Page 15 - NSAA 2017 Fall Journal

Dave Clements

Customers are easily hooked on cable wakeboarding at the Roseland Wake Park, where they also learn about the other activities that Bristol Mountain offers,
including skiing and snowboarding.

The procedures for all riders are the same. When they’re And though it’s taken some work to educate visitors that
ready to go, they sit on a dock with their board in the water, they can wakeboard without a boat, once they understand
and an operator hands them the towbar. The cable gently the concept, they’re excited to give it a try and are likely to
pulls the rope, and the riders are lifted from the dock and return, Fuller said.
onto the water, with a gradual acceleration to keep them Newbies to Roseland can take a $49 “Learn to Ride” les-
afloat (up to 19 miles per hour) as they cruise around the son that includes rentals, instruction, and a guarantee they’ll
23-acre lake. When a rider falls or lets go of the tow line at get up on a board. This three-hour lesson demystifies the pro-
the end of a run, he or she swims to the floating dock that cess, said Drew Broderick, Bristol’s director of sales and mar-
surrounds the main cable, and can take a break or cue up keting. The cables run slowly, the instructor is friendly and
again at the starting platform. patient, and participants realize the sport is quite fun, she said.
“The learning curve is relatively quick,” said Kyle “It’s wonderful to watch people do it for the first time
Dickman, Roseland Wake Park manager. “It’s similar to because they realize it’s not as hard as they thought it would
learning how to snowboard, but the water is a lot softer and be,” Broderick said.
more forgiving.” Better yet—particularly from a business standpoint—
Even so, Roseland’s founders soon realized that some of many of those newbies become regular customers. Between
their new customers didn’t have a clue about cable wakeboard- years one and two, the wake park saw 150 percent growth in
ing or what to expect. “The biggest thing we learned right away Learn to Ride participation. “By far the biggest promotion
is that we are creating the market for this and growing it,” said and the group that’s shown the most growth is the Learn
Fuller. “It’s probably like skiing was in the 1950s where you had to Ride,” said Steve Fuller, who, along with his father, Dan,
to teach your participants not only how to do it, but what it is.” helps oversee operations at Roseland.

FALL 2017 | NSAA JOURNAL | 13