“Contract Snowboard’s shred sticks are hand crafted in Bielsko-Biala, 20 minutes drive from Szczyrk, Poland’s number one ski resort. Meticulously assembled in a factory with 10 years experience of churning out boards for some of the biggest names in the industry, Contract prides itself on creating some of the highest quality snowboards on the market with some of the most innovative technology. Snowboarding isn’t just about gear it’s about people, that’s why Contract believe Snowboarding and Vodka should be available to everybody. As an independent brand Contract is committed to investing into grassroots snowboarding, whether that be flowing kit to local rippers or supporting core rider-run events. With riders like recent Horse Feathers King of S.N.O.W. winner Martin Kalliola and the Contract ‘Battle for Britain’ photo competition champion Luke Pompa representing the brand for the coming season, Contract is a brand gathering some serious momentum.”
Contract Snowboards was started at the beginning of 2009. After 10 years of building high quality snowboards for others, we finally decided to use the experience and knowledge we gained during those years and start our own brand. Till then, our heads were full of ideas and new concepts for better boards, but didn’t get an opportunity to implement them. When the opportunity was presented we decided build a new brand where finally we could use our ideas.
We’re located in the same building as the factory and we know all the guys responsible for building the board for us. Thanks to that, we are able to observe, control and actively participate in the whole production process of all our boards – it’s just a minute walk from our office.
Second really important factor is our location. We operate from Bielsko – Biala city located in the middle of Beskidy mountains, southern Poland. It only takes 30 minutes drive to be in Szczyrk – one of the best polish snow resort. If we have an idea to make a better snowboard, we can build the prototype board and take it up to the mountain to see how does it works and work out what we need to tweak. Thanks to our location we’re able to develop and introduce new ideas and technological innovations in our snowboards in a short space of time. Besides, it’s also quite inspiring when you see mountaintops form your office.
Thanks to our location in central Europe, it’s easier to influence and to manage to the whole European market. Of course Western Europe is extremely important, but you cannot underestimate the potential of the CEE (Central Eastern Europe) and Eastern European markets. I believe that thanks to our location, and cultural similarities we have a better understanding of these local markets than any of the snowboard brands based in Western Europe.
Manufacturing in a Poland gives us huge advantage of using experienced team of engineers and craftsman with impressive skills and experience. We decided to produce in a European factory while many others have migrated their manufacturing to China. I believe they will regret this decision in the future.
Our location is also ideal from a logistic point of view right at the heart of Europe. We can deliver our gear in extraordinary time to any place in Europe. It doesn’t matter if you have shop in Chamonix or in Moscow, if you want our snowboards, we can get them to you in no time.
On the other hand, Poland is well known for it’s beautiful girls and good wodka (always “w”), but I doubt anyone will immediately associate Poland with snow sports industries.
Contract snowboards are high end, premium quality products, but as we know it’s not enough. The main reason for the brand existence is our patented 3D Snake Transition Technology. We believe it brings a totally new category of snowboards to the market. Till now there main split was: camber or rocker snowboards. Now customers can choose something totally different than they seen before.
3D Snake Transition is something that makes us unique among the others. Three Dimensional Flex And Torsion Engineering is our flagship technology, we’re super proud of it. We designed a unique 3D wave between bindings area, which gives the snowboard a totally new ride characteristic. Our goal was to create a truly universal snowboard; an all-mountain weapon that combines both the advantages of a stiff freeride gun and a flexible freestyle board. 3D Snake Transition allows to keep the board really flexible longitudinally (+35% more flex than the standard models), and add more than standard torsional rigidity at the same time (+10% than the standard models). The 3D waves stiffen the board while riding on the edge or up the walls of the halfpipe (the edge literally bites the slope) and gives it amazing grip and increased torsional performance. What’s more, because the board is flexible, it may have bigger sidecut radius, so it’s more stable during really speed ride. Our tech also gives extra pop to the board. 3D Snake Transition Contract’s exclusive technology (pending patent), and makes us unique among the others.
The important thing is, our tech is visible with bare eye, so everybody who’s visiting the shop and see our board is curious about it, and may see it’s something different among other products.
We sponsor Diana Sadlowski, Martin Kalliola and Jakub “Kamel” Honcz. Diana is a really talented rider living in Insbruck, Austria. She takes really good places in the biggest female competitions across Europe and keeps on collecting the points in TTR ranking. Jakub is a polish snowboarding legend, he helps us with team management and on snow events. He also secures us with hype and media appearance as he takes part in lots of snowboarding events and competitions. Martin is extremely talented growing snowboarding start form Finland, and a current Horsefeathers King Of S.N.O.W. competition winner.
We also run Support Young Shredders program – an initiative dedicated to talented rookies. Within this program we support them with gear and training, so they may develop their skills and become better riders. Currently we take care of more than 10 rookies from all over the Europe.
