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B-Peg: A Snowboarding Prosthesis Tested at Val Thorens

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The B-Peg project explores how a purpose-built prosthesis can support snowboarding movements. Workshop views and footage on snow make the relationship between a mechanical idea and a rider’s experience visible.

Close view of a mechanical snowboarding prosthesis
Close view of a mechanical snowboarding prosthesis Credit: Liang-Ti Tan / Boers & Co FijnMetaal / original B-Peg project.

Keep the prototype’s context

The archive credits Liang-Ti Tan’s design work and manufacturing support from Boers FijnMetaal for rider Jos Zaal, with testing at Val Thorens in January 2014. Those details describe that project, not present-day product availability.

A demonstration is not a universal prescription

Fit, movement and individual needs are central to adaptive equipment. The film does not establish clinical approval or suitability for every amputee. Its value is in showing design shaped around a particular activity and user, with testing as part of the process.

Explore more: protective equipment and its limits; another specialised snowboard-and-ski film setting.

Related reading: Maria Leijerstam’s Tricycle Journey to the South Pole.

Video: B-Peg Prosthetic Leg for Snowboarding V2 (published by Lee Tan).

The rider is central to the design brief

The project’s credit to Jos Zaal matters because the equipment was developed around a real rider and an activity with particular movement demands. The connection between workshop views and snow testing gives the film its structure. An unusual mechanical appearance is only the beginning; the recorded trial shows the design being used in the setting for which it was intended.

Version two records a stage in development

The retained upload identifies B-Peg as version two and dates the Val Thorens trial to January 2014. That wording places the demonstration within a development process rather than presenting it as the final answer for every rider. Liang-Ti Tan’s design and the fabrication work by Boers Fijnmetaal remain credited separately, making the collaboration behind the prototype clear.

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