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Thanks to our buddies at vapaalasku.com (a great Finnish freeride site). Arttu Muukkonen did a great interview with Shane McConkey a while ago and now let us to translate his article for our site – as a tribute to the great skier and innovator of the whole sport of freeskiing. Thanks to Arttu for the story. And deep condolences to McConkey’s family and all his relatives and friends.

The story of rocker skis started from a pair of broken skis

These days you see rockered skis fairly often on the slopes. And even an occasional pair of planks with negative sidecut here and there. You also hear more and more people praise the functionality of these new designs, even for all-around use, not just for pure champagne powder.

The story of rockered skis pretty much boils down to one person, the late Shane McConkey, skier and base jumper who revolutionized the act of powder skiing. Because of McConkey’s invention, the use of rockered skis started to spread all over, changing freeride perhaps the most since the the first fat skis.

McConkey started his thorough story from the very beginning. Back in 1996 Shane was skiing on Elan. But he wasn’t that happy – in fact he was a bit annoyed

“Sure, the first super sidecut skis were awesome on groomed slopes. But on the soft snow they kept sinking and controlling the deep sidecut was pretty hard. I actually hate the extended sidecuts! On the other hand the progression went in the right direction when the skis started to get wider but otherwise it was all wrong“.

According to McConkey the right kind of powder should be wide with minimal sidecut (or not any sidecut at all).

“But you couldn’t stop the sidecut craze back then, it went on like a freight train. I remember drawing a sketch of really radically shaped skis on a napkin. I kept it with me for years but didn’t work hard enough to get it into the production  for a long time”.

But still,  the napkin sketch was a start to a process that lead to Volant Spatula in 2001 – the ski that was considered really weird at the time; to most skiers it resembled a waterski more than anything you could really use on snow.

However, McConkey remembers seeing the first rockered skis already in 1998. He was testing the new Volant Huckster ski with his friend Scott Gaffney in Squaw Valley. They compared the new design to old worn-out pair of Volant Chubbs (editor’s note: the Chubbs were one of the first fat skis around in the early 90’s). Scott’s Chubbs were bent badly – the skis were actually broken in front of the binding.

The birth of the Legendary Volant Spatula, McConkey’s first reverse-camber, reverse-sidecut ski

“I remember the day like yesterday. On the way up Scott said that in his opinion the old bent skis work better than the new ones – the tips seem to float better and never sink under the snow. That was it! I felt like a ton of bricks fell on my head. Of course: that’s the way the powder skis should be”!

Back then most people skied powder slightly back-seated, to get the tips afloat. To turn also required the bouncy up-and-down movement. Trying to make skiing effortless like surfing or water skiing was really a new way to think about the whole sport.

“At that time I realized that of course  the skis should be shaped so that they work FOR the skier not against him/her”…

It took a couple of years and the legendary negative-camber, negative sidecut Volant Spatula was out. Volant factory was having a busy time and at first the brand didn’t have enough time to design skis based on the crazy visions of one team rider. Luckily two engineers, Peter Turner and Ryan Carroll started to get curious and they went on and built the Spatula – starting from McConkeys napking drawing!

“Thanks go also to Mr.  Schultz Greenberger, who accepted the 3000-pair production run for Spatulas”

Even when McConkey knew he was right, people were still laughing to the weird waterski-looking Spatulas. It didn’t matter to him.

“The shape worked way too well for me to care at all. When I met people that were totally against the idea, I knew they would be totally confused or surprised when they saw how well the skis work in reality”.

Soon many people started to experiment on the new designs and the reactions were just like the “father” of the idea had guessed: great!

“Well, it was really fun to live with this evolution of the sport“.

Rocker skis hit the mainstream

The big manufacturers have been relatively slow to adapt to the rocker revolution. Until the couple of last years, rockered skis were still quite rare and didn’t hit “mainstream” skiing. It was not until McConkey went on to K2 and created the Pontoon that the negative-camber skis started to show up in (Euro) ski resorts in larger numbers (note: quite often on the feet of the ever trend-conscious Swedes…)

This season more and more rocker skis were sighted in the freeskiing comps too. This might be a big change  – traditionally the competitors have trusted a bit narrower (and often stiffer) skis. The rockers make a difference: a very wide ski can be very maneuverable at the same time.  McConkey knows this too. The big rocker skis are the usual tools for McConkey. The increased ease of skiing doesn’t annoy him at all.

“Yes, it is much more challenging to ski 210 cm toothpicks. But do you choose to go to the wooden outhouse in the wintertime? Or it is more pleasant to use the indoor toilet instead? Why take challenges from the past when we can go on and challenge us on what’s possible with the current technology?”
(Editor’s note: that answer was pure McConkey style = hilarious!)

McConkey didn’t want to take all the honor for himself, even though he has probably affected the whole sport of freeskiing the most with his ideas.

“There are a lot of people who have done or invented great things (in skiing). Mike Douglas invented the modern twin tips, Seth Morrison has broken the boundaries on what’s possible in general, Jonny Moseley, Jamie Pierre, Tanner Hall, Simon Dumont, Jon Olson, Candide Thovex…the list goes on“.

“For sure I am proud on what I have been able to do. It is great to get your ideas out into production and see the results worldwide. I have been in the lucky position to see where the sport should go (before the others, in many cases). I guess not that many people ever get that kind of chance in their jobs“.

The last question: That said, have you ever said someone on the lift/lift line “hey you have those cool rocker skis, I invented them!

“Well, I can be quite arrogant at times – but not towards total strangers, no way. I admit that I might have thought that to myself, just to boost my own ego, but I wouldn’t shout that out to anyone (laughs)“.

EPILOGUE

I truly got the shivers working with that text.

Again, thanks to our buddies at vapaalasku.com. (Check out their site, even if you don’t know any Finnish. Great guys and great site!)

I just bought I pair of Armada JJ skis and am going to ski them in Sweden for two weeks in late April. I am going to ski the JJ’s knowing (painfully well now) that without Shane these skis would not exist at all. For every “McConkey” turn/controlled slide on the soft snow I am going to send a few thoughts to the inventor himself – R.I.P Shane McConkey.

Photos: Red Bull Photofiles