“Four years ago, Mervin Manufacturing (the owner of Lib Tech and Gnu) introduced so-called multiple sidecut – and turned the industry on its head.  Instead of one continuous sidecut, these new boards have multiple contact points along their edge, which improves edge hold and gives you more control, especially on reverse-camber boards. Don’t know what we’re talking about? It’s time for a new stick. This year, more than half of our seven favorite boards feature the technology, though none employs it better than our Gear of the Year winner, the Arbor Draft.” Alicia Carr

Read on to understand more about the testing criteria.As posted on TransWorldSnowboarding.com the board test consisted of over 30 brands which sent in a total of 450 boards.  The testing took place in Colorado and involved 23 testers evaluating the ride qualities of each board such as, turning, flex, high-speed stability, and a variety of terrain specific criteria.

Read on to see a variety of diagrams prepared for these and other Boardworld.com.au articles…

Click here to read more on Design Cartel’s role in the development of this snowboard.

Click here to read more about the Draft and why it is so innovative.

Arbor REDESIGNS THE DRAFT SERIES BASED ON their NEW SYSTEM set OF TECHNOLOGIES

Venice, CA – January 15, 2009 – Arbor redesigns the Draft series, delivering what it believes is the best solution yet offered in the rapidly evolving rocker design revolution. The new Draft has been designed around “The System,” a fusion of interdependent technologies that support jib-specific performance. Make no mistake; rocker boards represent a completely different approach to snowboard design and performance. As a result, using rocker requires a total rethinking of long held ideas on material and design technologies, and how those technologies interact. Based on this, Arbor developed The System to address the new physics of riding rocker. 

“I was initially dubious about rockering any of our snowboard designs,” said Bob Carlson, Arbor’s President. “If it was as easy as throwing rocker at a shape, designers would have brought this technique back years ago. But the effect de-cambering has on edge and flex performance is massive. The consequences of such a radical alteration must be addressed. Existing designs cannot just be rockered if you expect a board to function. You have to start from scratch, looking at every aspect of a board’s design in an effort to understand how rocker will affect its function. At Arbor, we scrapped everything we thought we knew, and methodically built The System set of technologies. I think you’ll find that we’ve created a balanced, truly functional system; one that actually delivers the accessible JIB performance promised by rocker designs.”

THE SYSTEM

A FUSION OF INTERDEPENDANT TECHNOLOGIES THAT SUPPORT JIB-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE

Grip-Tech Sidecut: By not blending their standard, tri-radial sidecut design, Arbor has created two additional contact points under-foot. This is done in response to the loss of edge hold that results when rockering a board, which lifts the outside contact points off the snow. These new inside contact points provide the small amount of added edge grip required for successful rocker performance (patent pending).

 Street Rocker: Arbor lengthened the apex of its rocker design, using a parabolic arc. This improves edge contact between the feet. As with “Grip-Tech”, Arbor’s Street Rocker design provides an important amount of added edge hold. An amount that’s critical when using rocker to provide enhanced JIB/street performance.

 Rocker Specific Flex: Rocker alters board dynamics by lifting the leading edge off the snow. As a result, flex is activated in a completely new way. In response, Arbor developed a Rocker Specific Flex pattern that’s designed to address how riders experience board flex when using a rocker design.

Inlaid Power Spine: By adding a spine of sustainably sourced wood fiber above the core, Arbor is able to structurally enhance a board’s longitudinal pop. This is critical when de-cambering a board with rocker, which often takes the pop out of a board; pop that’s normally created by camber. Adding in this structural spine rebuilds that longitudinal return, thus maintaining pop for ollies, etc. The company also designed a unique tapered shape for the Power Spine that allows the torsional flex to soften towards the tips for easier spins, presses, and butters.

Robusto Tips: A wider, more blunt shape that’s designed with a completely flat kick. Robusto tips are a key feature in Arbor’s approach to rocker design and The System set of technologies. The System brings the snow contact aspects of the board inward; creating in effect a small mini snowboard underfoot, which rides like a skate. This alters the function of the tips. Besides helping riders float over deep or choppy snow, the tips now work like wheelie bars. They encourage a rider to roll onto their nose, while preventing them from going too far over. Because of this change, the company designed its rocker board tips to specifically meet the needs of their more specialized role as platforms for presses and butters.

True-Twin: Arbor is using an updated twin-tip shape with a symmetrical nose and tail and centered stance to create the switch freedom required for all aspect, street-specific riding. At the same time, the company knew that using a true-twin design would encourage riders to equalize their stance, more evenly balancing pressure on both feet. This allows riders to activate the Grip-Tech contact points and Street Rocker design in order to effectively skate the hidden “mini snowboard” that’s underfoot.

Mercy Edges: Using a softer bronze metal edge allows Arbor to create smoother, less catchy performance on rails and boxes. This change was also an important tool for refining the feel of the board between and under the feet. It balances the active edge performance created by The System’s parabolic Street Rocker design and Grip Tech contact points, both of which are needed for the rocker design to function when turning or at speed.

Sumo-Stance: Expanding the 2×4 insert system to 14-packs, allows Arbor to offer a huge 25.20″ (64cm) stance without requiring riders to spin their disks or sacrifice micro-adjustability. The design also allows riders to size down their boards for jib specific performance, yet still maintain a wide, skate-style stance.

To create a graphic capable of launching The System, Arbor reached out to their friend Rex Holloway, co-founder and art director of Rogue Status. Collaborating with Rex continues the brand’s ongoing design partnership with the crew at RS (roguestatus.com). Based down the street from Arbor in Venice, CA, Rogue Status is a pridefully controversial, street-wear brand that built its name on thought provoking, in-your-head graphics. Prior to starting Rogue Status, Rex worked as a tattoo artist and to this day has a long waiting list for his chair. For the Draft, Rex created an original piece using the El Dia de Los Muertos theme that he often works into his tattoo designs. The art speaks for itself and well represents the soul of the new Draft.

The Draft also features a Two-Year Warranty, Arbor’s Fusion Base, Arbor’s FSC Certified Medicine Core, Blended Urethane/ABS Sidewalls, Butter Glassing, a deep version of Arbor’s Shadow Flex System, and four new sizes: 149.5, 153.0, 155.0, 158.5cm

Arbor was founded in 1995 on the assertion that solutions to many of today’s most difficult snow, skate, and apparel design challenges exist in the natural world. For 14 years, Arbor has built on this belief – replacing, environmentally harmful materials with ecologically based, natural alternatives. The goal is to create a higher level of function and relevance, in the most responsible way possible. The result is improved style and performance, with significantly reduced environmental impact. We need clean air to skate, clean water to surf, and snow to ride…

Media Contact:
Ken Perkins
310-577-1120 x14
ken@arborsports.com
www.arborcollective.com

Rider: Pat Milbery, Photo: Terry Ratzlaff

Venice, CA – January 5, 2009 – Arbor has decided to move the production of its snowboard line to the Elan snowboard factory in Furnitz, Austria. This proactive change will be in effect starting with the company’s 2010 samples. The decision was motivated by Arbor’s need to partner with the most advanced snowboard factory available. Doing so allows the company to manage an increasingly complicated use of its organic materials and eco-technologies. Only in Austria has the company found the know-how, attention to detail, advanced technologies, and unmatched material and sourcing knowledge required to create an Arbor. After careful analysis of all options, Arbor selected Elan as the best choice to handle its growing production needs.

“Elan excels at the critical development and construction capabilities that Arbor needs in order to execute on our designs,” said Bob Carlson, Arbor’s President and Co-founder. “This level of production performance is driven by the amount of investment that has been infused into Elan over the years and the leadership of Michael Kollmann, Elan Austria’s President, and the team he’s built,”

In the end, it was Elan’s management team that stood out above all else, solidifying Arbor’s decision. “I needed a factory staffed with energetic, proactive individuals. At Elan, everyone from the President, right on through the members of the R&D, product management, quality control, and graphics departments have the experience, education, motivation, and love for snowboarding that Arbor needs in order to deliver successful design progression well into the future,” said Carlson.

“We’re honored to be building the Arbor line,” added Michael Kollmann, Elan Austria’s President. “Their unique designs represent an exciting challenge for my team. We are proud of the work we’re doing with their designers to refine and expand Arbor’s eco-driven technologies. Arbor represents the kind of higher-end, higher quality brands that Elan is building its future around. Their distinctive eco-driven innovation is consistent with our company’s strategic ambitions. We look forward to years of partnership with Arbor, designing and building some of the most successful snowboards on the market.”

The roots of Elan’s Austrian snowboard factory reach back to the mid-80s, when its parent company, The Elan Group, a well established, Slovenian-based producer of high-quality skis, decided to start producing snowboards in the Austrian Alps. Since production began, the factory has focused exclusively on building the highest quality, most innovative snowboards possible. Today, Elan Austria is an independently operating, snowboard manufacturing business. It currently builds roughly 19-percent of the snowboards made worldwide each year, making it the largest producer of snowboards on the planet. Over the years, Elan has celebrated numerous milestones, such as the first: inserts, cap snowboards, stone-ground bases, insert slider system, and multi-color die-cut sidewalls. Elan continues to advance the science of snowboard construction with new technologies such as its PLT glossing system and WDT cores. In the end, it’s a rare combination of people, years of snowboard construction experience, continuous investment in production, research, and development technologies, and an innovation-based vision that make Elan the industry’s premier snowboard factory.

The move to Elan has secured Arbor’s snowboard production for years to come at a quality and technical level that the company’s customers have come to expect. To that end, the move presented Arbor with an opportunity to redesign its complete line, refining shapes, flex patterns, and materials used. Arbor worked with long-time snowboard shaper/engineer George Cant from Design Cartel to spearhead these efforts.

Arbor was founded in 1995 on the assertion that solutions to many of today’s most difficult snow, skate, and apparel design challenges exist in the natural world. For 14 years, Arbor has built on this belief – replacing, environmentally harmful materials with ecologically based, natural alternatives. The goal is to create a higher level of function and relevance, in the most responsible way possible. The result is improved style and performance, with significantly reduced environmental impact. We need clean air to skate, clean water to surf, and snow to ride…

Media Contact:
Bob Carlson
310-577-1120 x12
bob@arborsports.com
www.arborcollective.com

Carrington Sydnor, Arbor Sales Rep, helps make an Arbor on a factory tour at Elan during Arbor’s recent sales meeting.

Bob Carlson, Arbor’s President, presents the new 09/10 line at Arbor’s recent global sales meeting, held at Elan.

Hot off the presses, some of the first Arbors made at the Elan factory.

Enjoying some pow at a resort near Elan on demo day during Arbor’s recent global sales meeting.

Jay Gatlin, Arbor Sales Rep, fired up on the new Draft at a resort near Elan on demo day at Arbor’s recent sales meeting.

Arbor’s Brad Farmer and Sean Miller hiking for the goods at a resort near Elan on demo day at Arbor’s recent sales meeting.

Arbor Team Rider Mirjam Seip, Arbor Sales Manager Greg Bergen, Arbor Team Rider Rene Biedenkap, Arbor Sales Rep Mitch Baker, and Arbor Sales Manager Rob Fabregas at a resort near Elan on demo day at Arbor’s recent global sales meeting.

Arbor Sales Managers Greg Bergen and Rob Fabregas at a resort near Elan on demo day at Arbor’s recent sales meeting.

CURVE – Australia’s leading design and product development magazine caught up with George Cant back in 2004 to discuss combining passions with industrial design. The article was published in Curve’s “Designer Profile” section – Issue 8 2004.