Kaya Williams/The Aspen Times
There’s something about the muscle memory of riding a snowbike that makes the sport especially beginner-friendly, according to Mike Sparkman.
“For us, it’s been easy, it’s fun, it’s inclusive and retentive,” Sparkman said Monday after a warm-up slalom run at the National Standard Racing (NASTAR) national championships at Snowmass.
In other words, it’s a lot like riding a bike. Their gear includes two super-short skis with bindings for either ski or snowboard boots, plus a sit-down rig in which the “wheels” are two more short skis.
The “easy, fun, inclusive, retentive” tagline is almost a catchphrase for Sparkman, who competes at national championships this week with his wife, Donna Abner-Sparkman, and two other snowbikers, Anne Fields and Chris Marriott. Fields and the Sparkmans are based in Durango; Marriott hails from Dillon.
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A professional athlete skis down Howelsen Hill. (Photo courtesy of Warren Miller Entertainment)
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS Ian Anderson grew up skiing at Howelsen Hill Ski Area. Though he was never involved with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, he graduated from Steamboat Springs High School in 2010 and went on to work seasonally for the Steamboat Springs Parks and Recreation Department each summer in between attending college at the University of Denver.
As an intern and now, a full-time producer at Warren Miller Entertainment, Anderson always knew he wanted to help feature Steamboat and show the rest of the world how proud he was of his hometown.
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âA girl can look sexier in ski clothes than in a bathing suit,â pronounced Fred Picard, the self-styled âinternational authority on glamour in the snowâ, in 1957. Picard was a Swiss designer who moved to the US to open his own ski clothing store in Sun Valley, Idaho â the favoured schussing spot of Clark Gable, Ingrid Bergman and Norma Shearer. A master salesman, he sold skiwear to the US Olympics womenâs ski team and Nordic sweaters to âtanned and shapely young women and well-muscled college menâ, according to the
New York Times. It was not unusual for him to say things like: âA beautiful girl is never more radiant than when her cheeks are glowing and her eyes sparkling from healthful outdoor exercise at 10 below.â