Older snowboarders to markets: Cater to us, too
JOHN RABY
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Whenever Harold Spiker spots another cautious, gray-haired snowboarder at Snowshoe Mountain resort, he goes out of his way to offer an encouraging word. On a recent trip up the mountain, the 60-year-old from eastern Ohio swapped stories with a fellow baby boomer from Maryland. Meet Snowshoe's unofficial ambassador to the older snowboarder. Spiker is not the anomaly he once was in a sport still dominated by the younger crowd. "Evidently it must be catching on," Spiker said Wednesday. "It's amazing how many people you meet with common interests." The number of U.S. snowboarders grew from 2.8 million in 1995 to 6 million in 2005, according to the National Sporting Goods Association's annual household survey. About 7 percent were age 55 and older in 2004 and that figured dropped to 2.6 percent in 2005. They may be small in numbers, but they are big on influence. Baby boomers represent an estimated $2.3 trillion in disposable income with the potential to drive businesses interested in corralling their dollars. "It's silly to ignore them," said Matt Thornhill, president of the Boomer Project, a market research and consulting firm in Richmond, Va. The challenge for reaching older snowboarders is to ignore their age, because it doesn't indicate where they are in life - they could be grandparents, or first-time parents, he said. "A way to reach these guys is to market toward their attitude, to their lifestyle," Thornhill said. "They're snowboarders. It doesn't matter how old they are. They're buying the same stuff that other snowboarders buy." With a variety of half pipes, jumps, rails and downhill thrills, snowboarding requires plenty of nerve, but older adventurists see it as safer than skiing and easier on the knees. It also requires less physical conditioning, learning and equipment. Bill Langlands opened a snowboard shop in 1991 in Killington, Vt., and has since opened two more. A little less than one-third of his customers are over 40. "We're not a small segment in the market anymore," said Langlands, 54. "Everybody thinks snowboarding is for 22 year olds. But it's not. "For the baby boomers, it brings us back to our youth, that free living that we had back in the '70s." They can afford the high-performance outerwear and share the passion of snowboarding as their younger counterparts, "we just dress better for it," he said. Spiker, for example, said he wears a bright yellow jacket and a coyote on top of his helmet "just to draw attention to an old-man snowboarder." The former ski instructor for the Army Airborne Rangers said he learned to snowboard when he was 50. "It took about three days," he said. "You've got to understand. When you're that age, you cannot fall down like the kids can. So you have a different learning curve." Spiker, who was beaten only by two snowboarders at least 25 years his junior when he took third in an endurance race at Snowshoe two years ago, said he will try a jump with his grandchildren once in a while, "but I don't attempt to get much air." "I try to go off it slow enough that I don't get that board off the ground a couple of feet," he said. "My days of air are over." Dr. Jim Parker's are just getting started. The 63-year-old is organizing a snowboard and ski race next month for the 50-plus crowd at Mount Shasta, Calif. Last year's inaugural event drew 65 participants. Every year there are literally dozens of snowboarding events in every region of the country, even by state, with breakdowns by age from teenagers to over 80. "There's a lot more old timers learning the sport than I would have ever imagined," Parker said. Still, some want retailers to do more to fit their needs. Jim Brennan, a former Olympic ski jumper from Bend, Ore., said older snowboarders have to adapt to an industry still geared toward the young. Brennan, 67, started snowboarding 13 years ago and still has trouble finding boards with step-in bindings for boots. "A lot of older people can't bend down," he said. Spiker, a steelworker and farmer from Adamsville, Ohio, said he still gets funny looks from salespeople in the industry. "Most of the representatives for snowboarding are younger and they kind of chuckle at somebody that old that wants to do it," he said.
© 2007 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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