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Women Doing it For Themselves:
Introducing Chorus Snowboards
By Julie Gengo
Just when you think the snowboarding industry is saturated with too many boards another brand is introduced. Only this time it really has something unique to offer. Chorus Snowboards is the daughter company of The Yoshida Group-who is renowned for their Millennium 3 (M3) board series-and is the brainchild of not one but five female pro riders. Cara-Beth Burnside, Roberta Roger, Leslee Oslon, Janna Meyen and Tomo Yamakoshi had an idea to create a progressive board company and through a group effort made it happen in less than a few months. Leslee Olson took the initial step and approached the Yoshida group because she liked how they empowered M3 and liked the flexibility they had. "Mr. Yoshida is rad and he is supportive of us. It was my first choice and it worked," mentions Olson. "In about a month funding came in and they told us to hit the road," says Brand Manager Georell Bracelin. The girls were able to get the graphics together, produce the boards, sign all the contracts and come up with a final product just in time for the 2001 Winter X Games. "The girls really admired each other's capabilities. They really wanted to create a situation where they could ride together and I think this is why they got it together so fast. This way they could help each other perform better and push the level of riding for women."
Prior to Chorus, the girls were all riding for different companies but for various reasons wanted to be more involved in what direction they were headed. "It's more personal. I've always wanted that kind of thing and this came my way and I feel happier. I'm super pumped and re-motivated," says Cara-Beth. "It's cool because it's a group effort. We all have to decide about what we want, but nothing goes until we all agree. We have our own team manager and it's real tight. I've never been on a tight team before. Kind of felt lost before…what's my purpose? Now I know everyone and everyone's stoked on me. It's fun. We're just all being dorks together. We are all totally different but we're a good mix together."
Another reason why these boards are so unique is that they are targeted to a more aggressive rider who isn't entry level and isn't looking for feminine graphics. The boards needed to ride hard but would also have enough appeal so that the guys would respect the boards enough to support their female friends. That's ultimately how they ended up with the graphics. Strong and bold, the graphics center on a word that the girls chose. For instance, Cara-Beth picked the word Determination and the graphic depicts a girl with a sword. "It's like a warrior girl," says CB.
What also differentiates Chorus from the rest is that there are no pro models. The reasoning behind this is that if a smaller girl admires how Leslee rides but can't ride her board because of size she wouldn't feel left out because the whole team endorses all the boards. Each rider also chooses a graphic and it's on the board of the size that they typically ride, but they are definitely not pro models. "In fact we've made boards for all the girls with all the different graphics," claims Georell. "We used a company out of Portland called Nemo Designs. As a rider driven company they all had to buy off on all the graphics. Actually they've driven everything: our logo, the colors, the marketing plan. They've been incredibly involved. They did a lot of R&D on the boards in a really short period of time to come up with the kind of aggressive boards that we have."
The boards will be available to the public in August and are currently selling very well to the shops. The sales have even beat out projections. "It hasn't been too difficult of a sale. We're getting a lot of endorsements from guys, because they respect the team's ability and the boards aren't that feminine which is helping a ton too," says Georell. "We even have some male reps riders right now on our boards. I had to order more T-shirts in men's sizes because I've had so many guys coming in saying I have to represent."
According to team rider Janna Meyen: "There are so many reasons why I'm stoked on Chorus. We're a group of good friends and you're not really answering to a boss. It's like all of us coming up with ideas together and formulating things together. It's super rad. I love riding with these girls and hanging out with them and talking to them about what direction we want Chorus to go on and off the mountain. We're not pink and fufu and we're not black, death-metal either. What you see around me in the booth this is us…pictures of us, smiling and laughing and whatever. That's us."
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