Home Mountain Range: Austrian Alps
What was the highlight of your season?
On the competition side the highlite of my season was my run at the Freeride Worldtour in Fieberbrunn, Austria. We had really difficult conditions and i could manage to ride a challenging line( http://vimeo.com/21484063). The win of the overall Freeride World Tour Title in Verbier was a highlite too! The best riding I scored in Sochi, Russia during the past seaon, perfect woodruns with perfect snow, lots of fun!
Where did you ride this year?
The start of this season was good back home but it got bad right after christmas and I started to travel around. I finshed my season with a month up in northern Norway to film for our latest `hike ´ film Project, we had a great time up there!
Boards you used this year and for what conditions.
I was riding mostly the Flagship 64 because it totally suits my way of riding, no matter if in steep technical terrain or going fast and land some airs. Beside that I used the Solution 64 a lot, it almost feels like the flagship so i can charge on that board as well. The cool thing about the splitboard is that i can access a lot of new, remote terrain and still be able to ride hard.
In Norway weh ad a lot of bad weather days and we hiked in the trees, i loved the hoovercraft in this conditions for its incredible float and ist playfulness.
Why do you snowboard?
I snowboard because i love the feeling and the sensation of riding powder. It gives me everything i am looking for: magic moments out in nature, flow feeling when you are right there, it keeps me in balance, gives me adventure, and of course challenges me.
How do you train for snowboarding?
Beside all the other sports i do like surfing, mountain biking, climbing i developped my own specific way of training for snowboarding over the last few years. The focus there is on physical and mental skills you need to ride strong. I include a lot of balance exercises and functional moves in my training to gain strength i can really use when riding.
What will you do after snowboarding?
I hope i can keep on snowboarding until i am really, really old, like some of the guys you meet up in the mountains here in Austria with long white bearts, they seem to have no hurry and always a `knowing´ smile on their face!
What's your dream line look like?
O.k. i close my eyes and see whats coming up: Deep, steep and stable rebound powder, no rollovers, spines to ride and gap than after a nice windlip to slash three big fast turns to a good takeoff for a solid cliff, another three big turns a little out of the sluffline followed by a fun double. towards the bottom some nice rollers at least one on my toeside and another on my healside...
When did your start splitboarding? Do splitboards work? Has splitboarding changed snowboarding for you?
First time i went with a splitboard must be something like ten years back. After that i went back to snowshoes until a few years ago i decided to build my own splitboard out of my favorite board that time to go and explore more of the terrain around my homemountains. A result of that was the HIKE filmproject three years ago and the hike2ride movie we made last year. (http://vimeo.com/channels/hike)
My homemade split worked fine but to ride progressive it turned out to be too soft. It makes a big difference in the performence if a a board is designed to be a splitboard from the beginning on. What stokes me on my new splitboard is that i can access a lot of new, remote terrain and still be able to ride hard in all kind of conditions.
