The Red Bulletin May 2020 (UK)

VENTURE
Equipment
A nine-axis sensor
gauges speed, pitch,
roll, yaw and shock
RIDE
The road
snowboard
Summerboard SBX
TIM KENT TOM GUISE
Aaron Aders built his first
snowboard at the age of 13,
but growing up in the
Indiana flatlands he pined
for winter vacations in
the Colorado mountains.
“I dreamt of a snowboard
you could ride everywhere,”
he recalls. It wasn’t until
2013, when he was 31 and
living in New York City,
that a lacklustre experience
of electric skateboards
drove him to finally realise
that dream.
The “secret sauce” of his
Summerboard SBX, Aders
says, are powered castors
on the underside. “It’s like
strapping a motor to a
shopping cart. The challenge
was to be able to spin and
not twist the motor wires.”
The solution lay in a custombuilt
conductor disc capable
of delivering enough power
to glide uphill at 40kph.
Next, Aders had to test it on
the NYC streets: “Dodging
people and cabs, jumping
potholes, sliding up to
stoplights; I did demos with
NYPD officers.” This meant
taking his workshop on the
road: “I once soldered
repairs inside a hotel closet.
The doorman thought I was
smoking crack in there.”
The board took five years
to perfect; the last 12
months rebuilding it with
electronics on top to allow
slides and grabs, and with
tracking sensors to coach
riders via an upcoming app.
“This isn’t an electric
skateboard – ride it like one
and you’ll be disappointed,”
says Aders. “We ask riders
to visualise snow. We
blindfolded snowboarders
and they started shredding
on the board instantly.”
summerboard.com
THE RED BULLETIN 73