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EASY SLIDER: The Airboard goes to extremes in the Swiss Alps.
Courtesy Airboard/Bernard Van Dierendonck |
ann-elise emerson and her husband, Daniel, enjoy snowshoeing, and they’re
always looking for fun ways to ride down the hills they
climb. Three years ago in Switzerland, they found more
than they could have wished for: the Airboard, a new
sled that “makes me whoop and holler,” says
Ann-Elise.
Life hasn’t been the same since the couple, both
Class of 1990, whooshed down a slope on their first
exhilarating run. On leave from Oracle Consulting at
the time, Emerson seized the chance to start her own
company, Emo Gear, based in Berkeley. As the sole licensed
North American distributor of the Swiss invention, she
has become the chief cheerleader for the new sport:
snow bodyboarding—often described as boogie-boarding
for the snow. Daniel remains general manager of the
Atlas Show-shoe Company, where Ann-Elise was CFO for
a time.
The Airboard is a distant cousin of the traditional
sled: in both cases, enthusiasts lie on their chests
and go downhill. But the resemblance stops there. Extreme
riders have been known to reach speeds in excess of
70 mph on the inflatable Airboard, which is constructed
like a whitewater raft out of urethane-coated nylon
fabric with side hand-grips and ribbed runners underneath.
To steer, and stop, riders shift their body weight.
Folded up, the six-pound board and its hand-pump fit
into a 12x16x3-inch knapsack.
One ride, Emerson says, and she was hooked. She brought
some Airboards back to the States and took friends out.
“We had so much fun we had tears running down
our eyes. I just felt like I was 9 again.” Next,
Emerson called an acquaintance at a Colorado resort
and went there the following week to introduce the product.
The resort operators were keen, so she returned to Europe
and negotiated the license agreement.
With several hundred thousand dollars gathered from
extended family, Emerson spent part of her new venture’s
first year figuring out everything from storage and
distribution to risk management for liability. Then,
from November 2003 to April 2004, she spent three weeks
a month traveling around North America talking up the
sport.
Part of the hurdle in promoting airboarding is getting
public access at ski resorts for people who don’t
snowshoe and want to ride lifts to the hills, Emerson
says. “This is the same challenge the snowboard
community had 20 years ago.”
Emerson has gone about her business like a bodyboarder—head-on.
In Emo Gear’s first year, she convinced five resorts
from New Hampshire to Lake Tahoe to give Airboard riders
access to the slopes, and her company posted six-figure
revenues. This winter, two more resorts opened their
slopes to the sport, and Emerson is thinking of new
ways to market the activity. Although North American
enthusiasts number only in the low thousands, Emerson
set up five duathlon races combining snowshoeing and
snow bodyboarding in Canada and the States this year.
Europe has tens of thousands of riders and a number
of competitions; at one of them, the current world speed
record of nearly 80 mph was set.
Her new venture suits Emerson’s twin interests:
outdoor adventure and entrepreneurship. “I loved
working in Silicon Valley, but there was a part of me
that always wanted to have my own business and to be
in the outdoor industry,” she says.
There’s a long way to go before snow bodyboarding
approaches the popularity of snowboarding, but Emerson
is undaunted. “I love being on the road,”
she says. “When I set out on a trip, I may have
only seven appointments over a weeklong period set up,
but I typically turn those seven into 20 just by dropping
in and creating opportunities. That approach fills me
with adrenaline.”
Another tactic: taking people out for their first Airboard
ride. Their whoops and hollers, she figures, are better
than advertising.
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