2012-02-23 13:32 von Admin
SNOW - Quali team #4 Real Family
Hailing out of Carinthia bordering Slovenia in South East Austria, the Real Family formed as a crew no more than a couple of years ago, totally focused on the core values of snowboarding: the sport, friendship and party. After about a year, they thought they had what it took to be taken seriously with the other big crews out there that they had grown up watching and respected. That decision lead them to pull out an old Hi-8 Camera and start shooting all of their trips to different locations resulting in the production of their first crew video.
Much to their surprise, not only did it turn out well, there were even people who liked it. Liked it enough at least for them to continue working on new productions each year where both the riding and the production improved. As the popularity of facebook exploded they jumped at the opportunity of making a Real Family fan page that took the idea to another level, creating a chance to become known and seeing the Family grow at the same time.
Today the real family has Pro Riders, some sponsored kids, and almost as importantly a bunch of non-sponsored buddies. True to the core, the Real Family is all about the fun, not the business.
2012-02-23 11:34 von Admin
SNOW - Quali team #3 Natural Born Chillaz
The Naturalbornchillaz crew, in short NBC, are based in a small Swiss resort called Hoch Ybrig and are charging the backcountry and streets for over 12 years. Since the resort is relatively small, there is no way that riders can’t notice each other. Since the terrain is full of bumps and windlips it didn’t take long for a small scene of freestyle enthusiasts to evolve. Many crews came and left, but the NBC crew is like a big family, a bond that can never be broken.
Around the year 2000, the NBC crew started running their own park making some of the members professional diggers during winter. In Switzerland, the NBC crew is well known for organizing unique events such as the SNOW JAHZEE or NBC TRAININGDAYS, not to mention all the epic festivities.
Three of the top NBC riders, Roger Schuler, Deniz Cinek and Mike Knobel were chosen to represent the NBC family.
check their website here: www.naturalbornchillaz.ch
2012-02-22 13:41 von Admin
SNOW - Confirmed team #4 The Italian Connection
Last year, due to impending weather about to hit Mayrhofen and in the spirit of the “It’s On when it’s On (only it’s on a day earlier than we expected!)” ethos of the event, all crews were informed we intended to start the event a day earlier. Then, as now, captain of The Italian Connection, Stefano Munari. put out the battle cry, only to find a couple of his team were stuck without transport and therefore were unable to make it. Fortunately this year, Stefano does not have that problem as of “The Italian Connection” is powered by the FIAT Freestyle Team guarantees. So the transport will not be an issue!
Just like in the Football World Cup, “The Italian Connection” squad combines a talented, power and style in a balanced team. With Captain Stefano controlling play in the midfield, he can draw from the experience and sublime skills of Fillippo Kratter, with power striker, rookie Marco Grigis always unpredictable and dangerous. It is the sort of team that has it all, which looks dangerous on paper and always surprises come match day. One thing is for sure, they are backing their formidable offense to make their way through the knock-out stages!
The perfect team for the perfect set up? We will have to wait to find out, but when you look at the Vans Wängl Tängl set up for 2012 and see the all new design for the Red Bull End Section, the combination of pipe, park, rail and backcountry skills may well see the FIAT Freestyle Team of “The Italian Connection” driving home in their usual style, with a wad of cash and more importantly their first Tängl Title trophy…
2012-02-21 15:36 von Admin
SNOW - Quali team #2 Boarders Valley
All of the Boarders Valley Tängl Team guys grew up in the Engadine (Boarders Valley) where they shred most of the time. They apply the name «Boarders Valley» from the valley legends such as Gian Paul Schmidt, Michi Albin, Dani Sappa and Reto Lamm. Today they organize events in the valley, go shred togheter in every kind of terrain and make some short edits. The only thing what counts for them is having fun on the mountain. So Corsin, Luca and Men will represent the Team Boarders Valley at Wängl Tängl 2012. The crew wish the Wängl Teams would be bigger so we could bring the whole crew to Mayrhofen. (editor’s note: Nevertheless bring the whole crew to party and to cheer for you!)
Facts:
In 2007 lead on the name Boarders Valley.
In 2009 they had the new crew togheter and started to organize events.
Tängl Boarders Valley Team members:
Luca likes to ride all kind of terrain, but most of the time he is riding the park he is building in St. Moritz. At night he is going shooting on the streets. Unfortunately the experience in powder is not that big yet.
Men is also most of the time in the park and at night at streets shootings. Powder riding is coming up soon.
Corsin, the oldest shredder of the boarders valley wängl team and also captain of the team started snowboarding with riding park and competitions. Today he is trying to search progression in snowboarding by riding in natural terrain.
Wängl Tängl Boarders Valley Team history:
2010 Wängl Tängl Team «Gummi Love» (Davide Beltracchi, Corsin Simeon, Luca Kuppelwieser)
2011 Wängl Tängl Team «Robo Cocks» (Adrian Krainer, Men Schmidt, Luca Kuppelwieser)
2012-02-21 14:31 von Admin
How to win the WT in 4 Steps
As the new designer (Wolle Nyvelt shaped & designed the Cradle from 2002-2010) of the world famous Red Bull End Section, the holder of the most Tängl titles than any other rider, and the Captain of the current defending champions, Team 99, we decided to examine his strategy for wining the Vans Wängl Tängl. Steve, although being a little elusive on the specifics so as not to give away to much of his strategy, gave us these four simple steps to Win the Vans Wängl Tängl by G-Shock:
We’ve always said the Wängl Tängl was by shredders, for shredders, and the Red Bull End Section is the classic example. The CAD design phase involves turning your computer on, popping a couple of cold beers, and starting to mess around with the Newtonian laws of Physics – Snowboarder Version 101 – on a design program. As simple (or hard) as this may sound, Steve looks at it like this:
“Personally, I like to ride everything, and it’s pretty cool when you are given the support, the machines, an epic shaping crew and such a large pile of snow from the Mayrhofen Bergbahnen to play with. It means your imagination can pretty much go wild. Not too wild mind you. I’d look like an idiot if I couldn’t actually ride what we built!. Each year we focus on trying to make something completely new, fun to ride and something everyone is going to be stoked on. In the past we’ve had cradles, hips, rails, transfers and most importantly, as many optional lines as we can think of… At the end of each year you end up thinking, “Damn, what are we going to do next year…!” But there is never a shortage of ideas from the Ästhetiker crew, and actually I enjoy messing around on the computer – at least when it involves designing something like this! Getting the trannies right is not so hard, you sort of do that when you are building a kicker back country to get take off and landing in line anyway. The hardest thing is to make sure it’s challenging, that is has many different optional lines, and that it works for a 3-man team hitting it all at once. I sort of work on the “Make it and they will tear it apart…” school of thought.”
A computer game, while it does a great job in modeling reality, is not in fact reality – all-be-it at times feeling awfully close. Steve, being the professional that he is, takes the time to head out into the great outdoors and re-make the idea he’s pulled out of his head, put into the computer, and test it in the real world – in a mini version to start out with.
“Actually, I don’t know if the modeling stage is really necessary… I think maybe I’m just a bit of a nerd! But once you have been sat in front of the computer, tested like twenty designs, it’s pretty cool to get outside for a bit and try to check out if it looks like it will actually work in real life. You can sort of see some things that you don’t see on the computer when you make the model because you can add or take parts away and you see straight if that makes sense or not .Like with the CAD design, you can take a look at it from every angle to see if it makes sense and looks fun to ride. It also means when we hand the design over to the shapers, the CAD model is definitely enhanced and makes more sense with the Mini Design photos.
The Mayrhofen Bergbahnen committed to making the best snowboard park in Europe over ten years ago, and has stuck to that mission ever since. The Vans Penken Park is world famous for it’s design, access, snowboarders shapers, and constant upkeep. The early years it was overseen by Stefan ‘Platti’ Plattner, and now in it’s second year with Q-Parks it’s overseen by Bernd Mandelberger, Sven Toller and the Vans Penken Park shaping crew.
“Well… I’d like to claim I had a lot to do with the finished product of the real deal, but it’s really the Vans Penken Park shaping crew that do all the real work. I swing by a couple of times a week to check out the progress between backcountry booter sessions to check the line and the trannies. We have meetings almost every night leading up to the event, and there is nothing better than having a snowboarder sitting in the cat – that’s for sure. What’s really cool, is we are all pretty proud and totally stoked to be given the chance to take some crazy idea and bring it to reality…. When you can do that with people like Bernd, Sven and their crew it’s even better. A little secret not many people know – give the shapers a team at the event and it is crazy how good the features turn out because they all know they are going to get to ride it…. All I know is there is something really sexy about seeing the design come together in real life. Makes you want to shred it…!”
Designing it doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to win it… you still have to ride it! But Team Captain, Stevo and his Team 99 including Friedl Kolar and Rudi Kröll (formerly Team 96 which drew their name from the combined total of their ages) did just that. Is there an unfair home ground advantage for Team 99 as the Captain designs the Red Bull End Section?
“Nah. Maybe. Probably… actually, I don’t know… ha, ha, ha! I mean, in the design process I send out some of the early designs to the Ästhetiker Crew for feedback and ideas. They also get a look at the Mini Design to make sure everyone thinks it looks fun to ride. So, I suppose we have a couple of months to visualize the lines that we want to do. Maybe, subconsciously, you get it in your mind to pick out little transfers on the mountain as you are riding around that remind you of what we are planing to build. In a way, maybe that is a little form of training. But in reality, the first couple of runs on the finished End Section, I catch myself thinking, “Woooo… that’s way bigger than I was thinking… ha, ha, ha.” But in the end, that’s why we set up the Wängl format to allow training runs between the judged runs and try to give as much time as possible to ride the whole course. I think you could probably ride a whole week in the Vans Wängl Tängl park and in the end you still find some new lines in the park which you haven´t tryed out before. And that’s exactly why we build it this way. Adding to that, you have to get your own line down in coordination with the rest of your team. Anyway, if anyone starts complaining about home ground advantage, they don’t have to deal with the ‘Beasts from the East’ (Team Absolut)..or any of the other hot ,hungry youngun huck teams..so we take what we can get to keep up with them,hahaha!”
Stay tuned to this page, we will be looking at releasing this years Red Bull End Section design in the next couple of weeks – as soon as we can get Steve out of the powder and to finish his Mini Design for this year….