It isn’t very often you get invited to go tour a company’s manufacturing center so obviously when the offer came up we jumped at the chance. Turns out our shop guru Luke is really good at selling Lib Tech and Gnu snowboards and they wanted to take us up for a day of factory touring and another day of shredding at Hurricane Ridge. So before they could change their minds we jumped on the Grease Bus and headed north.
A huge box of Doughnuts, plenty of road soda, and one viewing of “Too Fast, Too Furious” later we were pulling down Banana Way and into the Mervin factory. The Mervin campus is hard to describe. Just imagine a wooded area filled with ramps, an amazing concrete volcano, super friendly employees and even more friendly animals EVERYWHERE. Not to mention every place you look there is a major piece of snowboarding history sitting in the corner, or up on a wall, or taking you on a tour.
After they explained the in’s and out’s of how they make their snowboards, and their obsessive commitment to recycling, we were treated to a stellar BBQ with the likes of Temple Cummins, and the rest of the staff as they came off their shifts. Then it was off to the mountain for the next day of pow riding and cornice drops.
Mervin runs their company the way a company should be run. Looking after their employees and the environment, while making some of the best snowboards on the market. We at Tactics couldn’t be more stoked on em’. Huge thanks to Tim for making it all happen, and Chris with Grease Bus for driving our sorry, smelly asses with a smile.

The whip

"This sh*t runs on grease!?"

Skate Break In Twin Cities

BOLTS

Refueling for free from the back of a bar in Tacoma felt a little sketchy at first

The Tree Car from "Thats It, Thats All" is the first thing you see

Don't believe the hype. The "Attack Cat" Is more like the "snuggle you all day cat"

Raddest ripper, even better spokesperson

Kevin from Exit approves

Board presses, put out to pasture

The OG "DoughBoy" press. Serious history

Trimmings waiting to be recycled into new boards

"THE RAD RAMP" Skate this thing and you win... forever.

"Hey your factory runs on Biodiesel? We have this bus that you should check out."

Since there is no recycling in their town, the factory lets employees bring their recycling to work and Mervin takes care of it for them.

Core scraps are used as kindling, or recycled into paper and wood products

Wood Cores ready to go

Press forms. Putting the Rocker into your Banana

Die-cut Bases ready to get put back together

Laying up the "board sandwhich", before it all goes into the press and gets fused together

The presses in action. Cooking a board only takes about 20min

Trimming the boards after the press. This dude is a master

Getting edges, nice and sexy

"Yeah, we have a few boards"

And the Best Ad Campaign Ever award goes to Mervin

Rob from Exit with the ultimate banana

The ExperiMENTAL division has been working hard. Wait till you get to ride one of these on a pow day and your head explodes

Coming Soon

Chris filling up the grease and its time to head home