Who invented the rocker/reverse camber?

ROcker and reverse camber are two design shapes "stolen" from surfboard and waterski design...

Sean mcconkey was, as far as i know, the first one to incorporate these designs in mountainskis, seeing the similarity between powderskiijng and waterskiing these designs make sense...

The pontoon was one of the first skis to boost both these designs (i believe)
 
Ya macooky was the first i would say with his water ski idea. But guys like Horjlefson or however you spell his name have been heating there skis and bending them for a while.
 
Its tough to say, Volant had the spatula but i remember hearing from someone that ignaeous had a rocker like 5 years ago...
 
yeah spats were, to my knowledge, the first commercial ski like that...but people had been messin around on prototypes and mounting ski binding on waterskis and shit for years before that
 
Lamar Trick Stick snowboard. One of the first modern snow tools using reverse camber. I say modern because old wooden Chinese skis had tip 'rocker' as well, and I am sure it has shown up throughout history as well. Lamar took a page from surfing and did it purposefully. The first ski to have it, was the Spatula. The first ski to have rocker and sidecut, was the Pontoon. First rockered fat twintip was the HellBent.
 
heres the spatula next to k2 pontoon

biglines_52910.jpg

 
If you want to get really technical, way back in the day when skiing was used as a method of transportation by norse explorers, those skis were in fact rockered and reverse camber, but modern rockered skis and snowboards are pretty much taken from surfing.
 
I did. Actually, as much as it sounds like a ridiculous claim, it's not far off even though I don't really think I invented it. We were testing Volants years ago on a decent pow day at Squaw, and I had an old beat up, bent pair of Chubbs that we were using as a reference for new models. At the end of the day we were discussing what we liked best, and I said I actually liked my old bent pair because they floated best.
McConkey immediately realized that totally made sense and immediately started thinking of a rockered ski, and since that day he's credited me with coming up with the idea of rocker. All I really did is recognize that it worked better than cambered skis--it would take his forward thinking mind to actually put the idea into action.
People could get technical and say he didn't actually invent it because there were rockered snowboards and other things back in the 80s, but did they last? No. McConkey gave rocker to the snowsliding world and if you ski or snowboard on something with reverse camber, it's because of him (certainly not because of me).
 
At my work the Nitro rep was saying something about a board back in the 80's which was reverse cambre, but it didnt work for shit... Probably a Burton board...

And that is a might huge claim to the guy who is taking credit for the skis
 
It was definitely Shane McConkey.

I remember seeing him at the mid mountain lodge there at Squaw with some weird looking skis. I looked closer and realized they were the spatulas. I then decided to demo a pair and every powder day after that at Squaw I was on spatulas. This was all back in like 05.
 
Actually Miller made a special ski with reverse camber for snowbird well before McConkey made the spatulas. They are branded with a snowbird logo and a “Miller” lion crest that is different than other Miller Ski Company Skis I’ve seen. The ones I have have stainless steel Geze bindings with brakes. They are about 180cm and straight sidecut. Miller used to comment that the key to a good powder ski was getting it to go “belly down”. The famous Miller Soft was an almost-flat, noodly ski that easily bent into a reverse camber situation in soft snow. It was however a cambered ski.

The pair of “Miller fm snow bird” model skis that I have are actually pressed with reverse camber. As far as I know these are the earliest reverse camber skis in the “modern” era.
 
6337948:panojibber said:
If you want to get really technical, way back in the day when skiing was used as a method of transportation by norse explorers, those skis were in fact rockered and reverse camber, but modern rockered skis and snowboards are pretty much taken from surfing.
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First skiers were trying to have fun too. It doesn't make any sense that they would have invented skiing just to get around and then not decided to have some fun too. Pretty sure they invented the safety break too.

6347384:jibjunkie said:
1231966590water_skis.jpg
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905083.jpeg

Actual water skis. Hell yeah!
 
13928996:OregonDead said:
First skiers were trying to have fun too. It doesn't make any sense that they would have invented skiing just to get around and then not decided to have some fun too. Pretty sure they invented the safety break too.

View attachment 905083

Actual water skis. Hell yeah!
Click to expand...

This belongs in the sendiest of sends thread. It's up there.

**This post was edited on Jun 20th 2018 at 12:51:15pm
 
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