Snowboarding: All crisis or innovative development

Tobi: Holger, you were bothered by the fact that I wrote on PowderGuide that nothing new is happening in the snowboard industry or that the rocker construction for snowboards is of little use. You see things very differently: what's your opinion on this, are there any major innovations at the moment?
Holger: There are a lot of innovations happening in snowboard construction at the moment. The new rocker/camber constructions in particular are improving the riding characteristics and giving the boards a wider range of use.

Snowboards are also becoming lighter and lighter, have better flex characteristics, are easier to control and new shapes are emerging. These are often derived from the original snowboard shapes from the early days of snowboarding, but they are interpreted and implemented according to today's technological standards. This creates completely new possibilities for snowboard construction.

The first snowboards in the 80s already had a rocker and strong pintails. This made them very maneuverable, but they didn't have good edge grip. The boards were also very hard and didn't have a decent flex. As a result, the riding characteristics were very mediocre.

Tobi: In your opinion, what is the reason that snowboarding is increasingly falling behind skiing in the public perception?
Holger: In the 90s, snowboarding was the only way for young people to discover something new in winter sports, to be different, to experience a new lifestyle and to escape the conservative ski sport, which was stuck in an innovation cul-de-sac at the time.

Today, there is momentum and innovation in skiing again, but the ski industry owes this in particular to the snowboard movement: Waisted skis, rocker technology, freeriding, cool clothes and, above all, style in skiing, almost all of it now comes from snowboarding. But you also have to realize that the new waisted skis have improved the fun factor of piste skiing enormously; alpine snowboarding no longer exists and it has become much easier to ski.

Tobi: How much has the decline in the self-service industry been in figures? Are you selling fewer boards today than you used to and how are your competitors doing?
Holger: Concrete figures are hard to come by, and you also have to take weather-related fluctuations into account - we've had very little snow in two winters in the last five years. But I think it will level out at around 20 to 25% decrease.

Tobi: I've often heard you say that the Olympics have harmed snowboarding. What do you mean by that?
Holger: The Olympics is a very old event for classic sports with very traditional and conservative hierarchies. I don't think snowboarding as a young individual sport is suitable for this. The sport is still young and is developing rapidly. Only independent events such as the TTR series [= Ticket-To-Ride series] or the X-Games can do justice to this change and constant development. The Olympics are not the right format for this.

Tobi: I find it particularly astonishing that the snowboards currently being ridden are getting shorter and shorter and snowboarders don't seem to have any need for long, freeride-compatible boards. And snowboarders have also become comparatively rare in freeriding; I estimate that 90% of freeriders are on skis. How do you explain that?
Holger: That's a good question that's difficult for me to answer. I don't think your 90% thesis can be proven, as the snowboarder quota varies greatly from region to region. The modern shorter boards, now often with new camber shapes, offer more float in powder even in shorter lengths. However, a slightly longer board offers more stability in the backcountry and better riding characteristics in the higher speed range.

Tobi: If there is a way out of this crisis for snowboarding, what could it look like?
Holger: There are many factors that can trigger a crisis. Skiing is also in crisis and is in decline. Only in various small and special areas, such as freeskiing, are we currently seeing growth. New technologies and the further development of the sport could be the way out of the crisis. Snowboarding is still a young and fascinating sport with many possibilities.