent. With employees pitching in with energy-saving suggestions, the company cut energy use by 6.1 percent in the first year.”
West Virginia’s rafting industry has endured a decade-long downturn for whitewater destination travel, with 2009 being a particularly down year: “The number of whitewater visits last year on the New, Gauley and other state rivers fell nearly 9 percent to 164,871 compared with the year before, according to state Division of Natural Resources figures,” reports John Raby of BusinessWeek.
Not surprisingly, national trending for whitewater destination travel also is down: “David Brown, executive director of the America Outdoors Association, which tracks whitewater rafting data for about 40 rivers nationally, said most rivers were hit hard by the recession. Colorado, the most popular whitewater destination, saw a 10 percent drop in whitewater visitors between 2007 and 2009.”
Painted Skateboard
Paint a skateboard, and sell it in a gallery? A recent trend has seen the lowly skateboard deck being utilized by artists hoping to stretch their professional boundaries, reach the “built-in audience” of the skateboarding community, and save a little money in the process.
“Blank wooden ‘decks’—the term for the maple boards, sans wheels—are cheap, about $20 new. And many artists pick up bags of used decks for free at skateboard shops that would otherwise throw them out,” reports Conor Dougherty of The Wall Street Journal.
“The overall market for skateboards is estimated at $1.3 billion, though only a small slice of that is artwork, according to Board-Trac, a Trabuco Canyon, Calif.-based market-research company. Some companies cater to collectors with limited-edition skateboards that feature reproductions of works by famous artists, including Shepard Fairey and Andy Warhol.”
Snow-kiting Grand Valley, CO
Jeff Kafka, Bay Area entrepreneur and big wave rider, has spent the last five years introducing local adrenaline junkies to the growing sport of kite-surfing (small surfboards or wakeboards attached to kites) as part of his Wind Over Water adventure business. Maybe it was inevitable, but the next opportunity has him pointed towards the snowy hills of Utah’s Skyline Ridge and the winter progression of his sport: snow-kiting.
“To make the expansion work, Mr. Kafka is relying on one big asset: his loyal following of Bay Area pupils, some of who want to keep riding in the winter and are committed enough to spend money flying to Utah…” writes Jessica Vascellaro of The Wall Street Journal.
“Mr. Kafka’s plans show how some Bay Area businesses have been able to parlay their local connections to grow, despite the weak economy. Even as many businesses have shrunk, Mr. Kafka is working on a $1.2 million snow-kiting accommodation and activities lodge in Fairview, Utah.”
In the winter of 1965 Sherman Poppen, an unassuming father from Muskegon, Michigan looking for ways to get his daughters outside to play, lashed together a couple of skis, tied a rope through the nose, and created the Snurfer. He had no idea how far Jake Burton and the sport of snowboarding would progress his original blueprint.
“Nearly 45 years after creating the first-generation snowboard, Poppen lives in the Atlanta area. He’s 79 and hasn’t been on the hill for a few years. When he watches the Olympics, he’s amazed and humbled to see how far his creation has come,” reports Eddie Pells of the Los Angeles Times.
“‘It just makes me feel good,’ Poppen said. ‘It makes me smile and think, it all started in my garage and backyard as a simple something to get children outside.’”
