Getting to know LINE Skis: The garage brand that took twin tips mainstream

LINE Skis began in 1995 with a tyre jack, a Coleman stove and a university design project. Founder Jason Levinthal built his first skis at the University at Buffalo before starting a one-person factory in his parents’ garage in Albany, New York.

The brand went on to help bring twin-tip skis into the commercial mainstream. Its influence extends from short skiboards and early park skiing to wide powder skis designed for freestyle movement, but LINE’s history also includes heavy debts, corporate ownership and the departure of two designers who shaped its identity.

Now part of K2 Sports, LINE marked its 30th anniversary in 2025. Its current catalogue covers park, freeride and lightweight touring, often combining those categories.

The first LINE skis were built at university

Levinthal was 21 and studying product and graphic design when he made his graduation-project skis in 1995. Ski equipment at the time was generally long, narrow and stiff, while snowboarding offered younger riders a more flexible culture and different ways to use the mountain.

His first short twin tips used old ski edges, a lumber core and plastic donated by local snowboard company Function. Boiling water from a Coleman stove ran through copper pipes to cure the epoxy, while a tyre jack provided pressure.

The resulting skiboards sat somewhere between conventional skis and snowboards. Their raised tails allowed riders to ski backwards, land switch and use rails. Levinthal later described their possibilities: “We did fakies, scraped the handrails, and even did tricks that had previously only been possible on inline skates, almost perfectly, on these strange skis.”

After university, Levinthal returned to Albany and established LINE in his parents’ one-car garage. By winter 1996, he could make roughly one pair during an eight-hour working day.

A trade show in Las Vegas supplied the first big break. Most dealers showed little interest, but Evernew, a Japanese sporting-goods wholesaler, ordered 1,000 pairs. LINE had made only around 30 skis by then, so the order forced production out of the garage.

LINE made twin tips commercially relevant

Salomon’s Snowblade and similar products helped turn skiboards into a visible category during the late 1990s. LINE’s standing grew at the 1998 Winter X Games, where Mike Nick won skiboard slopestyle and Levinthal took bronze. The event put skiers onto rails and terrain associated with snowboard competitions.

LINE then extended its ideas into full-length skis. Working with professional skier Kris Ostness, the company developed the 193 cm Ostness Dragon in 1998 or 1999, depending on the account. It was centre-mounted, symmetrical and long enough for powder and backcountry jumps. The ski appeared on the cover of Powder magazine’s photo annual in 2000.

Levinthal has been careful about how that history is described. “I didn’t invent the twin-tip ski,” he told VTDigger in 2019, citing photographs of older wooden examples. “All I did was bring it to market after creating a version while I was a design student at the University of Buffalo.”

LINE’s contribution was to turn the twin tip into viable equipment and build a culture around how it could be used.

Athletes shaped the skis

LINE’s best products often came from treating athletes as designers and collaborators. Ostness helped establish the full-length twin tip, while Eric Pollard spent 21 years developing skis that brought park-style movement into powder.

Pollard worked on 48 LINE models, according to Blister’s account of his departure. His designs included the Sir Francis Bacon, Pescado and swallowtailed Sakana. Many used substantial rocker, soft flexes and wide platforms at a time when those combinations still looked odd.

Other landmarks included the Chronic park ski in 2004, the wider Prophet series in 2005 and the skateboard-style Afterbang in 2008. Andy Parry and Will Wesson extended the brand beyond products through Traveling Circus, a long-running web series that began in 2010 and followed skiers travelling and filming from a battered yellow van.

LINE’s stated mission, to make skiing “MORE FUNNER!”, is awkward by design. Its skis have consistently favoured presses, slashes, switch landings and varied turn shapes over a race-derived idea of correct technique.

Debt led to K2 ownership

Fast growth did not make LINE financially secure. By 1999, it was producing about 4,000 pairs annually, but Levinthal later said the business owed $300,000 to banks, $60,000 on credit cards and $20,000 to his mother. Vermont-based Karhu initially took a majority stake and eventually acquired the whole company.

K2 Sports bought LINE from Trak Sports USA in 2006. The deal gave the brand access to larger engineering, manufacturing and international distribution operations. It also moved LINE into K2’s corporate structure, later associated with its Seattle operation and Chinese factory.

Levinthal left in 2013 to establish J Skis. Pollard departed in 2020 and co-founded Season with snowboarder Austin Smith. LINE continued under K2 Sports, which is the parent company rather than the K2 Skis brand itself.

What LINE makes today

The modern range remains gender-neutral and is organised by model and size, without men’s and women’s categories. Newer skis use more Bio-Resin, while selected Pandora and Vision models have FSC-certified wood cores. LINE says its Thick-Cut Sidewalls and Thin Tip construction are intended to improve strength and reduce vibration.

For a first look at the range, these are the clearest starting points:

• Chronic 94 or 101: all-mountain freestyle skis for riders who mix park laps with the rest of the resort. The 101 offers more support in fresh snow.
• Blend: a soft 98 mm jib ski built around pressing, buttering and street skiing. It suits a specific style and offers less firm, directional support.
• Bacon 108: a symmetrical twin tip for playful powder skiing, switch landings and occasional park use.
• Optic 96 or 104: metal-laminate freeride skis for faster resort skiing. They provide more grip and composure in chopped snow than LINE’s softer freestyle models.
• Vision 104: a lighter alternative to the Optic, using flax, fibreglass and carbon-fibre stringers for resort skiing and touring.
• Blade: an unconventional carver with a broad tip and short turning radius. It is the model to examine if ordinary all-mountain shapes feel too predictable.

For 2026–27, LINE is updating the 105 mm Sakana with more tail rocker, a softer flex and stronger construction. A new 112 mm Poisson will sit alongside it as a faster, more aggressive fish-shaped freeride ski, according to Powder7’s range preview.

The Optic is the sensible entry point for directional resort skiers, while the Chronic covers skiers who want freestyle influence without committing to a dedicated park ski. The Blend, Bacon and Blade show LINE’s character more clearly, but each asks the skier to accept a more specialised shape or flex.