Breckenridge – Jared Mazlish and Dave Gelhaar are preaching the Gospel of Girth.
The fiends of fat have forged the stoutest ski made and, if all goes as planned, their Fat- ypus sticks soon will revolutionize the niche fat ski market.
The Breckenridge duo’s 180- centimeter skis measure a gargantuan 140 millimeters under the foot. Think snowboard width.
“Bring me someone who says they don’t need a board that fat and I’ll give them one run and they’ll probably never say that again,” said Mazlish, a 39-year-old professional skier who spent several years in the 1990s among the top tier of extreme skiers and still holds records for hucking 100-foot cliffs in competitions.
“But you have to prove it to them. These ski well everywhere.”
Four years ago, the longtime Breck ski bums were disillusioned with the extremely pricey fat skis on the market. Not only did they cost more than a grand but ski makers almost immediately sold out as soon as the wide boards hit the market.
Plus the so-called “fat skis” with waists about 100mm simply weren’t fat enough. Mazlish and Gelhaar saw a need for more potbellied rides, especially ones made locally where designs could be quickly tweaked and skis pressed to order.
So they started carving narrow strips out of the center of a snowboard and mounting the two outside edges into one ski. The design evolved over three years until they found what they consider the perfect ride.
A twin-tipped Fat-ypus has a stiff poplar wood core, burly edges, a little bit of sidecut, a small amount of camber and a bulging width.
The lack of springy camber – the up-in-the-middle and down-at-the-tips arc that makes a ski snappy – keeps the Fat-ypus from submarining in deep snow and makes the ski surprisingly agile. It’s a half- step toward ski king Shane McConkey’s reverse cambered Spatula ski once made by Volant and rumored to be in the works by K2.
Mazlish and Gelhaar believe the ski world is about to mushroom with mega meaty skis that offer little to no camber.
“I think we have a very small window before the explosion of the fat skis,” said Gelhaar, a 38-year-old ripper who moved to Breck in 1986.
“With the growth in the jibbing scene, people will start needing skis for doing all that stuff in the backcountry. These are the future.”
Mazlish and Gelhaar feel they are poised to dominate the fat and fatter movement with their mantra: “Time to fatty up, bro.”
One dance on the uber-fat and you’ll be hooked, they say.
“It feels like when snowboarding was taking off,” said Mazlish, pointing to the proliferation of independent snowboard makers and designers who fueled the liberated snowboarding revolution some 15 years ago.
“I feel the same thing is about to happen to skiing. I really think it’s inevitable that ski companies out there will have to follow our design.”
The massive platform provided by a Fat-ypus ride is not unlike that of a snowboard. And the opportunity for play is similar to that of the single plankers, who are in a perpetual hunt for snowy features to grind, smear and sunder.
“Why fight the float all day when I can carve and hit stuff like a snowboarder?” said Dave Reera, a Breck skier and chef who has found himself ignoring every ski in his vast quiver and riding his Fat-ypus skis exclusively.
“I roll through anything with the Fat-ypus where on normal skis, I’d just sink. They are amazing skis. I don’t think I can ever go back.”
This is the first year Mazlish and Gelhaar have launched mass production. They have sold 70 pairs, many to skiers from afar who have purchased without a test ride.
The secret ski pressing shop in Denver will deliver 50 pairs in a couple weeks. A new narrower park ski, the G Butter, will be ready in a month.
A “mid super fat” – a category coined by Mazlish and Gelhaar – is in the works with a waist measuring only 120mm, which still would qualify as one of the three widest skis on the market today.
And don’t be surprised to see a ski even fatter than the original, Mazlish said.
“No fat is too fat,” he said.
Learn more — Check out www.fatypus.com for more information.
Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
