Board Members

Owner/Manufacturer of Koski SnowSports

I saw my first Skibob in 1961 on the slopes of Mt. Rose Ski Resort in Nevada at the tender age of 6. Little did I know how much this would later influence my involvement in the development of three cutting edge sports industries; Skibikes, BMX, and Mountain Bikes. In 1970 my family, during the height of the gasoline shortage, decided to open a bicycle shop because bicycle sales were going through the roof.  I took extra machine shop classes at Tamalpais High School and by the time we opened the bike shop I was a proficient fabricator. The Cove Bike Shop came to be known as the first mountain bike shop in the world.  We gained worldwide attention as the technical and innovative leaders in the mountain bike industry. From Japan, industry leaders, Shimano and Suntour, came to our shop for insight and advice.

I saw a Brenter skibob from Austria at Homewood Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe, California later that year and decided to fabricate my own. Making use of my motorcycle / Moto-X knowledge I knew it had to have suspension and foot pegs.  I quickly realized rear suspension was not enough and built six more prototypes with front and rear suspension pushing the boundaries of available technology. The seventh prototype used a Montesa MX fork leg with a linkage system I designed and the back was a Fox Shox cutting edge motorcycle rear long travel air shock. Giving incredible performance, this bike proved to be the future of modern day skibiking. My first production run of Skibikes was in 1998 ( 50 skibikes ).  Rigorous ongoing research and development and business partnership with Jeff Butcher led to the production of the current FM series ( FM-1, FM-2, FM-3 ) pictured above. In 2001, Koski SnowSports had the first and only USA factory team at the Durango Skibike Festival. Koski team riders wowed the industry with their dynamic style of riding. These riders pushed the limits for all others to see.   

Before mountain bikes were called mountain bikes, in 1976 we went into business with Harley Davidson racer and “On Any Sunday” star Mert Lawwill to develop and market the Pro-Cruiser, (the first) large production run (600+ units) of a special built off road cruiser. We needed a purpose built fork for our new frame so I designed one and sent the blueprints to Gary and Craig Cook ( Cook Bros. Racing ) a BMX manufacturer in Los Angeles to build the fork to my specs. This collaboration with the Cook Bros. opened the door for other BMX manufacturers in Los Angeles that we dealt with to develop their own line of cruisers (SE Racing, Mongoose, Laguna, West Coast Cycle).

Innovations I brought to the mountain bike industry;

1) Aluminum rims

2) Aluminum handlebars

3) Aluminum brake levers

4) First custom built frame with a large production

5) First custom built fork 

Innovations I developed for the Skibike industry;

1) Long travel front and rear suspension

2) Foot pegs

3) Moto-X seats

4) Aluminum frames

5) Aluminum components

6) Moto-X style riding technique 

Owner/Manufacturer of LenzSport Skibikes

My first real interest into bikes was in the early 70s when I took my broken down banana seat 20" bike and striped it down and built it into a MX style bike.  Then converted it into a BMX style bike that later got stolen.  At that point I built another bike and rode, and BMX raced up until high school.  During high school I became interested in shop class and the art of designing and building cool things to ride or drive and I took metals classes and vocational welding classes all through high school.   

Once out of high school I began to acquire tools and machinery to fabricate with metals and got into drag racing with my dad and built several drag race cars and raced for about 10 years.  At the same time I got into ski racing and moved up to qualify for my first FIS race which I didn't get to race because I blew out my knee before the race and wound up quitting after 4 years of racing.

I built my first MTB frame in 1989, and then my first full suspension bike in 1996.  In 1997, I began selling my first full suspension XC mountain bikes under the name Lenz Sport.  From then I moved toward long travel DH style bikes and sponsored a race team and traveled to many of the national NORBA races promoting my brand. 

In 2004, I changed my focus from the gravity-type bikes and 26" XC bikes and made my first full suspension 29er bike The Leviathan.  That was an untapped niche area which I was able to develop many sorts of the new big wheel format bikes and lead the way in designs and technology for 29" mountain bikes. In 2004, Matt Hansen contacted me about one of my DH bike models being a good design to work with his skibike conversion kits.  He got me interested in skibikes and I traded him an old frame for 2 kits.  I built up 2 bikes with my Alpine Brawler mountain bike frames I had hanging around.  I took my apprentice at the time, Masa Hiromoto from Japan, to Copper Mountain and there we tried to skibike for the very first time.  Not having anyone to show us how to ride we made our way down the hill any which way we could to keep in control though there was almost constantly thrills and being scared to death as we didn't have the knowledge we have today about bike control, skidding turns, and making hockey stops.  From that first day I was hooked on skibiking and wanted to push it to the level of riding and terrain that I was accustom to with ordinary skiing.  Matt assured me over the phone in our many calls about skibiking that he knew guys that were riding all the bumps and steep stuff that alpine skiers were hitting, so I went out to try and master that stuff myself.  So first chance I had to try a steeper run with deep powder I learned that there were some limitations to the conversion kits related to how much control they had to the pivoting of the skis and also ski design for powder.  It was at that point that I worked on a system to control the ski pivoting so I could have the control I needed to skibike the more advanced terrain.  A few years later I was running out of my mountain bike frames to make into skibikes so I built my first prototype skibike.  That was not a good design at all and I took what I learned and built the Brawler Skibike which was revolutionary to performance skibike designs and riding.  Looking to make a bike that wasn't so difficult to make, I designed the Launch which is more like a bicycle-style bike without the moto seat.  I wasn't expecting it to be as good of a handling bike as the Brawler, but it turned out to be a better handling bike and quicker handling bike as well.  

After about 4 years of developing and tooling up for our own ski manufacturing, spring of 2012 we were able to test some of the first skis we made.  Ever since we started into skibiking we have relied on what the ski/board industry was making to run on our skibikes.  We could not find a ski with the proper shape or size to work just the way we needed, though testing dozens and dozens of skis I had a very good idea of what we needed to make these skibikes be able to go to the next level.  Our first skis pressed are just a basic all-mountain with the main aspects I wanted designed in and you can ask anyone who has ridden them they are hugely an improvement to the sport.  We'll be making speed specific skis and all sorts of powder boards as well to test and sell this year to finally round out all the main aspects to make our product as good as it can be and ready for prime time.

Another link to what I have been able to contribute the development of our sport of skibiking along with the manufacturing capabilities in the MTB industry is my background as a skier.  I have been a ski racer and in 2002, I hired on as a part-time instructor at Vail Ski Resort.  I had the opportunity to go through their training program and learn the methods of one of the premier ski school programs in the world. That along with certifying as a ski instructor through PSIA enabled me to develop a teaching method using the same principals for snow sliding and controlling speed and teaching bike handling skills.  I have now been working with Winter Park Resort to develop their skibike instruction program and instructing clients and instructors since 2007.

Now as a director of the ASA, I will be working to advance our sport in the area of teaching / training programs, race and event organizing, and resort rental program growth and education about skibikes. 

Patrick has been  SkiBiking since 2006. He is currently promoting SkiBikes along the west coast,  when he is not working as a Senior Manager for Capital Program Management, a  company modernizing California Schools.  He has been involved with the ASA  helping with our resort outreach and public relations with ski resorts  nationwide.  He is involved with furthering our adaptive program efforts.

He has the  distinction of being trained by the International Skibob academy as an  Instructor.  He has National and International experience in Slalom, Giant  Slalom, and Super G.  Patrick was honored to be a competitor in Austria’s Skibob  World Cup representing the USA and is hoping to help the ASA revive our racing  program here in the states.  

Adaptive Representative American SkiBike Association

Member Professional Ski Instructors of America

Adaptive SkiBike Instructor

Jim Weiland is a below the knee amputee. As a volunteer adaptive SkiBike instructor, Jim has assisted at various ski school adaptive programs throughout Arizona.  

Jim has led instructional SkiBike clinics for adaptive ski instructors at:

Arizona Snow Bowl in Flagstaff, AZ

Sunrise Ski Park in Greer, AZ

Arizona Disabled Sports Foundation- Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center

I love playing on the snow, traveling, exploring mountains and immensely enjoy all kinds of bicycles. SkiBikes are the perfect combination!  They have become the way I can adventure outdoors and express myself during the winter.  Multiple knee injuries have made skiing and snowboarding too painful; modern SkiBikes offer an alternative with much lower impact and I think they are even more fun.

I can ride my SkiBike all day for multiple days in a row with no major aches and pains.  I can take my bike skills and pair them with carving turns in beautiful mountain landscapes What could be better?   

I have grown up and live in the Finger Lakes region of western New York with my wonderful wife and dogs. I love to teach others and extremely happy to share the joy that is SkiBiking. I am working to open more areas to allow access to SkiBikes in the Northeast and I am excited to help the sport thrive!

Co-founder/Inventor 3ski Snow Bikes, New Zealand

Hi my name is Jason Buckley ‘Kiwi’ & co-founder/inventor of ‘3ski Snow Bikes. I live with my family in the small township of Lake Wanaka in the Southern Lakes region of New Zealand which is in my view about as close to paradise as you can get before you reach Antarctica. Professionally I have a background in equipment design, management and compliance for large multinational corporations. I hope to bring both a combination of sound business sense and common sense rational as well as an international perspective to the issues and challenges our sport faces in the modern snow sports world.

Being a skier for almost all of those 40 years and avidly passionate about the snow sports industry I believe we all have a responsibility to do our own little bit to attract new people to snow sports and also to retain people in snow sports for longer. It is true that not everyone can ski or snow board forever and I am living proof of that fact, for this reason I believe there is a place for a truly accessible, easy to learn, low fatigue and super fun alternate snow sport. Snow/Ski Biking in its many forms fulfills that niche as well as bringing a 21stCentry niche to snow sports. 

I have been fortunate to have traveled extensively gaining a good understanding of various alternate snow sports products and best practice initiatives from around the world, using these learning’s I have developed industry products such as ‘Snow Bike Experience’ which is an all-inclusive platform for delivery of ski/snow bike type products for resorts. I am pleased to be part of the American Ski Bike Association as I firmly believe together we can grow our sport far greater than the total sum of our individual efforts. 

3ski Snow Bikes Company History

3ski snow bikes came about after a spring day skiing in 2004 when co-founder Roeland Simons and myself observed a keen ski biker on a homemade conversion MTB struggling his way down the High Noon T-bar at Turoa ski field in the North Island of New Zealand. Both Roeland and myself being avid skiers and mountain bikers looked at each other and said why don’t snow bikes work better ?, they should do as both of the fundamental components (skis and MTB’s) have in their own evolutionary processes and become infinitely better. Surely there must be an issue to be solved here otherwise why would a combination of skis, snow and bikes not be popular?

The challenge of building a snow bike that worked better became the afterhours focus from that point, it was decided to start with a blank sheet of paper ignoring everything we knew about traditional ski bikes and set to designing something new from the snow up. This approach is really the reason we have a standing 3-ski platform which is totally different to almost anything else prior which are almost all a seated 2-ski version. There is good reason for this as we needed to provide a stable yet pivotal carving platform believing these to be the missing elements in traditional designs.

Thus commenced a six year plus development phase involving some fifty prototypes and the bringing on board of fabrication and MTB experts to help us engineer the ideas into workable solutions. Little did we know at the time that the final design would involve more than six primary aspects with each one taking over a year to develop. As an example the rear skis need to move in eight different directions whilst maintaining a certain amount of personality (individual movement) and all of this needs to be achieved irrespective of the pitch (or dive) of the frame. To complicate the issue further the normal 3-ski track needs to reduce to a 2-ski track for the optimum carved turn effect. 

Getting 3ski to work well going downhill was just half the challenge; we also needed to develop a design which worked seamlessly with various common ski lifts and also with traditional users on these. This in itself was a two year project with the final solution being developed with input from resort operations experts. The net result being a snow bike design which compliments every activity at the modern ski resort, is user friendly as well as not being overwhelming in appearance or size. 

The exciting thing for 3ski Snow Bikes is that not only did we manage to put a tick in all the boxes throughout the development process but we also in the most part exceeded stakeholder expectations along the way; true testament to Kiwi ingenuity, gut determination and belief that the easiest or most immediate solutions to the engineering problems were not always the best solutions. 

3ski Snow Bikes are in reality only in the very beginning of where they may end up, while we have completed a huge job in getting 3ski this far we are really only in the penny farthing stages when compared to modern bicycles, what truly excites us is seeing what the future holds for 3ski and the snow bikes that are yet to arrive.

Jason Buckley, co-founder/inventor 3ski Snow Bikes, New Zealand.