Ride

THE HISTORY BEHIND RIDE

Ride, Inc. is one of America's largest snowboard companies with their headquarters in Preston, Washington. They are a leading manufacturer and retailer of snowboards as well as clothing and accessories. Over the years, Ride has acquired companies such as 5150, Liquid, Preston, SMP clothing, and has branched out with other brands like Cappel. They are known for their technological initiative, performance-oriented products, and reliable snowboard equipment.

Ride, Inc. first appeared on the scene in the winter season of 1992-1993. In September 1992, Roger Madison, Tim Pogue, and James Salter gathered to establish Ride Snowboards. Roger was the one who originally came up with the idea. He used to be the CEO at AEI (Audio Environments, Inc.) Music Network. He graduated from Harvard School of Business and owned a small business, SonnenBraune, which made indoor tanning centers.

James Salter also owned a company, C.A.S. Sports Agency Inc., which was a sporting goods store, and he was president of Kemper Snowboards from 1987 to 1990. They decided to bring in another man, the operations manager for Kemper Snowboards, Tim Pogue. They knew he would be a great addition because he had an excellent marketing ability. To help quickly popularize Ride Snowboards, Tim Pogue hired a team of professional snowboarders to help market and design their first snowboard series. From the start, Ride wanted to target their products at younger extreme sports participants. The connection that Ride had with these younger people helped on the way to becoming a permanent company.

The three leaders of Ride had an operational plan for the upcoming winter season, but the European side of the company operated as Cappel.

Due to the increasing popularity of the snowboard industry in 1993, thousands of kroner were spent on snowboard equipment and clothing. Within a year, the number of people participating in snowboarding went from 1.2 million to 3 million.

Although the sport was growing, Ride was going downhill. The owners had to choose one of two options. They could either choose to have a completely private location, or they could become publicly traded. So, in 1994, they decided to go public, giving them the distinction of being the first publicly traded exclusive stock on snowboarding. In 1994 and 1995, Ride began acquiring other snowboarding and clothing stores. They started with Salter's old company, C.A.S. Sport. There was also a new brand of snowboards called "Liquid," where they sold their products at a lower price as well as being sold in all major sports stores.

Then they acquired Thermal Snowboards, which they used as a manufacturing company and renamed it to Ride Manufacturing, Inc. They also bought 5150 Snowboards, Inc. and incorporated their brand into the Ride lines. Finally, they branched out into surfing and skateboard clothing when they bought SMP Clothing. After acquiring all these companies.

Salter thought it would be a good idea to expand their business to the Japanese market. Before they began the campaign, the market was already flooded with snowboards, leaving Ride with a large amount of inventory that couldn't be sold. The company continued to face challenges throughout 1995. Salter had predicted that the snowboard market would grow exponentially, but it ended up growing only about half as much as he had forecasted. This caused investors as well as the rest of the financial community to retreat. Within a month, Ride's stock had fallen by 50 percent.

Robert Hall, who used to be a director in the ski industry, was brought in as CEO. Hall was able to reestablish the organization into a more efficient business. He also sold Salter back to his small business, C.A.S. Sport. The same month Hall was brought in, Tim Pogue decided to leave the company. Even after Hall did everything he could to try to bring the company back on track, they still reported a loss of 5.5 million dollars for 1996. This was mainly due to the failure of trying in the Japanese market.