First it was skateboard ramps. Then cut the board. Now TrueRide Inc., of Duluth, Minn., memos using material from their efforts to create a line of outdoor furniture.

Loll Designs is the label TrueRide put in Adirondack chairs, benches, picnic tables and outdoor furniture it began making last summer.
This is the latest attempt to fast-growing company that sells $ 4 million worth of products and services last year - in addition to moving to a new manufacturing facility in tax-free zone, building addition, employees and began to add furniture lines.

TrueRide has done little marketing of products lounged - so called because it "furniture for the modern lollygagger." That effort will be intensified in the coming months as the products move into markets where people have a lot of income, such as the Twin cities, Chicago and other major metropolitan areas.

Loll products are made of 5/8-inch, black, high-density polyethylene is used outside the customs building skateparks TrueRide. Pieces held together with stainless steel fasteners, and they should last indefinitely, co-owner Dave Benson said.

Furniture has a sleek, modern look, even for traditional pieces such as Adirondack chairs.

Retail prices range from $ 150 for a small table for about $ 600 for a picnic table and benches. The chair is about $ 300 each.

Convenience is the most important in the minds of designers Jeff Taly, who also designed skateboard parks for TrueRide. He said the Adirondack chair was refined through about 20 prototypes.

"We've really tested them in humans," said Dave Benson.

Line does have some competition in the store, however, said Lynn McComber, patio buyer at Energy Plus. Loll sold at his shop next to another brand of environmentally friendly, called Polywood. Similar products are available elsewhere, too. But customers seem to like the product lazy, especially when they know they're made in Duluth, McComber said.

Duluth renowned architect David Salmela - co-owner Kara Salmela's father-in-law - bought a lounging chair some time ago and liked many things about it, including that it is maintenance free and can be left outdoors all winter.

"The design is rather traditional, but yet they have a twist to them that makes them modern," he said. He also found the seat comfortable for people of various sizes, he said.

The idea to make furniture TrueRide appeared in about three years ago as a way to use waste materials from the company to build skateboard ramps. It is the same concept that led to the launch of Epicurean Cutting Surfaces, a line of cutting boards made from composite laminates are also used woodfiber-in ramps.

Cutting-line board has now become a separate company ships orders 30-60 a day throughout the nation and to eight other countries, Dave Benson said.

So far, the products are not idly turned into profits, but they are in the early stages, Dave Benson said. If successful, the furniture business, along with the cutting board business, will help smooth out the peaks and valleys, skateboard park in TrueRide production.

"We really hope this furniture can do something ... and in the markets completely different," co-owner Greg Benson said.www.timesleader.com