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Rocky Mountain River Boards takes flight

Contributed by: Jeff Thomas/YourHub.com on 9/9/2005

With all the people seemingly bent on self-destruction here in Boulder County, perhaps it’s amazing that river boarding isn’t more popular today.

“It’s actually amazing, because river boarding has been popular in New Zealand and Europe for, like, 20 years,” said Rick Leitner of Lafayette. “In Europe it accounts for about a third of all whitewater sales.”

For most of the populace who have never seen river boarding, it’s pretty much akin to taking a boogie board down a mountain stream. Leitner, 48, admits it may have been a mid-life crises that took him down this particular fork in the river, but the last two years he has become increasingly devoted to the sport.

Leitner and partner/neighbor Darryl Brown, 40, started Rocky Mountain River Boards, LLC, in Lafayette two years ago and are steadily finding more dealerships willing to get involved in the sport here in the States.

“I think once we saw it, we just said, ‘we’ve got to do this,” said Brown, 40. Neither partner had much experience in any whitewater sports, but both apparently are good fabricators and machinists.

Both partners went to work creating a river board in their respective garages, and when they were finished they took them out on the kayak course on Clear Creek.

“Neither one of us had any idea of what to do at first,” Leitner said. “We were just figuring it out as we went.”

That was true of their first two prototypes, as well, but the partners took the best and got rid of the worst from their respective designs. The third prototype was good enough to go into limited production and also good enough to attract the attention of some very good riders on the West Coast, where the sport has been picking up for the last several years.

Another sponsored rider is Brown’s daughter, Erica Brown, 16, who is an accomplished swimmer and, now, river boarder.

Rocky Mountain is probably one of four river board manufacturers in the States today, and according to some pundits have already improved on European designs – for instance combining the best of plastic and foam boards. The company’s second design will have more of a curved bottom, one of many suggestions that come from the company’s main sponsored rider, who is known simply as, the Iceman.

In general boards run from $225 to $500. Rocky Mountain’s first board costs $375 and the second production line is expected to cost about $425.

For more information, visit the company at www.rockymountainriverboards.com


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Jeff Thomas has posted 1648 stories and 83 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Jeff Thomas's average story rating is 4.7.
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