Snowmass Village – Thirteen years ago, Jason Small broke his back in several places after an accident as an Army paratrooper. A doctor told the 21-year-old he never could do “anything strenuous” again.
“I didn’t want to hear that. Didn’t want to hear it,” said Small, now 34.
He certainly didn’t hear that doctor last weekend as he threw a monster back flip followed by an inverted rodeo 360 over a 20-foot ramp on his mountainboard, taking second place in the U.S. Mountainboarding Open’s national slopestyle competition on the rocky flanks of Snowmass ski area.
In one of the tightest pro boardercross races in mountainboarding’s 10-year competitive history, Small finished third and barely a board length behind winner Joel Lee and runner-up Leon Robbins.
Two years ago in the same competition, on the same slopestyle ramp, Small threw a double back flip in competition.
The Colorado native is one of the best to surf dirt. This year probably will be his last as a mountainboarding competitor.
The sport has taken its toll. Broken ribs. Lots of lost skin. Limps that last weeks. Crippling medical bills. And one of the most hindering aspects of mountainboarding: the absence of long-term sponsors, which is slowly evicting the sport’s battle-scarred pioneers.
“If we could make some money, it might make the risks a bit more worth it,” Small said.
As mountainboard racing matures, the founders, such as Small, are slowly bowing out. The mountainboarding dream of being the Next Big Thing in the extreme sports world has yet to be realized, despite its often-repeated mention as the fastest-growing sport in the extreme sports world.
Where’s the money?
Top skateboarders today are millionaires. So are the premier skiers, surfers, motocross riders and BMX racers. But the mountainboarders have spent a decade languishing on the periphery, fighting for legitimacy in a crowded action sports arena. It was a fringe sport at birth and only slightly less so 10 years later.
The X Games and Dew Action Sports Tour are flourishing as Super Bowl-type festivals, yet mountainboarding’s top athletes are waiting for their invitations to either Big Show.
That is in no way a reflection of the extravagant thrills mountainboarding delivers to spectators and participants. The sport is certainly burly. Maybe the burliest. Athletes take horrendous wrecks. They gird themselves in heavy-duty armor, protecting knees, elbows, shoulders, heads, backs, wrists and hands. Still they bleed and hobble away dazed after going slightly off-target on flips and spins over wood and rocks. They race head-to-head in often bloody, but fantastically competitive, bordercross races. The latest trend is to employ a kite to propel your board-mounted body.
The pros, pointing to scars and bruises, will admit that dirt is less forgiving than snow and even cement. The potential for pain could be a reason the sport isn’t growing as rapidly as its founders envisioned.
“There is an inherent danger that keeps the sport small, but really it’s probably safer than skateboarding,” said Small, who soon will leave his home – and likely his mountainboard – in Georgetown for smoother, softer terrain as a snowboarding guide in Alaska. “I did crush myself learning that back flip. If we could just get more exposure and legitimate, deep-pocketed sponsors, it might be worth it.
“The sport is growing, but we are still waiting for that influx of corporate money that’s filled all the other sports. It’s really just a niche sport. It’s not for everybody, and we’ve all got to be cool with that, I guess.”
A changing of the guard is underway in mountainboarding with the sport’s fabled founders descending from their dominant perch. Perennial pacesetters such as seven-time national champion Jason Lee and 12-year competitor Akoni Kama are ceding their thrones to the likes of this year’s national champion, Robbins, and Jason Lee’s younger brother, Joel Lee.
“The sport has been growing steadily, but not fast enough for some of the older guys,” said Hawaii’s Kama, the first athlete to throw a double back flip on a mountainboard, a feat he earned with a litany of surgical repairs. “The competitions are just so much harder and gnarlier than ever before. If you look at the early years of every sport that eventually got big and successful, it really exploded when the vets got out and moved over to organizing events.”
Rough reputation
The competitions are increasingly furious. Saturday’s open featured lofty rodeo airs involving simultaneous spins and flips and intense boardercross battles that sent groups of riders airborne as a unit, not unlike their Olympic snowboarding kin. The theatrics in pro-level comps may portray a much more dangerous sport than mountainboarding really is, said Gene Lott, a 41-year-old Texas master-level mountainboarder who moved onto his board after a career in rodeo.
“People get scared watching us get all bloody and picking rocks from our skin,” Lott said. “They don’t see us gradually stepping up to some of these things.”
The growing number of female riders indicates its broadening appeal, said former world champion Tiffany Ecker, a 22-year-old Littleton mountainboarder renowned for being the first female competitor to throw a back flip.
“In Europe, there are so many girls. They know that mountainboarding is the easiest board sport to learn,” Ecker said.
While the younger kids assume the upper echelons of mountainboarding, the sport is attracting older riders who aren’t interested in climbing a 30-foot ramp to gain the speed needed for 30 feet of air.
“Those kids are crazy,” said Aspen rider Lisa Ruggieri, who, at 43, was the oldest competitor in the national competition last weekend at Snowmass. “This is a sport for all ages. It’s contagious.”
Staff writer Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
