Products from Amplid

Peter Bauer, Bavarian born and bred, started snowboarding in 1984. Hooked from his second day riding, Peter progressed quickly and was soon competing. At the 1986 Austria Cup on the slopes of the Kitzsteinhorn a chance meeting with Jake Burton Carpenter changed the course of Peter’s life:

“Jake approached me and asked me where I’d got the Burton Cruiser I was riding from and whether I’d like to try a Safari prototype. Before I knew it I was wearing a Burton race suit and had a ticket to the US Open.”

During his career as a professional snowboarder Peter was German Champion 11 times, European Champion five times, World Champion four times and vice World Champion in the combined event (halfpipe, moguls, slalom and downhill) behind a certain Craig Kelly. Racing also allowed Peter to freeride all over the world: From first descents in Valdez and Atlin to impossible lines off the back of Chamonix, Peter was one of freeriding’s true pioneers.

No riding career is complete without video parts but few riders have been involved with such classics flics as the Blizzard of Ahhhs, Scream of Consciousness and Pachamama. 16 years at Burton also gave Peter the opportunity to learn his craft. Peter was heavily involved with developing and testing some of the most revolutionary snowboards of the late 80s and 90s and learned a lot from working with the best in the industry: “I learned a lot from Jake. He has a holistic approach to things; taking a step back and seeing things from a distance for a while and then getting closer again and making adjustments with a tiny screwdriver (metaphoric) to get the whole right.”

In 2002 Peter left Burton to pursue his own interests. Success with his own design consultancy and with Powderhausen, Europe’s first snow community, had given Peter a taste for entrepreneurship and he felt it was time to make a break. In 2005 Peter Bauer and a local friend Anian Thrainer founded Amplid, a ski and snowboard brand for the anti-apartheid era. To this day Amplid is the only brand to serve both skiers and snowboarders from day one. Amplid enabled Peter to experiment with shred designs, flex patterns and graphical concepts to his heart’s content.

With a flair for creating successful businesses it may have been surprising to some that Peter chose to go down the Snowboard brand route, a route not known for its capital rewards: “Amplid was never about the money, it was about getting our feet on shreds the market couldn’t provide. Anian and I wanted to ride our own boards and skis. Unfortunately the market is flooded with what sells easily, not what makes a rider’s day better. We started Amplid to be an exception.”

Although Amplid keeps Peter more than busy, 30 years after taking his first turns, Peter is still pulling ‘sickies’ on powder days and he religiously rides nearly every snow covered morning at the resort that lies at his doorstep. When asked what keeps him riding, Peter’s answer is typical of somebody who has caught the bug: “Actually I don‘t know. I’m still hooked like I was on day one. Nope, actually like day two, the day that you start to know that you love riding”