Eric Cylvick's '88 Extreme Thrill Ride

Riders enjoy the ZipRider at U.S.
resorts and parks.

Entrepreneur and inventor Eric Cylvick '88 (EE) has taken a backyard toy and turned it into a screaming thrill ride that propels riders to speeds up to 55 mph.

Eric created ZipRider TM, an extreme zip line cable ride that is, according to an article published earlier this year in The New York Times, "causing a sensation" at resorts and parks.

The patented ZipRider is a complex engineered cable system in which riders are harnessed to a suspended cable. Once harnessed, riders zoom over a half-mile down a mountain, dropping over 550 feet through 20 percent grades at speeds up to 55 mph. Essential to the cable ride is the automatic braking system that Eric designed, which includes a device built to automatically brake while the rider descends and regulates the speed. Because of this, the ride, according to Eric, is "exciting, but not jarring or abusive to your body, so it has wide appeal, even drawing children, elderly and disabled riders."

Eric is quick to point out though that making it as an entrepreneur can take more than hard work and creativity. "In order to start your own business and market a product around the world you've got to be willing to take a risk." Risk taking is a subject that Eric knows something about. He's a rock climber and an avid mountaineer; during his career he has controlled avalanches as snow safety director for the Park City, Utah, Mountain Resort Ski Patrol and guided raft trips on Idaho 's Salmon River.

"In order to start your own business and market a product around the world, you've got to be willing to take a risk."

Eric Cylvick '88

Eric's business partner is also his wife, Sarah. The two have been working together on the ZipRider since its inception and are now busy marketing it as well as developing related products. Since starting up production in spring 2002, their company TerraNova LLC of Wyoming has sold and installed four ZipRiders in Utah resorts: two at the Utah Olympic Park, one at Park City Mountain Resort, and another at Snowbird Mountain Resort. Eric is currently working on contracts with resorts in New Hampshire, Vermont and Norway, among others, with construction to begin in spring 2006. This fall Eric will introduce "ZipRescue" to the market, a device he invented for evacuating chair lifts, trams and gondolas. The company is also marketing a backyard version of the ZipRider.

Although an electrical engineering graduate, Eric relied on skills and knowledge related to mechanical and civil engineering to design and develop the ZipRider. "But that's the nice thing about what I learned at Clarkson," Eric says. "It doesn't matter what your specialty is when you graduate because you are prepared to do just about anything when you get out."

"The work ethic that's instilled in you and the creative people that surround you at Clarkson show you what it takes to make it in the real world," he adds.