Visit Solid at SIA in Las Vegas Jan. 29th - Feb. 1st.

For more info, visit solidsnowboards.com

Neil Rankin, Ron Bureta and Kurt Wastell.

What started out as a wild thread on the web site last summer finally came to fruition last weekend with the Solid reunion in Denver and Fairplay, Colorado. Solid Mfg.Co. was one of the original rider owned and operated snowboard companies of the early 1990s, started by a 20-year old snowboarder named Neil Rankin and a close group of friends. With riders like Jeff and Kurt Wastell, Tarquin Robbins, Willie McMillion and a heavily skate influenced image, Solid established itself as one of the most sought after brands of the time. They quickly went from a fledgling start-up to a company with over a million dollars in sales in a matter of months.

With orders for thousands of boards from Japanese distributors and a strong local following the number of employees in the small mountain town went from 10 to over 100 in just a couple years. Even future pros like Mikey LeBlanc spent time pressing boards up in the factory. But with the rapid expansion and inexperience of the young crew, it soon got out of control. Between quality issues, mismanaged funds and investor setbacks, after only three short years, Solid was forced to go out of business. “The growth was so explosive,” Neil recalls. “We knew how to make boards in low numbers but when we went to doing two and three shifts per day, we lost control of the profit. Plus the production on our biggest year started four months late because we had a conflict with one of our partners, and we were forced to play catch up. Eventually it killed us.” Ever since the factory doors closed, Rankin and Wastell have always talked about bringing Solid back to life. That day has finally come.

Kurt, Matt Hale, Jeff Wastell and Rankin.

With so many rumors of what is really going on with Solid, it was time to set the record straight. Amidst deafening gunshots at a campsite in the backwoods of South Park County, I sat down with Neil, Kurt and their new manufacturing partner Ron Bureta to talk about their plans for re-launching the brand.