DAKScom - Double Above Knee Snowboard Community

Happy New Year from all at DAKSCom 🤙🏻

We hope to see many of you in 2026 all the best 🎇

Merry Christmas from team DAKSCom 🎅🏻🎄

Wishing you all a happy holiday and look forward to seeing you guys in 2026.

2026 season will see Ben hitting the slopes with the Royal Navy Champs where he will contuine gaining experience on his instructing qualifications. Swifty has been selected for a very special task which we will touch up on closer to the time. Stay tuned for more to come on 2026.

It’s been an amazing year to Armed Forces Para-Snowsport Teamnd we look forward to pushing forward in 2026.

Rise, Dream, Ride Together…. DAKSCom

🏆🏅DAKSCom managed 5 double above knee amputee snowboarders on the snow together at the same time which is a world first as far as we are aware!

Good effort team and everyone who made it happen. So on that note next year we want you to beat us on that record!, or we try again and see if next year we can grow our numbers and beat this years record attempt who knows what the future will hold.

The plan moving forward, raise funds to get the team over to for the ski spec December 2026 to maybe attempt another record attempt and see if we can get any of our 🇺🇸friends over the pond involved 🤙🏻🏂 our goal is simple give as many double above knee amputees the opportunity to snowboard and experience first hand the feeling the mountain gives us year in year out 🗻

Thank you

Kit
.snowboarding

Another exciting advancement in the DAKSCom world!

This week Ben was on the in Austria when he called into Europe’s flagship store at Innsbruck, he randomly met the store manager Alex who was very interested and passionate in how we as DAKS ride. After talking and finding out we have never been able to ride channel boards due to the bindings having been made to fit a conventional board with 4 fixing points Alex surprised Ben by gifting him a Burton Process to test and play around with to see if anything can be done to make it possible for us to expand on what we can ride moving forward.

Ben spent the evening tinkering and modifying the way in which the bindings attach to the board. After a couple of hours Ben had made the binding fit the channel. The next day Ben went out on the mountain to trial the set up something that’s never been done before at DAKSCom with Carbon Fibre bindings and it worked. Ben said “It was a little sketchy not knowing what the outcome was going to be, all I was thinking was if this fails it’s going to hurt a lot”. He trialled it on a nursery slope and did a couple of runs. It worked so he thought let’s turn it up a little and headed to the top of the mountain, increased his speed, carved a little harder and did a couple of cheeky side hits, they held up, so it was a successful day of testing. Ben is looking forward to putting the Burton Process and the bindings through more testing next month when he returns to Austia.

Ben finished by saying “I’d like to say a huge thank you to Alex and Burton for giving me his time, his love/passion for boarding and years of knowlege he shared with me! It was a pleasure to meet Alex and he’s looking forward to seeing Alex at the Burton Europe shop in Innsbruck again in the near future” 🤙🏻

This is the first time our bindings have ever been attached in this way to a channel board and ridden, it’s a massive step in the right direction for our riders as it opens up other boards and opportunities that have not been possible before for DAKS.

Again a massive thank you to Alex and his team at Europe 🤙🏻

Some exciting news and progression within DAKSCom. When Ben first came to DAKSCom he brought what he knew as a SNAPP but it was not compatible with the binding set up, after that Ben started throwing ideas around to make sure any DAK that turns up or wants to try slide is able to with just their standard sockets.

Ben met with Danny Dunn @ Swift Prosthetics LTD assisting on another project Danny was working on making bindings for a Gregg another double amputee but AK & BK amputations. When assisting on this project the two banged heads and spoke about the design and issues Ben had at the start of his journey and the solutions in his head to make it possible.

After a few weeks of design, testing and prototyping, Ben met with Danny again at the start of November to test the new theory Danny brought to life and.... it works!

“The idea behind the project was any DAKS with standard sockets or sidekick feet attached would be able to fix to the board/bindings so they can try snowboarding rather than them have to request SNAPPs at the start without knowing if snowboarding is for them. I did not want others having the same issue I had which resulted in not making it on the snow my first season. I’m really happy the concept has come to life as it’s another step in the right direction for DAKSCom and making snowboarding more accessible”.

Stay tuned for more updates over the season on the progression of the product/design and DAKSCom’s continued efforts to raise awareness and development of Snowboarding for DAKs

Are you a double above knee amputee? Or know any DAK family or friends? If you would like to try snowboarding or have any questions as a DAK please do not hesitate to get in touch, we would be happy to assist.

DAKSCom is an amazing community built by like minded individuals who share the same passions and goals in snowboarding, disability, adaptive, engineering, design and much more. If you can add or would like to join the community please feel free to get in touch.

Photos are of Ben last year at ski spec with speaking, showing and riding with 2 epic ladies, Zoe an amazing individual who has a passion for teaching and changing the stigma around disabled snow sports making it accessible for all and Alex a very talented engineer who also is very passionate about design and manufacture of products that help disabled people enjoy something she loves and enjoys.

We look forward to seeing the community grow more over the upcoming season. See you all on the pow…

DAKSCom 🤙🏻🏂

Winter is here 😁 which only means snow season has started. Sunday/Monday Ben, Ellie, Harvey and Swifty started the DAKSCom season at Castleford Xscape with the AFPST team.

Sunday saw Ben & Ellie working on some confidence and independence work on the slope. Ellie’s goal is to become as close to independent on the mountain as possible, so Ben and Ellie we’re working on new methods and trialing new ways for Ellie to get around using her board and bindings but also pushing confidence levels by doing new obstacles that Ellie has not yet ridden which was epic to see her smashing!

Swifty & Harvey were working on the basics and working out a couple of issues with Harvey’s SNAPPS, positioning and general posture issues. We saw progress from Harvey and his riding going from the nursery slope to the half way point was a massive achievement then on up to the top🤙.

Ben was out testing a proof of concept design he came up with a few years back that has now been made into a physical concept thanks to Danny at Swift Prosthetics but more to come on that soon, stayed tuned 👀

We also look forward to achieving a world record attempt next month so keep tuned for that.

Big thank you to & for having us.

Kit & Equipment

Dear all, apologies for us being off grid the last few months it’s been a very busy summer for all members... but now the season is nearly here and it’s time to heat things up.

Following the making of the epic video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNKhgpe-Y_I&t=4s) which will be used as a intro into DAKSCom we thought it would be good to kick the season off with a world record.

We are looking into applying to Guinness but it would be along the lines of 'The most double above knee amputees snowboarding at the same time'. We just wanted to put the feelers out there to see how people felt about being involved. The aim is quite simple, we just want to make some noise to support fundraising activities, throw down a gauntlet to encourage some global competition and simply just have a get together. Who's in?

DAKSCom 🤙🏻🏂

DAKScom New and Improved.mp4 Shared with Dropbox

All at DAKSCOM would like to say a huge thank you to all of the ‘Chosen Men’ at the Fox 25 Royal Green Jacket Reunion on Saturday 23rd 2025.

£2700 was raised through the auction and that generosity and support is a massive boost to us all at DAKSCOM. This tremendous donation will go along way to helping to giving anyone with Double Above Knee Amputation the opportunity to participate in Snowboarding at any level from purely leisure or in competition and in doing so promote their own physical, mental, and social health and wellbeing.

A special thanks should be said to Terry Birks and all his staff at the Fox Pub Nuxley Road Belvedere SE London for putting up with the chaos that is the Reunion, to Paul for the catering, Suggs and Simon for the hard graft, and to Jock for doing such a fantastic job with the auction with his inimitable style and tack in getting people to bid for things they didn’t even want to bid on, and of course not forgetting the 'Sons of the Desert' enough said... thank you for the organisation guys.

Many many thanks to all of the 'Soldiers of the Fox' from all of us at DAKSCOM.

Swifty

‘Celer et Audax’