This is the second interview in our Garage Brands series. In this series, we interview the owners of key Australian brands in the snowboard industry, stocked and supported by us here at The Mountain Garage.
After chatting with Rich from Catalyst Custom Snowboards some years ago, it was clear that the man loves to create. Focused on the product, and it's performance, Rich has been hand crafting snowboards in Victoria for 15 years. If we here at The Mountain Garage have a customer after something out of the ordinary, we give Rich a call and liase with him about core materials, shape and graphic, and 3 weeks later, we're receiving a box with something pretty special inside.
We'll hand it over to Rich:
BRAND: Catalyst Snowboards
OWNER:Rich Evans
LOCATION:Smeaton Vic
YEARS ESTABLISHED: 15
Describe your brand in 3 words:
Custom shaped snowboards
Give us a brief background on why you started the brand, and what products you currently manufacture:
I had been interested in manufacturing boards for a long time. Being pre internet it was difficult to source materials and took some time to get going. We started in 2002, making just a few boards and spent the next couple of years ironing out our processes for manufacture such as printing, press molds, shaping and more.
I didn’t start it as a brand as such, it was started for fun and to an extent that’s why I still do it today. We only manufacture snowboards. I really want to keep it focused on the shaping of boards and not have other distractions, as there are plenty of companies who are good at making everything else!
Some of the shapes and graphic selections available. Photo @catalystsnowboards
What are you most proud of achieving in your business to date?
I’m not so focused on the business side of things, so I would say building some great powder boards and having the opportunity to give them to friends to ride and having them come back to me with a big smile on their face. Just building a board from scratch and riding it is a great feeling, knowing what you put in it to make it ride a certain way and it being a success is pretty cool.
If you could have any snowboarder riding your boards, who would it be?
I honestly don’t know! It might sound a bit strange. To me snowboarding is done for fun, so whoever is having the best time on the hill should be the one. Maybe Jamie Lynn or Travis Parker on second thoughts!
Is it hard to keep up with trends?
As a custom shaper not really, there has been a real renaissance in small brands all over the world in the last 5 years which is driving the new shapes you see from all the big brands who are trying to keep up with the small guys on that front.
Have you been inspired by any other brands, past or present?
Not too much really in the beginning, but I love to see the new stuff coming out from a lot of the little guys these days. Small companies like oz snowboards, knwn, notice, soul motion are all making some rad shapes.
Why do you think people connect with your brand?
I think being a locally made product is a big reason. However that hasn’t always been the case, but being around for as long as we have and having seen so many other companies come and go in that time we have earned the respect of the market here. The ability to custom shape in the same way as a surfboard shaper is also another reason, there are not many other companies able to do this.
It doesn't get more Australian than bags of shorn wool in the background. Photo @catalystsnowboards
Everyone is always saying how hard it is for Australian brands in the snow industry. Do you agree with this?
To a extent that is true, but it really depends on what your expectations are, the snow market is small and you need to know what you want to focus on and build on that. Our motive is clearly not to become rich building snowboards, doing it the way we do is time consuming, but enjoyable (mostly). To be successful I think you need to offer something that’s different, that people want. We don’t need more imported Chinese made boards with someone’s graphics on them claiming to be Australian!
What shape do you personally ride the most?
I like to test out all our board shapes. Especially the powder shapes, the plough and fiction are 2 models I have always really enjoyed riding. They are powder specific boards, I spent the last few months riding the twin pinn and really loved what it could do.
Tell us what’s in store for the future:
More of the same, we will continue to build on our range of powder shapes and offer the same custom shaping service as we are now, experimenting with new graphics and top sheet materials is high on the agenda for the next few months to.
To enquire or order a custom snowboard, that's made in Australia, CONTACT US.