snow skate – Skate and Annoy

Snow Skate Patents Addendum

Yesterday’s Snow Skate post with Archie was so unpopular that I decided to follow it up with more research just to spite you, the reading audience. These snow/ski/skateboard patents started showing up as applications in 1977. Curiously, I couldn’t find anything going back earlier that had a skateboard as the foundation. I would have expected […]

Archie #270 – The Snow Skate Then and Now

The cover of Archie #270 (published in April of 1978) features Archie predicting the invention of the Snow Skate, a product that would first be announced in 1979! I’ve seen ads for the 70’s version snow skates before, and I keep looking for them on my hard drive and online like it’s Groundhog Day. I […]

Snowbound in 79

Here’s two winter board sports products from the April/May 1979 issue of Skate magazine. Surprisingly, there were no ads for these products in this issue, just the product announcements. First up is a Snowboard from Elite. It’s 1979 and this is a far cry from what was right around the corner in the snowboarding industry, […]

The Skateshop at Costco

Costco has skateboards, and not just some schleppy pile on the shelves, they’ve got a nice display of Jaseboards, a brand from Hawaii that only appears to be available the website or at Costco for the time being. And because it’s winter time, they’re also carrying those snow runner wheel replacements. (See Railz) For the […]

Those things work?

Carl Warren sent in a photo of on again, off again contributor Mike Estes on some sort of contraption called a snow skate. I’ve seen pictures of these things, couldn’t see how they would be rideable, but apparently they are. Are there truck-like mechanisms on these things? No bindings either. It looks like a tiny […]

Wintertime Solutions for Lack of Usable Concrete

Here at Skate and Annoy, we recognize that many of our readers, particularly in the Midwest, are facing a difficult time in the life of a skater: the preparation for winter. Many are squeezing sessions in before the snow, ice, or rain sets in. The winter alienates many riders who recognize snowboarding and snow skating, as […]

Sno Deck is Sno fun.

Some enginerds have built a low cost version of an existing skateboard/snowmobile hybrid. It’s basically a skateboard with two tank treads replacing the truck assembly. Even though they might have even used drills to power it, it’s still a step above this, but lowering the cost also lowers the perofmance, as the Sno Deck seems […]

Railz: Reliving 70’s Technology on Snow Instead of Ice.

Railz may look familiar to anyone who remembers Ice Blades from the late 70’s and 80’s. Another company called Zema made a version in the late 80’s and 90’s. This decade has even seen a few replacement trusses with two inline skating wheels instead of the ice skating blade, not to mention a host of […]