SEE YOU OUT THERE
GARA BOARDS IS A COLLECTIVE OF CHAOTIC INDEPENDENT INDIVIDUALS, CONNECTED BY A PURE PASSION FOR SPLITBOARDING AND DEVELOPMENT OF SPLITBOARDS, NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE OR WHAT THEY DO. TELL US YOUR STORY AND JOIN US.
It all started, when I stopped racing on a snowboard
and movement in free space attracted me more than a park or a ramp. At the time there wasn’t almost any proper gear for terrain riding on the market. I tried splitboard from Burton, but it didn’t meet my expectations. I even converted to the skis for a while. From these actions I came to a conclusion: For my trips to the wild terrain I needed something that will take me uphill as lightly as skis and at the same time I’ll be able to go downhill "sideways" as on a snowboard. Nobody will convince me that riding downhill on skis can compete with the feeling of riding downhill on a snowboard.
Riding on ice is a battle and it doesn’t matter if you have skis or a snowboard. However, when it comes to everything else, the snownoard is a winner. It gave me no choice but to start my journey of trial and error.
It all started with the bindings.
With the help of Jára Šonka, a constructer and an owner of CNC machines, I've made a baseplate out of one piece of dural and added binding parts from SP bindings, with help of Luděk Váša.
At Ispo, a trade fair in Germany, I met with Willem from Spark R&D. Considering that company Spark R&D was able to deliver me their bindings for the same price as it would take me to make them, we agreed on a collaboration.
By that a question of a high quality bindings was solved and I was able to redirect my concentration to the board.
Splitboards at the time were homemade, usually out of snowboards chopped in half. It may sound a bit wild but at that time we didn’t have other options.
Ota Tyl, the brain behind GARA, who has been inventing splitboards and snowboards for over 10 years.
Those chopped snowboards kind of worked for a ride in a powder but on hard snow it was a challenge. When riding downhill the splitboards were torsionally soft and a sidehill walk was a hard life experience.
At the time I made some money so I decided to invest in developing my own splitboard. The plan was to make a splitboard that would go uphill easily as skis and downhill like a snowboard. Without any compromises.
Since then the goal each year is to move the quality of my splitboards forward. With the development of splitboarding and a availability of new technologies I'll dare to say that 90% of today's snowboarders can't feel the difference between ride downhill on a splitboard and a snowboard.
See you out there!
Ota Tyl, the brain behind GARA, who has been inventing splitboards and snowboards for over 10 years.
