Brian Rosenberger has worked for years at an aircraft manufacturing company with, coincidentally, a lineage dating back to the Glenn L. Martin Company. On long trips in 2010 from his home in Texas to the snow of Colorado, Rosenberger, with his son and friends, covered many topics, but the one Rosenberger kept coming back to was how to make a snowboard (his board of choice). at that time) in the manner of some aircraft parts, made from a single piece of aluminum.
One friend in particular, Ron Chambers, finally got tired of all the talk and said he would fund the effort to get started. In 2013, Rosenberger contacted Leif Sunde, founder of Denver Sports Lab, an Olympic-level ski tuning shop, to begin testing the flex qualities of various composite snowboards on the market. In 2014, Rosenberger had some all-aluminum prototypes ready for testing. Apparently the results on the snow were very encouraging.
As the years went by, more prototypes were made and the move moved from snowboards to skis. In July 2023, Metal1 Skis Corporation (M1 Skis): Rosenberger as CEO, Chambers as COO, Sana Fathima in charge of fundraising and strategy, and Sunde as Chief Product Officer.
Why aluminum?
The first question that comes to mind for many is whether the metal associated with soda cans or cooking aluminum foil is strong enough to withstand the rigors of the mountain, especially around the edges, traditionally made of steel. .
“Aluminum is much harder than the ice that a ski encounters,” Rosenberger says. The disadvantage of many materials, including metals, is that the harder they are, the more brittle they become. Aluminum, according to M1, is hard enough to withstand ice, but ductile enough that it won’t chip or break easily when it encounters rocks, even in cold winter conditions. In fact, some ski manufacturers opt for a softer steel edge when making park-oriented skis because harder steel is more likely to chip or crack when sliding on ski park rails.
Core hits, when the core of the ski is exposed to moisture and causes warping or rot, will never occur, because there is no core and the aluminum base will deflect rocks much better than any extruded polyethylene base. And, for that reason, no rock will ever tear off the edges.