Well darn. Another piece of history bites it. Chair 1 was a long ride but it went all the way in one go.
The bit about no parts is kinda weak. Riblet was made in Spokane with mostly off the shelf parts. No real exotic engineering and manufacturing involved. Relatively easy to duplicate. 
Chair 1, and Riblets in general were not a bad product. The only thing dangerous about it was just the terrain it was passing over.  
Now the Chair 1 version 1 which was a Poma lift by Pomagalski was a lot scarier for us kids. The grips were lumpy external clamp things that would bounce the chair violently when passing under a depression tower and shake a kid right out of the seat if you weren't hanging on. 
We made up for that by having this right of passage: You got your friends to distract the top operator so you could pick your skis up over the safety gate without being seen and then ride around the bullwheel in the roundhouse. You got chewed out real good but it was worth the bragging rights. I do

Labels: moderation: toxicity