Jay Quintin has snowboarding roots to say the least. He was Kemper snowboard's first professional rider. He then bounced through brief stints with G&S with Shawn Farmer, Joyride snowobards with Dale Rehberg, then moved on to Lib Tech...before jumping for a big payday with Black Flys for his own pro model. Well...big payday for the mid 90's, lol! After that Jay spent some time at Electric Ink and then Happy magazine while he worked on his plan to make his own snowboards.

Finally Smokin was launched in the winter of 1996-97 in Truckee, California. After a year of pressing some boards in his basement there, he moved his operations to Kings Beach right next to Lake Tahoe. Smokin stayed there up until about 5 years ago when he first won a Transworld "Good Wood" award....and then the demand increased and he had to move to a bigger location north of Tahoe up in the small town of Chilcoot. This past year he moved down to just north of Reno, Nevada in what's called "Sun Valley"....aka the largest trailer park concentration in the entire United States.

Smokin's factory is one of the only true, "little" guys, hand-making snowboards still in the United States. I just recently picked up our 2010 Smokin' Snowboards from Jay at his factory and warehouse and thought that I'd ask him a couple of questions....

"Jay, what exactly is Smokin' snowboards and why did you start it?"



"So how exactly did you get permission to use Lib Tech's Magnetraction, and why did you want to use it on Smokin' boards?"



"What's your connection with Mike Basich, and what's special about his



"What else sets Smokin' snowboards apart from other brands?"



"What's your take on the state of the snowboard industry, where Smokin is headed, and any final thoughts you might have?"



"And tell me what happened to your dog Tyson there Jay?"

Labels: Jay Quintin Smokin Snowboards, Smokin Snowboards, Smokin Snowboards Factory, smokin snowboards magnetraction

Comments:

 Anonymous
go smokin go

# : October 16, 2009 2:00 AM

 

 Anonymous
Best Boards On The planet- PERIOD!
Damp and Poppy. The rest of ya'll best just hang it up now.

# : November 30, 2009 5:41 PM

 

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Labels: Jay Quintin, Jay Quintin Smokin Snowboards, Smokin Snowboards, Smokin Snowboards Factory

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Where is your snowboard made? Some foreign country where all the workers have no idea what snowboarding actually is? In northern Reno NV, in an area where trailer parks abound sits a snowboard factory where a creative evil genius lives. You won’t find any high tech computerized equipment or even security guards protecting the company’s secrets from prying eyes. You will find the type of place where some of the best innovation has always come from… a ghetto garage!

Smokin Jay is an evil genius… not in the crazy axe murdering type way, more the artistic friend you had in school that you weren’t sure where his mind was. Jay was busy gluing one of his new 2010 models when we arrived and as soon as he had a chance to step away he was off and running with the “Factory Tour”. I use the term factory loosely since most of the time you might equate the term Factory to thousands of square feet and a building in an industrial district of town. Smokins factory looks like a cross between an old bomb shelter and chop shop. Inside most of the equipment has been piecemealed together, with bare wires and jays own inventions throughout the building.

Joining on the tour was Jay’s sidekick binky who was just as stoked to show us all the funny corners in the building. While at first glance it looks like a lot stuff packed around stuff but as Binky explains it you can start to see Jay’s twisted vision of how the process works. From the room with all the templates and edges, the room where he cuts out the sidewalls and the workstation that he uses to glue the boards together. And as you watch Jay and Binky work what looks like chaos starts to looks like an interpretive dance where both play off each other though out the entire process.

Smokin Jay takes a huge amount of pride in the boards he produces and each board must be perfect for him to sell it. His entire process feels more artistic than mechanical and each board seems like its own individual masterpiece. He inspects each board for any imperfection or graphic blemish before giving the stamp of approval to sell the board. So when you see the tag handmade you know that the board you are receiving was entirely handmade by Smokin Jay and the pride taken to create the board reflects in the quality of the product you are receiving.

When you get a chance try out a Smokin snowboard, these are quality snowboards made by an evil genius snowboarder who believes in making quality snowboards.

Thank you Jay and Binky for the Great night! check out http://smokinsnowboards.com/ for more info or check out the Smokin Snowboards we carry.

Labels: Handmade Snowboards, Smokin Snowboards, Smokin Snowboards Factory

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