Dimitri: The Story Behind SnowRipper
Most brands have a founding story. A problem someone spotted, a gap in the market, a business plan. SnowRipper has those things but they are not where the story starts. The story starts with a boy in England who was given a choice between a birthday party and a trip to Scotland and did not hesitate for a second.
Scotland, January 2020
Dimitri's family gave him a choice for his birthday in January 2020. A birthday party, or a snowboarding trip to Scotland. He chose Scotland. He had never been on a board before. He loved it immediately, the kind of instant connection that either happens or it does not, and for Dimitri it absolutely did.
The plan was to sign him up for lessons straight away. Then COVID hit. Lockdown closed everything. By the time restrictions lifted it was time for Dimitri to focus on his 11+ exams so he could sit the entrance for the grammar school he wanted to get into. Another delay. He put the work in and got his place. Then it was first year of secondary school. New environment, new people, time to settle in. Snowboarding had to wait again.
By this point three years had passed since Scotland. He had been asking about lessons almost every month of that time. When could he start. When. The answer was finally yes.
The Snow Centre Manchester
Dimitri started his lessons at what was then Chill Factore in Manchester, now known as The Snow Centre Manchester, one of the UK's main indoor snow centres. He went through all the beginner and intermediate lessons. When those were done the family got him a year's membership. He went after school. He went on weekends. He went as often as he could get there, which was most days.
The progress was fast. Too fast for what the lessons could cover. By the time summer 2023 came around he was ready for something more.
The First Contest
On the 18th of September 2023, Dimitri entered his first ever snowboard contest. The NSSA, the National Schools Snowsport Association, runs competitions for school-age skiers and snowboarders across the UK. He had been riding for less than a year at that point, all of it on indoor snow. He placed 2nd.
That result lit something. A few weeks later he went to the Snowsports England Futures Champs and came home with two silver medals, one in slopestyle and one in snowboard cross. In October 2023 he entered a Jibworks Jam, a freestyle rail and jib session that drew university-age riders. He placed 2nd again.
What made that Jibworks result stand out was what happened during the training runs beforehand. Dimitri fell hard on a rail. In snowboarding terms he tacoed, the board bending around the feature on impact. He was in a lot of pain. He competed anyway, against riders several years older, and still finished 2nd.
By October 2023 he had been on snow for under a year. Four contests, four silver medals. He wanted more.
The First Winter Away
The family planned a snowboarding holiday to Bansko in Bulgaria so Dimitri could experience riding on real outdoor snow properly for the first time. He had a great time. And then came the conversation about what the next step actually looked like if he was serious about where this was going.
From January to March 2024 Dimitri left home to train with WHY, which stands for Why Ain't You Jibbin?, a snowboard coaching programme that takes young riders to the Alps for extended training blocks. He was 12 going on 13. He had his 13th birthday away from his family for the first time, in a foreign country, with people he had not known long. New friends got made. Good times were had. But it was still a 13-year-old spending his birthday without the people he had always spent it with.
This was the first time the reality of what competitive snowboarding actually requires became visible. It is not just a sport you do at the weekend. At a certain level it demands time, distance and a willingness to give things up that most people your age are not giving up.
It was also during this first winter away that the conversation about SnowRipper started. Dimitri was training hard and the gear question kept coming up. He needed pants that could fit over his safety gear comfortably. He had taken enough hard falls by this point to know that riding without protection was not smart, but finding pants with the right fit and the right spec at a price that made sense was proving harder than it should have been. The problem was becoming clear. The solution would follow.
2024: The Results Stack Up
When Dimitri came home from the WHY camp in spring 2024 the contest season was already moving. April 2024, NSSA contest. First place. Gold. His first contest win.
In May 2024 he competed at the British Snowboard Championships, the Brits. One of the most significant domestic snowboard competitions in the UK. He placed 2nd in the under 16s category. He was 13 years old.
Immediately after the Brits the family drove directly to Les 2 Alpes in France for the World Rookie Tour Spring Camp. The World Rookie Tour is an international circuit for junior snowboarders that acts as a stepping stone toward the highest levels of competitive snowboarding. Being at that camp at 13, straight off a 2nd place finish at the Brits, meant Dimitri was now moving in a different world to where he had started 18 months earlier at his first NSSA contest.
In October 2024 the Futures Project again. 2nd in slopestyle and snowboard cross.
SnowRipper Launches
September 2024. While the contest results were stacking up, SnowRipper launched. The brand had been in planning since the WHY winter earlier that year. The problem that needed solving was specific. Dimitri needed snow pants that fit properly over his protective gear, pads, shorts, the things he wore because of falls he had taken and did not want to repeat. Every option that worked technically either cost too much or did not fit right over the layers underneath. Nothing existed that was baggy enough to move in and layer under, technical enough to perform in real conditions and priced in a way that made sense for a young rider without full sponsorship behind him. So they made it.
SnowRipper's baggy snow pants were the answer to that specific problem. From the original version through to the Drift, the newest addition to the range, that has always been the whole point.
Switzerland: Season One
From January to April 2025, Dimitri's second extended training block away from home. This time in Switzerland with FRESK, training on real Alpine snow through the heart of winter. He stayed with a host family, which gave him a base and people around him while he adapted to an entirely new level of training and independence.
During this period he was accepted onto the Snowsports England Park and Pipe B team. Snowsports England is the national governing body for snow sports in England and its Park and Pipe programme is the official pathway for riders developing toward international competition. Being on the B team meant he was now part of a structured national development system.
In June 2025, back home between training blocks, Dimitri won the English Championships in the U17 category. His first national title.
The FIS Number
At the start of the 2025/26 season Dimitri moved up from the Snowsports England Park and Pipe B team to the A team. With that came his FIS licence number.
FIS stands for the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. It is the governing body that oversees official international competition in snowboarding and skiing worldwide, including the World Cup circuit and Olympic qualification. A FIS licence is the registration that takes a rider from domestic competition into the international system. Every result at an official FIS event earns points. Those points determine which bigger events a rider can access as they progress up the ladder.
In practical terms it means Dimitri now competes in official international events where there is no age limit. The rider in the next bib could be 18, 25 or preparing for Olympic qualifying events. They are all on the same start list, scored in the same system. Results are what matter. Nothing else.
His FIS events so far have been in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Venues including Grindelwald, Davos and LAAX in Switzerland, and SnowWorld Landgraaf in the Netherlands. LAAX in particular is one of the most respected park venues in Europe with a long history of hosting high-level snowboard competition. Being on those start lists in his first international season matters.
Switzerland: Season Two
January 2026. Dimitri left for Switzerland again. This time there is no host family. He lives alone in a dorm. He is responsible for everything.
Setting the alarm. Cooking his own food. Washing his own clothes. Managing his own schedule. Working out what to eat, when to sleep, what to do when something goes wrong and there is no one around to ask. Last season he had people around him. This season it is just him.
Some mornings the alarm goes at half past four. Training is six days a week. Some days do not finish until eight or half eight in the evening. He is there until the end of April 2026.
Nobody is making him do this. He chooses it. Every morning at half past four he chooses it again.
The Part That Does Not Make the Results Page
Being months away from your family and your friends when you are 15 is genuinely hard in a way that is difficult to explain if you have not done it. The training is hard. The early starts are hard. The long days are hard. But the harder thing, the thing that goes mostly unspoken in competitive sport, is the isolation. Every bad training session, every competition that does not go the way you wanted, every day where nothing clicks, those happen entirely alone when you are living this way. You process it yourself. You cook your dinner. You set the alarm. You go again tomorrow.
That kind of self-reliance, having to depend on yourself for everything over a long period of time in a foreign country without the people you have always leaned on, changes you in ways that are hard to measure but easy to see. How you handle setbacks. How you make decisions under pressure. How you keep going when it would be easier to stop. These are not things that get learned in a classroom.
And Then There Is School
While all of this is happening in the Alps, his class back in England is moving forward. Every lesson he misses, every piece of coursework, every week of school he is not there for. When Dimitri comes home he does not get a break. He gets a month of catching up. Studying every day, late into the evening, working through everything he missed until he is level with his classmates again. Then he goes back to being a regular student.
He is not homeschooled. He does not have a tutor travelling with him. He sits in the same classroom as everyone else in his year, when he is there. The competitive snowboard career fits around that, not the other way around.
The Pants
This is what SnowRipper is. Not a brand story designed in a boardroom. A direct answer to a real problem that a real rider had. Dimitri needed pants that worked. Baggy enough to layer properly underneath. Room for padded shorts, knee pads, base layers, without the outer layer pulling tight or restricting movement. Waterproof and breathable enough to handle full days in Alpine conditions. At a price that does not assume a full sponsorship budget behind you.
The Drift Baggy Snow Pants are the newest version of that idea. 20,000mm waterproofing, fully taped seams, 3L breathable shell, micro-fleece lining, articulated knees, inner leg vents, non-slip boot gaiters and an adjustable waist. Made for the way park and freestyle riders actually ride. Adult sizes XS to XL and kids sizes from age 5.
Wherever Dimitri's season takes him next, the brand goes with it. Shop the adult range or shop kids.