Spinney Bent makes rail riding a reality

Pretty soon it’s going to be hard to hit a terrain park in the Inland Northwest without riding a rail built by Sandpoint’s Ben Spinney.

The 27-year-old snowboarder runs Spinney Bent, a year-old rail- building company that is becoming the go-to place for huge, well-built, decently priced terrain park features.

Since he started building rails for his home mountain, Schweitzer, about nine years ago, he has been hired to build features at Mount Hood Meadows Ski Resort, Silver Mountain Resort and 49 Degrees North. He’s also building the features for the First Night rail jam, planned for Spokane’s Riverfront Park on New Year’s Eve.

A metal fabricator by trade, Spinney is mostly self-taught. He learned to weld and fabricate while working for a Montana trailer company and eventually opened his own metal fabrication shop. About three years ago, he started taking custom orders for terrain park features.

“Then last year Mount Hood got ahold of one of my rails and called me and asked me to do their complete public terrain park,” Spinney said. The job included 11 features.

But Spinney’s not limiting himself to building rails. Next, he’s looking at buying a semi-truck so he can transport his features to regional ski hills for ready-made rail jams. He said it’s difficult for ski resorts to move their terrain park features into their villages for rail jams, and his mobile drop-in will solve that problem.

“It’s going to have a giant ramp that you can climb a staircase to – with railings and everything – and put your snowboard on and drop into this gigantic ramp to features I can pull with my 32-foot trailer,” Spinney said. “A lot of the mountains are expressing a lot of interest in me coming and setting up in their village for a day.”

The whole deal boils down to a dream job for the North Idaho man, combining his skills with his passion in his hometown. He still competes in local events, and he sponsors athletes through Spinney Bent and the other business he’s a partner in, GZ Board Shops in Sandpoint.

“We try to give back to the sport by just helping out people who deserve it and getting some of these events going,” Spinney said. “We’re not trying to get rich on it; we’re just trying to have a good time.”