NYLON - January 2009 - (Page 88) board short DANI STAHL HEADS TO THE ROXY FACTORY AND FINDS THAT NO MATTER HOW GOOD THE GEAR, SHE MAY NOT BE READY FOR VANCOUVER 2010. PHOTOGRAPHED BY MARK WELSH In this installment of Factory Girl, I conquered—OK, attempted to conquer—a few of my fears: chairlifts (not dissimilar to another major phobia of mine, elevators), the threat of a broken leg, and the possibility of finding REDRUM written in lipstick on my hotel bathroom mirror. Allow me to explain: I took a little jaunt to the Pacific Northwest, namely a sleepy town outside of Seattle called Suquamish—which is the home of the Roxy Snowboard Factory—to check out the design and technology that goes into their Eminance BTX and MTX boards. The Roxy work floor feels a bit like the wood shop at the summer camp I went to in Vermont when I was a kid. Although it’s big business, it all felt very laid-back. I had two fabulous cohorts on this month’s mission: Stephanie Paine, one of the coolest PR chicks ever, and world-famous Australian snowboarder Torah Bright, who turned pro at the age of 14 and came in fifth place at the 2008 Winter Olympics. The geniuses at WMervin Manufacturing, the company behind Roxy’s new technology, walked us through the creation of a snowboard from start to finish. The engineering is called “magna-traction,” and apparently is a big deal among the goggle-wearing set. After our boards were cut from large sheets of wood, we sealed them with a base sheet and added the special magnatraction edges. Then we sat with some of Roxy’s computer graphic artists to create a digital design, including, naturally, clockwise from top left: the two seconds i actually got up, documented for your viewing pleasure; torah and me, hard at work (and play); the factory floor; et voilà, the design gets put on the board surface!; um, i abducted a tractor. 88 factory girl
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