Words: Eric Meyers
Photos: Peter Morning
If you’re like us and your dream has always been to ride a snowboard made by an aspirin company with the look and flex of a Dasani water bottle, your day has come. Makboards––made from Makrolon polycarbonate by Bayer Material Science––are the brainchild of Bob Candler, a Tahoe native who decided that the importance of being able to ollie and turn your snowboard pale in comparison to the necessity of “flow-thru” technology (holes in the tail of the board that allow for a jet-ski-like roost).
Bob says that the boards are clear because he wants people to see what’s inside. “We have nothing to hide. Clear makes it magic.” Slight of hand indeed, because it takes sorcerer-like skills to maneuver these sticks through the park. (Although if you can line yourself up with a rail or box, it’s pretty damn fun to throw it into a nosepress higher than Houdini dangling above a tank of sharks.) It’s difficult to see the advantages of many of the Makboard’s features, and Candler admits that the boards are better suited for “pure carving and snow surfing.” We’re not going to go ahead and back these things up in the freestyle realm, but if you’re curious, remember that the board is 100% recyclable, so you can easily melt them down into any of the other applications Makrolon is used for (i.e., fighter jets and DVDs).
This content was originally published in the November 2009 issue.