The Ski Journal • Volume 17, Issue 3 • LIB TECH ACME OPAL 204S

The Acme Opal 204s were the crown jewel of Lib Tech’s tradeshow antics in 1993, a fake-award-winning ski paraded around by sales reps dressed as tennis players and fluffy bunnies. Photo: Colby Mesick

ONE IS BLUE and one is yellow, which, in 1994, was revolutionary for ski graphics. They run 204 centimeters and each features an elongated rattlesnake and textured topsheet—like the pattern to a bathmat in a cheap hotel.

The Lib Tech Acme Opals were first built as a trade show stunt aping Salomon’s pivotal model, the Equipes, which introduced sidewall-less cap construction to the ski market. As it was, Mervin Mfg’s Lib Tech had also introduced the process, via snowboards, the year prior.

“I built the first pair of Acme Opals over Christmas break in December of 1992 when the Mervin factory was empty,” explains Lib Tech co-founder Mike Olson. “I enlisted Jon Heine (the first human to quit snowboarding and go back to exclusively skiing) to test. We hit up a boiler-plate ice day on International at Alpental in January 1993, skiing for three hours with a Salomon on one foot and an Acme Opal on the other.”

Displayed incongruously in the booth among their snowboard line, the funky skis—aside from the snakes and colors—looked a whole lot like the Equipes (including the rubber damping tips simply baked into the vacuum press mold). “We even proudly displayed the Acme Opals in our booth with a fake 1st Place award from a fake ski magazine,” says Olson, laughing.

Apparently, some within the legal and compliancy departments in Annecy, France, were less than humored until, in Lib Tech co-founder Pete Saari’s words: “they realized we were snowboard clowns who were no threat, and who had no money.”

Pleased with the skis and the response, the following season Olson whipped up a limited edition of eight pairs as top prizes for Mt. Baker’s Legendary Banked Slalom.

In 1993, Baker’s own Craig Kelly won the Men’s Pro title; in 1995, the torch would pass onto Terje Haakonsen, who would go on to win six more titles. But in 1994, first place in Men’s Pro went to the Lib Tech team manager Paul Ferrel, who managed to beat all of his own contracted riders along with the rest of the field—a guy from the tire crew jumping into an F1 car and winning Monte Carlo. Because the victor gained the spoils, Saari notes that the win also returned one of the Acme Opals to the Mervin Mfg headquarters.

Those Lib Tech Acme Opals have rested behind the desk in my office for several years now. But assuredly these rare skinny sticks could ski in their day. Olson originally passed the pair to me when, as an editor at Snowboarder Magazine at the time, I expressed that I really wanted to go skiing again. “Here,” he said. “Ski these!”

I ended up mounting them, and flying out to Snowbird, UT, to do a piece for a ski title on the joy of once again facing forward downhill. They skied fantastic, and I ended up making turns with them at Snowbird, Sun Valley, Bridger, Baker, Big Bear, all of it.

Though modern equipment has since rendered them a better office memento than performance hardgood, the topsheet copy describing a “Quasi Isotropic Carbon Wet Wrap Torsion Box Creamy Nougat Centre Packed With Peanuts” remains an homage to high times and misdemeanors.

The Ski Journal - Volume 17, Issue 3

LIB TECH ACME OPAL 204S

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