10 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT RIDE SNOWBOARDS
10 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT RIDE SNOWBOARDS
Ride has always been known for its high-quality products, sure, but also for its unapologetic approach, colorful team of athletes and out of the box thinking when it comes to marketing. Their Rough Around The Edges documentary shows it well as the brand takes us through its unique history. Watch the documentary below and keep scrolling for more fun facts, crazy stories and behind the scenes from Ride Snowboards past 30 years.
RIDE WAS THE FIRST PUBLICLY-TRADED SNOWBOARD COMPANY IN THE WORLD
On May 6th 1994, Ride Snowboards becomes the first snowboard company to go public on the NASDAQ stock exchange. They sell out the original 500,000 units in the first two weeks and another 75,000 units are released. On the Initial public offering day, founders were serving beer from a keg in cups and giving Ride branded condoms to investors, who all went crazy for Ride's unapologetic approach.
RIDE’S WORKING TITLE FOR A BRAND NAME WAS ORIGINALLY HARDCORE SNOWBOARDS.
Ride was first started in 1992 by Roger Madison and James Salter, who originally named the brand Hardcore Snowboards. That said, the new brand needed a marketing guy and approached former Burton Team Manager Tim Pogue to take that role. Tim basically said that he would be happy to join, but only if the brand’s name changed. He’s the one who came up with Ride Snowboards.
THE ENTIRE ORIGINAL RIDE PRO TEAM WAS KICKED OUT OF THE COUNTRY OF JAPAN.
The whole Ride snowboard team went to Japan for a tradeshow and somehow were all on the same floor of their hotel across the street from where the tradeshow was. On the first night, they were partying at the hotel with all doors open and what started with simple pranks got totally out of hand. The cops came and the whole squad ran away to hide for a few hours. When they came back the next morning, a cop van was in front of the hotel waiting for the guys. They brought them to the airport and flew them back straight to the States. The word of what happened quickly got around at the tradeshow and it ended up being very good for Ride, which wrote around 6 million in orders that day.
RIDE HAS BEEN SENT CEASE-AND-DESIST LETTERS FROM SOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST PROMINENT CORPORATE COMPANIES
There was a snowboard named the Timeless in the early 2000s which featured some kind of medieval hat that somehow looked like the Boba Fett hat. Even if the artist confirmed that this was only supposed to be a medieval type of hat, Lucas Film didn’t like it and sent Ride a cease and desist letter.
Another big one is Warner Brothers in 1993-94. When Ride put out boards with images of Sylvester eating Tweety and Cayote killing Roadrunner without a licensing agreement with Warner Brothers, the brand had to stop selling the boards. Stay tuned for Ride’s related limited product launch coming in January. Still a secret, but it will be very legal!
RIDE HAS SPONSORED MIKEY LEBLANC THREE SEPARATE TIMES IN HIS CAREER.
Mikey Leblanc was on the brand’s early team and after a few years, went on to pursue other opportunities. He got back on the team and then a few years later retired from snowboarding. There was never bad blood between Mikey and the Ride team, who kept in touch even during those years when he wasn’t on the team.
Ride is stoked to have him back on the team this year as the snowboarding legend is still putting out gnarly footage. For someone in his 50s, Mikey is still incredibly relevant. Watch him shred in the new Assisted Living video from Ride below.
AT ONE POINT AFTER GOING PUBLIC, RIDE WAS THE FASTEST-GROWING STOCK ON THE NASDAQ.
Ride’s market shares went from $2 to $35 in a little more than a year, which is incredible considering it was the first snowboard company that was traded publicly at that point in time.
RIDE ONCE CUT THEIR TEAM VAN IN HALF AND MADE IT INTO THEIR TRADE SHOW BOOTH.
Ride has always been known for its crazy tradeshow booth concepts. The Van booth was another Tim Pogue idea. Back in the pre-internet days, the best way to promote a brand was to travel and meet your customer. The Ride Van was a big tool for Ride as it was used for the Ride With The People tour. After touring around the USA and snowboarding with the locals at different mountains and resorts, the van became famous and that’s why Tim Pogue decided it would be a good idea to make a tradeshow booth out of it.
With a lot of complications and a crane to get the Van inside the tradeshow, the tour van was cut in half and used as a booth. This one still is one of Ride’s best tradeshow booths to this day. The brand received about 6 millions in pre-orders that day.
RIDE ONCE OWNED A BINDING COMPANY.
Ride was Founded in Preston, Washington and that’s the name the brand gave to its binding company: Preston Bindings. Today, Ride boots, bindings and boards all share the same name.
RIDE ONCE TRIED TO COMMERCIALISE BASELESS BINDINGS
The “Horseshoe” binding was created to offer riders better boardfeel. They sold very well and gave riders a lot of boardfeel, but they were very fragile and did not last for too long in the Ride line.
AT ONE POINT AFTER THE BRAND’S STOCK PRICE WAS REDUCED TO NOTHING, RIDE HAD TO BRIBE THE ELECTRICAL COMPANY WITH SNOWBOARDS TO NOT CUT THE POWER.
At some point Ride owed so much money that the electric company came to the office building and threatened to shut the power down. The CEO at the time traded boards for them to leave for a few days so he could gather the money. The brand also did the same thing with the Garbage man. There was so much Garbage at some point that the place had rats and raccoon infestation. No wonder why Ride’s new documentary is named Rough Around The Edges.
