Against the Drift / Nitro Snowboard

For over thirty-five years, Nitro has grown with snowboarding rather than ahead of it. This piece looks at that living history – a culture that changed shape without ever drifting from its core.

Nitro was born from the simple urge of two riders, Thomas “Tommy” Delago and Sepp Ardelt, to make boards they could not find anywhere else. From the start, it has moved like flowing snow—rider-owned, rider-operated—shaped by films, community and the people who live it. Boards are tools, not possessions, carrying riders across mountains, cabins, road trips, and friendships. Nitro is a brand and a way of moving through the world: a ride carried by something deeper, an intensity of presence, a living expression of snowboarding as culture you feel with every turn. In this feature we explore that living history, a portrait with unseen archive images of a brand that changed with time without ever losing the raw and authentic feeling that sparked its creation.

Origins: Born From the Ride

Nitro takes shape in Seattle in 1990, born from a simple frustration and a clear vision. Two snowboarders, Thomas “Tommy” Delago and Sepp Ardelt, wanted boards they couldn’t find anywhere else, so they built them. Delago arrived with the sensibility of a European rider who had lived every corner of the culture from testing prototypes on wild terrain, running camps, contributing to snowboard magazines, shaping the conversation as much as the sport itself. Nitro grows from this lived, rider-driven reality rather than from a business plan.

The debut production line launches for winter 1990 and already carries a different energy. It includes the Retro, a swallowtail powder board that cuts sharply against the race-oriented shapes dominating that era. Even the early Nitro manuals read less like catalogues and more like manifestos: raw, urgent documents that speak of riding as a necessity, mountains as a calling, movement as truth. Nitro steps into snowboarding by giving language to what riders were already living.

From the beginning Nitro is rider owned and rider operated, a structure that remains intact today. What starts as a Seattle-born collective eventually relocates its corporate home to Switzerland, yet the heartbeat of creation remains in the European mountains that shaped Delago’s vision.

“The early manuals read like a rider speaking to another rider, not a company speaking to a consumer.”

Finding a Language: Design, Art and Performance

As Nitro evolves, it begins to construct a distinct visual language. Graphics move from simple outlines into an expressive mixture of illustration, collage, photography and handwritten elements. Boards become extension points for artistic experimentation. Manuals from the nineties show a blend of factory atmosphere, process shots, rider notes and on the road imagery.

This era defines a core principle for Nitro: engineering and creativity are inseparable. Care in design is matched by curiosity in materials and shapes. The brand grows through instinct and daily riding rather than through marketing departments. Every board reflects an evolving conversation between riders, designers and the culture around them. Innovation appears not as a slogan but as a byproduct of people trying to build better tools for their own riding.

Riders at the Core: Movement, Memory & Belonging

From the late nineties into the early 2000s, Nitro embedded itself in the pulse of snowboard media culture, drawing from punk attitude, skate energy and the raw immediacy of DIY print. Grainy film stills, photocopied textures, hand-scrawled typography and street-born imagery gave shape to a visual language that felt lived-in rather than designed. At its heart were the riders, not positioned as campaign faces but as authors of the brand’s identity. Names like Marcus Kleveland, Eero Ettala, Elias Elhardt, Austin Smith and Jeremy Jones didn’t just ride for Nitro; they shaped its voice from the inside, contributing to a shared creative rhythm.

This ethos found its clearest expression in 28 Winters, a long-form documentary that traces Nitro’s story through the voices of its riders, framing the brand as a family in motion, documenting itself from within the culture it inhabits. As time passed, the focus softened and widened. The lens moved beyond tricks toward the spaces between them: the mountains, the roads, the cabins, the friendships. Projects like The Quiver, Layers and Cake reflect this shift, where boards become companions through chapters of life and snowboarding unfolds as a network of places, people and moments. In this world, Nitro’s products are never just objects; they come alive through movement, memory and the stories carried across snow-covered lines.

Present Moment: Community and the Analog Defiance

In a landscape where many of snowboarding’s original brands have been folded into major corporate structures, Nitro stands independently. After decades of distribution partnerships and shared ownership phases, the company returns to a fully rider-led model. Nitro AG is now based in Switzerland, while development and testing remain rooted in the European Alps and in riding scenes across the world.
Community becomes the compass of this era. Camp Good Times evolves into a legendary end-of-season gathering where riders, team members, shop owners and friends come together to ride, film and share the culture. Its editions extend to places like China and Japan, transforming it into one of the most influential community-driven snowboard events of today.
Nitro also distinguishes itself also in how it supports retail shops. Rather than leaning entirely into digital direct sales, the brand chooses to preserve long-standing relationships with stores, distributors and local scenes. This commitment becomes its own form of analog defiance, a quiet refusal to let snowboard culture be shaped only by screens, cycles and algorithms.
The contemporary film Spike, currently premiering in their stores and set to debut online on November 24th, channels exactly this spirit. It follows Nitro riders set loose without heavy direction, capturing what unfolds when creativity, friendship and instinct guide the ride. The film stands as an expression of culture rather than a piece of promotion, a reflection of how snowboarding feels when it’s lived rather than advertised.

Products as Living Tools: Responsibility in Motion

Nitro treats its equipment as extensions of the moment, never as the story itself. Boards, boots and bindings exist within lived contexts: road trips, camps, films and shared experiences, gaining meaning through the life that unfolds around them. Responsibility runs parallel to this approach. Nitro openly publishes CO₂ data for every snowboard, works toward climate-neutral production and builds many boards in solar-powered facilities using FSC-certified cores, water-based inks and recycled components. Innovation follows the same ethos, expanding access through developments like Step On compatible bindings while staying true to the brand’s design language. Across shapes, cambers and flex, technology evolves not to chase trends, but to serve the experiences that define snowboarding.

Center of Gravity

Across three decades, Nitro has preserved a rare continuity. It grows, evolves, and expands, yet never loses touch with the impulse that brought it into being: a group of riders in Seattle crafting boards for themselves. That same ethos continues today: in films, graphics, community gatherings, product design, and in the independent structure that safeguards the culture behind it. In this sense, Nitro embodies an “aura” of authentic creation — a spirit that cannot be reproduced by mere commercial logic.
Nitro is never just a collection of marketing seasons. It is a portrait of snowboarding, shaped by those who live it. The brand shifts with time yet remains anchored to its human core: independence, creativity, community, and the belief that snowboarding is not merely sport, but a lens for engaging with the world and the act of riding becomes a way to perceive, interpret, and inhabit culture.

“Nitro remains what it has always been. A culture true to itself that never grew away.”

Against the Drift / Nitro Snowboard

Credits:

Brand: Nitro / @nitro_snowboards
Website: www.nitrosnowboards.com
Editor: Marco Giuliano / @marcogiulianoph

You may also like

Peak Essence / Atomic

Lifestyle | Spotlight
Atomic has written its story in snow: speed, mastery, evolution. Now, Redster, Revent, Snowcloud join the new chapter. A Nasty Lifestyle Cover story unveiling the new Winter 2025/26 apparel line, extending Atomic’s expertise from skis to skiwear: technical, precise, and driven by the Alps’ own energy. Sculptural silhouettes, technical performance, uncompromising warmth. Built in the Austrian Alps, by skiers, for skiers — with an edge that transcends the snowfields.

Winter rituals

Fashion | Exclusive
In the dark of December, I had visions of myself dancing and laughing with them. A winter story shot by Ashton Hugh and styled by Nicole Vernon.

Where the wild things are

Photography | Spotlight
You can't break through her world, the free spirit everybody wants to be. Analícia in a series shot by Inês Marinho.
Hybrid Visions / UGG x sacaiSex And Politics / Art Icon