Monoski History

The first single skis were made back in the 1300's before anyone ever tried skiing. The beginning of the monoski that you might see today came to be in the late 1950's. Look made an elevated platform that was made to mount a set of ski bindings to and then mount onto a single ski. By the mid 1960's, the use of two skis being fixed together side by side with brackets became the standard garage invention. Hans Schmid, a 23 year old electrician, supposedly invents the mono-ski in 1970. Under no influence from these first mono-creations and before Hans Schmid, Mike Doyle, professional surfer and legendary waterman came up with the single ski idea in a recurring dream he had on a ski trip in 1969.

Surfing on the snow became something that he had to do, but how would he make this surfboard for the snow? He thought that poles would be needed for balance and that conventional ski equipment would have to be used to make his idea work.

Though he had experience making surfboards it would be a challenge to make a good durable single-ski. Using materials at hand, Mike made his first single ski out of fiberglass and resin (he actually made five before he got it right, well...almost). He realized that the flex wouldn't work properly as a flat ski so he added a piece of hard wood under the feet and tapered foam towards the tip and tail. This technique in creating flex is used today using CNC technology.

Mike Doyle with the first Ski Research single-ski.
(This single-ski is located at the Colorado Ski Museum in Vail Colorado.)

His first experience skiing his new single-ski was a problem; he pulled the bindings right out of the board. Luckily a quality technician was near by and saw the mishap. Mikes' single was fixed to try again the following day. He had a problem skiing it at first, but after figuring it out he could ski places that he could only dream about skiing with two skis.

Problems and controversy were aroused when Mike went out on his new single ski with some of the patrollers from Jackson Hole. He didn't impress them, but intimidate them he did. The patrollers who had gave their life to learning how to master the art of skiing were being out skied by a surfer who had only been skiing for a couple of years. They didn't want that thing being skied on the mountain by anybody because they were a bunch of mamby-pamby winning wimps that couldn't bear to see a single-skier get as good as they were on their two skis in a fraction of the time. The ski industry seemed to be far more excited about this new snow-sliding toy than the patrollers with their bruised egos were.

Word of the new invention had spread through out the ski industry, so Mike found himself traveling with surf industry friend Bill Bahne to visit the Hexcel Corporation to discuss the single-ski. The Board asked Mr. Doyle "What's is it that is going on with this new single-ski???". Mike described his passion for this new snow sliding phenomenon. Hexcel offered Mike a job and a van to promote the new single ski as well as $80,000 and depreciating royalties over the next few years. After they had left the meeting Bill convinced Mike to manufacture the single ski on their own. Mike agreed and Bill ordered the machines that would be used to make the new single ski. They had it patented in 1973. Now that the ball was rollin', it was time to get out there and sell and promote the coolest new snow sliding invention ever.

Dick Barymore, a good friend of Mike's, included the single-ski in his 1973 film "Mountain High", this would be the single-skis major movie premier. There was also a promotional film made in 1971 and a 20 minute Barrymore video made in 1972 (you can view these movies at Monopalooza Events). There was one scene in the 1972 movie where Doyle and another skier filmed 268 consecutive figure 8 turns. Powder Magazine used a photo of the completed 8's in one of their premier issues in 1973. This event led to the current figure 8 competitions, everybody wanted a new record now that someone had said they had set the standard.

Mike was getting some excellent publicity for his single-ski, but Bahne seemed to be having some production problems and couldn't fulfill the orders that Mike had for the singles. According to Mr. Doyle, the production equipment sat in Bahnes warehouse for years with no attempt by Bill Bahne to assemble it until 1976. This made promotion and distribution rather difficult.

Dennis Thorne, of South Lake Tahoe, had been turned on to the single in 1974 by Joel Kaplin (the infamous trust fund Bahne representative), which lead to his becoming one of the first single-ski distributors in 1975. The South Shore of Lake Tahoe became the home for the single-ski in North America. Even with distributors helping out, a product must be available to sell, and Bahne was having serious production problems.

In 1976, Mike would see the first Winterstick and for the first time realized that chances of his single-ski making its mark on the ski industry were diminishing. Production at the Bahne facility was plagued with constant problems so shortly there after Bill Bahne dissolved their partnership. Mike moved to Sun Valley Idaho and Bahne started to do more testing on the Bahne Single-Ski using a new and lighter honeycomb core.

Most of the research and development took place in Lake Tahoe after Doyle had moved to SunValley. Dave and Don Bruce became the main testers for Bahne. With Dennis's marketing background and resort connections, his selling the single-ski gave it a good chance to make it's way into the ski market. They got the Bahnes into a few local shops and did some direct sales while skiing Palisades and the Gunbarrel, exposing the critters in the trees and whoever else that could make it through the "Sierra Cement" to the single-ski. There was a problem at this time with snowboards being banned at the resorts, so they banned single-skis as well. Dennis shmoozed the Mountain GM's and proved to the patrollers that monoskiers had their shit together, unlike snowboarders with bungie cord bindings and no edges.

They allowed single-skis back on the hill because of Dennis's efforts! Soon, a small cult following was developed, but the single-ski never got much exposure outside of the small group that skied them. During the spring of 1978, Yves Bessas and Maritxu imported the first two Bahne Doyle single-skis from the U.S. to France.

A few Chamoniards (Pierre Poncet, Alain Revel, and Phillip Lecadre) would experiment with the single-ski and later become the gurus of the movement known as "La Glisse", or The Glide. Later on that season a small manufacturer located in the Jura began producing Bahne Doyle replicas called the "Petite Jennette". This French single-ski was skid down the north face of Mt. Blanc by Jean-Paul Frechin in April, 1979. (According to Siegfried, the owner of the monoski bar "La Rencard" located in Argenteire, the petite Jennette was made in the early 70's. He has two of these antiques on the wall in his bar as well as other collectable classics. This monoski looked exactly like the same shape as the Bahne, but was made of wood). In the early development stages in France, the single-ski was helped tremendously by the UHAINA film festival who helped promote this new snow sliding sport.

The first manufactured French monoski was developed by Duret in 1980. The "Pierre Poncet" edition Duret was to be the premier commercialized monoski in Europe. Michel Duret was the most active promoter of the monoski, driving from resort to resort with a couple of dozen monos to let people try. He would sell a few a day and before long almost every shop would adopt the monoski into their inventory.

The only competition for the Duret ski was the Rossignol "Soleil", or Sun. Both of these monoskis looked extremely similar to the original Bahnes and these were the only choices for the consumer in France until 1982. Gilles Zékeli was working in his garage in 1981 developing over 25 new monoski shapes, he brought these monoskis to Rossignol and was hired to design their future monoski line. In 1982, Tua released the "Tueur", or Killer. There isn't much distinguishable between any of these monoskis except for the heaviness of the Tua, but even the lengths were uniform at 185cm. This is also the year monoski competitions were organized, sponsored by Cartier, the first of these competitions were held in Italy, and the second in Les Arcs (France).

Back in the U.S., Mike Doyle started to make singles again subcontracted by Rick Bernetto who started a new US ski company called Research Dynamics. They had purchased rights from Bahne to make the single-skis and used virtually the same shape as the original Bahne Doyle but used a foam core instead of the honeycomb. The "RD Solid Gold" and Doyles new ski were one in the same and they also helped to instigate the growth of another US single-ski manufacturer. This U.S. company called Ski Tech Research was started by Steve Chichinsky. He began to produce a copy of the original Bahne Doyle single-ski made with a foam core in 1983. They experimented with new shapes and sizes as well by using the existing foam cores and adding extra layers of glass to make the shape different, thus a damn heavy single-ski. Bahne was in somewhat full production making honeycomb core single-skis but not getting allot of product into the hands of retailers.

1983 in France, Monoski and Co.(a small manufacturer in Maurienne) would develop the first monoski with any significant changes to the original design of the Bahne Doyle. This Swallowtail skied extremely well compared to its counterparts, but its wood composite construction would make it too costly for most consumers to afford (about $1000 U.S.). The popularity of monoskiing was growing out of control so the manufacturers needed to develop an entry level ski for the novices that wanted to try this new snow sliding sport.

In 1984, Rossignol organized a press meeting to introduce a new style of monoski to the market that had easier skiing characteristics that even the novices could ski on easily (This model along with 25 other shapes were designed in 1981 by Gilles Zékeli, it took Rossi a few years to decide on which shape to use). It is undetermined in the ski industry whether or not it was Rossignol or Duret that developed this new style of monoski first. The real news made it's way through the grapevine; Rossignol (or Gilles) was first and Duret saw the new shape at the trade show in 1984 copied it, and started to make the Pan Am right away.

The taper from tip to tail is obvious when viewing this new style of monoski, so it's easy to understand why turns are initiated easily and finished smoothly. The "Pintail" is an immediate success so all the other manufacturers follow suit with thier own "Pintail" model monoskis. The Duret Pan Am was the most popular of these new pintail shaped monoskis, but the Duret product would have no part in the Rossignol sponsored Apocolypse Snow series.

Apocolypse Snow was made into two mini movies which were deffinately the strangest ski videos ever made. Two teams, the red and the yellow have a fierce competition and only the team who possessed the master of the glide could win. The first episode contained only the old style "Soliel" monoskis and prototypes but the second had all the new Pintails (the Rossi with the grey background and the bird graphics). Early Wintersticks make their appearance on the feet of the master of the glide. The evil red team sends monoski troops after the glide master and eventually they catch him and force him to compete on their team. This monoski production helped the movement, it was getting organized and stronger with production levels increasing and more events being organized.

The first public monoski competitions got started at Vars held in the Southern Alps during 1985. This event consisted of a mogul competition and derby format race where everybody raced down an open field of ungroomed terrain simultaneously. The next derby event to follow in Chamonix would become the most popular of all events on the mono circuit. In 1986 the circuit joined the FFS and the first championships took place in France.

In this same year a few companies set the standard for the competition circuit and for other manufacturers. The Be bop Subterfuge had an extremely narrow waist, a little tip and a very aggressive feel. The demand for the Bop was overwhelming and the little company had a hard time keeping up with the consumers need for their product. Gilles Zékeli, developed the Nitro Cham after quiting working for Rossignol, and offered it in three different flex patterns. It's shape was similar to the Bop and both would gain excellent reputations as the monoskis to have. Jean Philip Thevenod of Duret designed the World Cup during this same period, this is the first wasp shaped (???) monoski, which ended up becoming the best competition monoski available at the time and is still loved by the derby competitors of today.

Rossignol was manufacturing 10,000 units and Duret 11,000 units this year. Because of increased orders for their product as well as outsourcing about 2000 units for Head and Look, Duret had to supplement production with Johnathan making many of their monoskis. Virtually all of the ski manufacturers now made monoskis and with sales in the realm of 50,000 units this year, the monoski would obviosly be the next snow sliding trend. Most of the sales during this period were from France but the monoski was starting to become a more desirable way to slide in other parts of Europe.

The French companies decided they could do double the production they were at if they could convince the US to adopt the monoski. Philou Azais undertook the task of organizing a promotional tour of all the major North American ski resorts in 86 & 87 (Some of you probably remember this, parts of the Apocolypse Snow series were filmed here in the US during this promotional visit).

Steve Chichinsky and Rick Bernetto approached the Frenchies to try and work together, but they were very rude and did not want to work with the stupid Americans. This could be a very big reason for the reputation the monoski developed in the industry. A fair amount of interest was shown while touring these American resorts, but Azaiz thought this marketing attempt was of little success. The Duret crew was seeing moderate success with their marketing attempt, but the U.S. consumer was much more difficult to persuade to try new things than in the Europeans. There was a problem with the Look Nevada Mono binding and two separate lawsuits would scare the Frenchies away from the U.S. marketplace. The U.S. companies were struggling to stay alive.

Chichinsky spent over $50,000 trying to build a grinder. After making about 600 monoskis and only selling 300 and giving the rest away for promotion, he decided to take his losses (about $250,000) and sold off all of his Equipment and materials to a Japanese woman and her son. Research Dynamics and Ski Tech Research both stop producing monoskis in 1986 as well. Mike Lish (blue Mohawk) and his mother moved the company to Southern California in 1987 and called it Yama monoskis. So now the US market had Bahnes and Yamas available as well as Darsonvols, but all the rest had stopped trying to make it happen.

Eric Darsonvol was the nephew of Michel Duret and the crusader that hung around in Summit County Colorado. He worked Jackson, parts of Utah and Montana as well. He'd demo his pintail monoskis (Duret pintail monoskis with a white or black topsheet with a cat on it) out of the back of his van to all the locals and would develop a small but dedicated following of hard corps monoheads in the Central Rockies. Philippe Russman tried to market the concept in the Southern hemisphere in 1987 with less luck than Philou had in the North, but still managed to get the monoski (in a very small scale) into the marketplace. The Japanese market would also be open to the influence of monoskis in 1988 with Christophe Vaquier of Eurosport International importing monoskis there, but it would never be adopted as it was in France.

By 1988 speed had been added to the circuit with Vincent Guinchard establishing himself as the worlds fastest man on a single ski, attaining a top speed of 180/km or 112 mph. Even with what was going on, the monoski circuit was struggling to find a consistent format, finally deciding on mogul and derby competitions by 1989. The popularity of the snowboard created allot of interest by the manufacturers to pursue making them and not pay much attention to the development of new monoskis. Also, Bebop went out of business and threw the biggest monoski party ever to celebrate the end of the cult manufacturers short time in business (they still made monoskis in their home until 1999). In Colorado, Eric Darsonvol gets a divorce and moves back to France, and Kent Hunter would try marketing his new super sidecut monoboard (The World Board, based off of Dimitri's original Winterstick) to the inexperienced skier. The fervor behind "La Glisse" started to die into the 90's, and the companies that made monoskis would become fewer and fewer.

Many years of poor snow conditions in the Alps didn't help the situation much nor did the lack of carvability of the traditional monoskis. The snowboards were developing more symetric sidecuts so they carved better on hard snow than the monos could.

The snowboard movement was really getting under way in the U.S. and the rest of the world market. Look stops making monos, Blizzard,Tua and others follow suit, then Dynamic stops making boards. The snowboards would begin to rule the market and the monoski would start to drown in the industries wake. By 1993 the popular Dynastar Non Stops would disappear, Duret would make cut backs on their models available, and by 95 Rossignol would see the last season of the "Extreme" being exported to the US. In the Fall of 96, Duret would only be making 4 monos instead of the 17 styles and lengths that were available just a few years before. World Board never took off partly because of its strange shape, never changing graphics and poor construction, and few of the old school monoskiers had any interest in trying the monoboard. Now with snowboarding ruling the newly developing snow sliding sports industry and buying into the hearts and profit minded heads of ski manufacturers worldwide, very few monoskis are left.

Duret monoskis remain available in the world marketplace thanks to Jean Phillip Thevenod, (designer of the "World Cup", and in charge of the monoski production at Duret) and Michel Duret. Without their efforts, the traditional monoski would no longer be available to us here in the U.S. There are a now a few small companies making monoskis but the only other major European manufacturers still making them are Elan and the new manufacturer Freesurf. Neither export to the U.S., only Japan and Europe have access to their monoskis. Now after the 96/97 season comes to pass we see our favorite way to slide on the snow being near death.

With the near death of the monoski, we're now seeing a rebirth cycle for the 1997 season. A few small quality manufacturers have come out of the woodwork in the U.S. and in Europe to introduce some of the best monoskis ever made. White Knuckle started throwing monoski events in the U.S. starting with "The Mike Doyle Invitational" for the 97/98 season and the monoski is stiil part of the Derby competition circuit in France. Rossignol still distributes the Extreme which is a copy of the original 1984 pintail but with an all Acrylic core, and Freesurfs new shape would get some interest going again.

Rossignol stopped manufacturing monoskis in 1999 and Freesurf went out of business for the 4th time the end of 1999 as well. Today the monoski is restructuring it's appearance to the general public, and finally getting some positive press in the U.S. as well as increasing momentum in France. David Arnaud and Xavier Cousseau are battling at Les Arcs for the 200kmph mark (about 124mph)and the Derby circuit is helping the monoski stay alive. White Knuckle has become an official sponsor of the biggest baddest Derby event of them all, "The Derby de la Meije" and also is the exclusive sponsor and promoter of Monopalooza events. Our rider Marc Bourdelle won the derby circuit last year as well as he and Ivan Felix destroying all others in the Grand Raid in May 2000 by beating all monoskiers, telemarkers and snowboarders by over 6 minutes and taking 15th over all againast many of the best skiers on earth. We will do our best to continue to support the monoski movement in the years to come and create a new awareness of this awesome way to slide.

"Vive La Glisse"!

Scott Gordon, President White Knuckle Inc.

Information from The Glenat publication Monoski and Mike Doyles Autobiography Morning Glass were used to create this story along with what could be learned from all of you that I have spoken with over the years. Thanks for your support everybody.

Copyright © 1999-2000 White Knuckle Inc. all rights reserved