The World’s First All-Aluminum Skis Are Here

Brian Rosenberger worked for years in an aircraft manufacturing company, coincidentally, with a lineage that goes back to the Glenn L. Martin Company. On long drives in 2010 from his home in Texas to the snow in Colorado, Rosenberger, his son and his friends, discussed many topics, but the one Rosenberger kept coming back to was making a snowboard (his favorite plank. at the time) in the form of airplane parts—except for one piece of aluminum.

One friend in particular, Ron Chambers, eventually got tired of all the talk and said he would fund the startup effort. In 2013, Rosenberger connected with Leif Sunde, founder of Denver Sports Lab, an olympic-class ski tuning shop, to begin testing the adaptive qualities of various composite snowboards on the market. By 2014 Rosenberger had some all-aluminum prototypes ready for testing. Obviously, the results on the ice were very encouraging.

Over the years many prototypes were made, and the transition was made from snowboards to skis. In July 2023, Metal1 Skis Corporation (M1 Skis) was founded: Rosenberger as CEO, Chambers as COO, Sana Fathima leading fundraising and strategy, and Sunde as product director.

Why Aluminum?

The first question that comes to mind for many is whether the metal associated with the soda can or the cooking plate is strong enough to withstand the weight of the mountain – especially the edges, which are traditionally made of steel.

“Aluminum is an order of magnitude harder than the snow a ski will encounter,” says Rosenberger. Trading many commodities, including metals, is getting harder and harder. Aluminum, according to M1, is hard enough to handle snow but ductile enough so it won’t easily break or shatter when it comes into contact with rocks, even in cold winter conditions. Indeed, some ski manufacturers choose a soft steel edge when making park-oriented skis because hard steel is more likely to buckle or crack from the smoothness of a ski park trail.

Key shooting—when the core of the ski is exposed to moisture and leads to warping or rotting—will not occur, because there is no core, and the aluminum base will deflect rocks better than any extruded polyethylene base. And, for that reason, no rock will ever give off edges.