Burton Custom X 154

By: Rich Staples

Edited by: Piper Grace Maul

Greg Culver was the proud owner of Sliders Snow Skate Bike shop for years. Renting boards, selling bikes, and providing overall advice. He was known for problem solving and always having just the right answer.

"Back in the early 2000s, if you wanted to learn how to snowboard, your options for rental equipment were limited. Resorts and shops had only just begun building their rental fleets, and the gear was typically very low quality. Information on how to ride was also scarce—YouTube didn’t even exist yet—so you either had to know someone who could teach you or pay for lessons. Buying a lift ticket was a significant expense, and taking time off from work to ride when the snow was good was difficult. All of this created huge barriers to getting into the sport for many people, including myself.

I remember looking through a Burton catalog at the latest boards, feeling inspired by photos of riders in faraway places. But without anyone to guide me, the dream felt out of reach and discouraging.

Toward the end of one season, after several terrible experiences renting boards from a local ski resort that rode like wet plywood, using friends’ old discarded ski gear, and guessing at how to ride by watching others, I decided to try one last time. After a big snowfall, I stopped by Sliders to rent a board for Kissing Bridge.

Rich Staples

Greg was incredibly friendly and asked me lots of questions about my experience. From my answers, he immediately understood that I was struggling with the entry barriers of the sport. He told me to wait a moment, went to the back of his shop, and returned with one of his personal snowboards—a Burton Custom X 154. Instead of giving me one of the rental fleet boards, he offered to let me use it for the day. He explained how to ride and what to practice to overcome my struggles, especially transferring edges and learning to carve. He told me having the right board would make all the difference, and only asked that I be careful with it because he had ridden it all over the world.

That day, I finally learned how to ride. It completely changed my perspective and set me on a lifelong journey of traveling and riding in all the places Greg had stickers of on that board. Through that simple act of kindness, Greg shaped the rest of my life and opened up a whole new world I never would have known existed. I feel deeply grateful to be one of the many people Greg made such an impact on during his short time in this life."

"Years later I tried to do the same with all the gear and experience I ended up with, passing it along to stepchildren and friends."

~Rich Staples

For ten years, Rich traveled the world. He visited each of the places stickered on Greg's board. Eventually passing down gear and advice just as Greg did.