Armada Story

dandoy

dandoy

Active member
So for those of us who weren't around... What's the Armada story. Who started the company? Why? With what intentions? How'd they get so big?

(I know Line was first)

Thanks

Free your mind and your ass will follow.
 
Not too sure, but they cleaned out a shit-load of the best riders in the industry from Salomon and Rossi. Someone had to invest a lot of money to start the company and pay their team though.

 
complete rider control

"BASE jumping is the best sport ever evented. Everyone should go out and order "BAse Jumping Baffin Islands" with Shane and Miles. Rails on skies look like roller blading. It's fucking gay and you wanting to watch hours of that shit makes you fucking gay. It's like comparing figure skating to hockey. SOunds like we a a lot of figure skaters on this site."-sno-man
 
JP, JF, Tanner, Boyd Easley, I think there was one other pro, and Boronowski was an Am. I'm pretty sure Oakley backs them.

They weren't happy with Rossi or something. I'm sure someone remembers more than me.

 
i no tanner had a big part in the creation of the company

-Your lost on MLK??? RUNNNNN RUUUUNNN the MEDIA is there RUUUUUNNNN.

- ah Ballet, men wearing pants so tight you can tell what religion they are.

"i saw samuel l. jackson sessioning some urban rails with emilio estevez a few years ago"

--i_am_a_skier
 
im sure juilen had a bunch to do with it too. pm levin. hell give you the scoop

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

...and thats how we do it in
Bethel, Maine bitch.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
 
tanner had a big involvment and i think the riders realy aren't "paid" they just get some of the profit the company makes since it's basically the riders company

 
someone told tanner that rossi skis were made by white people in france. tanner was shocked so he dropped rossi and created aramda. im not sure but I think only black people are allowed to construct armada skis.

 
yeah. i know that the Ar5's were sorta consutructed based off the Scratches.

Freezing Point 32

OVO helmets

"I would laugh if she was like a frankenstine on the front. But she's most likely a franken fine." - Shibber

"jf is the bomb diggity you turkey brain" - i_am_a_skier
 
all i remeber was that the scratches were blowing up and everyone wanted them and tanner loved them..then just like that...aramda comes out of no where

okayplayer. giving you true notes since 1987

"Win or lose, we booze."

 
no

"BASE jumping is the best sport ever evented. Everyone should go out and order "BAse Jumping Baffin Islands" with Shane and Miles. Rails on skies look like roller blading. It's fucking gay and you wanting to watch hours of that shit makes you fucking gay. It's like comparing figure skating to hockey. SOunds like we a a lot of figure skaters on this site."-sno-man
 
probably something to do with the big companies not giving a fuck about the riders, so these guys i guess were the "elite" at the time, decided to start a company similar to Line and so they did it. Good on em!

 
as far as i know, jp, julien and jf started first. tanner and boyd came later. boronowski was in the Am team first, now hes pro.

i also think that oakley invested the first money to start the brand (all of the "senior"-team were oakley riders, when armada started)

 
haha its so funny to read those old threads. Especially to see some of the bullshit rumours that people were floating around back then. And how some people preached them like they knew everything hahaha. Though i suppose looking back on this and other contemporary threads in like a year the same thing will apply

-------------------Keeping New Zealand beautiful
 
I love the one "What's the best twin out there" or something like that. Check out what was the shit then.

 
There were a couple of other pros who just never ended up on the team for various reasons... if they had, it would have been fucking ridiculous. Well, even more so, I mean.

 
i talked to one of the armada reps, he said the guy who designed the scratch wanted an all would core but rossi made wood/foam so he made his own ski. at least thats part of it

 
armada is backed by a couple rich dudes from england whose families own the patent to the atm machine. big money, good times.

" Lame is the way to go"
 
i remeber when they first came out ..

_______________________________________

A
rmada 4 Life

$$$BOSTONBACKCOUNTRY$$$

 
Tanners bro is high up in the company and tanner, jp, julien, and boyd take percentage profits 4frnt style. Anthony is independent is seems like, alllowed to roll joystick ect. while armada is making poles. Tanner seeing how important is was his bindings ect were rossignol, even though they were really look or whatever set off light bulbs about brands/pantents/ and sharing them at a small cost for huge profits.

Elite brand= never on sale, sell out every year, not like scratches that you can get at sniagrab. (volkl does a little better job at this than armada)

Need 1 Rossi Scratch POLE any size pm me.

Brand new Giro 9. MX size XL color black XL = 59-61.5cm. PM me if you want it.
 
stop your namedropping and dont say anything unless it teaches something about Armadas history.

Free your mind and your ass will follow.
 
When six of the biggest names in freestyle skiing—including 2003 World Superpipe champ Tanner Hall and Canadian jibbing legend JP Auclair—abandoned sponsorship salaries estimated at $40,000 apiece, hooked up with some British venture capitalists, and founded the Armada Ski Company, the move had an impact the size of a Switch 900. Not only had Armada raided the new-school stables at Rossignol, K2, and Salomon, it seemed poised to take over the burgeoning pipe and park ski markets. But as Armada ramps up for its first full year of production, delivering pairs of twin-tip AR5’s and ARV’s to specialty shops this month, people in the industry are wondering: Can a company founded by a handful of skiers with sagging pants survive in the cutthroat ski business?

For one thing, it’s not clear that a strong demand for Armada’s skis even exists. The twin-tip category has doubled in the past three years, but it represents less than five percent of the 600,000 skis sold annually. Still, Armada CEO Hans Smith thinks there’s a profitable niche for a ski company built around freestyle’s core image. “There isn’t a single brand that kids want to identify themselves with,� he says. To capture the youth, Armada offers an assortment of hoodies and trucker hats alongside the skis on its website, and is positioning itself as the only company dedicated exclusively to freestyle and freeride. “Salomon is such a huge company,� says Auclair, explaining how Armada will differ from his former sponsor. “We just got the feeling that they didn’t really care about this side of the sport.�

Forget for a moment that Salomon built the first twin tip in 1998—the 1080. Rossignol, K2, and Salomon might argue that the new-school category wouldn’t even exist if they hadn’t invested so much in its growth in the first place. Salomon alone has coughed up more than $150,000 to promote the U.S. Freeskiing Open, and the three companies have pumped close to $1 million each into the sport in the last four years. “You can’t really argue that Salomon doesn’t care about freeskiing,� says Hal Thomson, communications manager for Salomon. And all the “core� talk aside, by focusing on such a small niche, Armada is bucking the successful such a small niche, Armada is bucking the successful industry model. “Skiing is a very difficult market to break into,� says George Couperthwait, a product manager for Rossignol. “The brands that succeed globally address all segments—freestyle, freeride, and racing.�

There are other pitfalls as well. Armada’s dream team need only look to its main competitor, Vermont-based Line. That company, which also focuses on twin-tip skis, had to cancel its first shipment of bindings last summer because its manufacturer withdrew from China after the SARS outbreak. A glitch like that can devastate a small company like Armada, while hardly causing its giant competitors to skip a beat. “Armada has good people,� cautions Line founder Jason Levinthal. “But starting and finishing are two different things. We’ve survived eight lean years. Good luck to anyone else wanting to get into that game.�

 
I guess it's now safe to say the made it IN YO FACE ROSSI!

Free your mind and your ass will follow.
 
damn there was alot of hate on armada then so glad they pulled through now they have the sickest skis out there

hatters wanna hate lovers wanna love i dont even want none of the above iwanna piss on u -Rkelly my boy

me- ill drop kick ur mom in the fallopian tubes

him- headbutt
 
im marketing manager for armada.

Is he joking?

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Im not outta line your outta line the whole frikin system is outta line and when you reach over and put your hand into a pile of goo and find out its your best friends face, well guess what marge its chinatown.
 
rider made, but now, in my opinion, they are getting too corporate.

~wtf bra, its not a joke are u tryin to start somitnhg, ill hang u with my snowblade strap jerk!~

-linesnowblades
 
By my accounts Armada is on "it", they were first outfit to recognize my kid.. he skied on AR3s after insisting on Line Chronics at my insistence - and now for the skiability he swears by them..(the AR3's) (the season before was Line Ghettoblasters) Bust on me all you want, but there is something to be said for my grom picking up on the diffrence in the ski itself. I told him about Tanner only after he skied on them..

Sign in @ www.paskiandride.com for info on PA Skiing.
 
all i know is my armadas broke and it made me sad, so now i

am getting volkls

hey powers meet us outside we have somthing to tell you
 
well back in the day at hood iberg was running around with a pair of armadas before most people knew about the company. and he kinda hyped it up for a bunch of kids who probly bought the skis as soon as they came out.

what happined to drugs, sex, & rock and roll...now adays we have aids crack and techno.......

GNR

 
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