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:
Step 1: The CAD Design Phase
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.”
Step 2: The Mini Design Phase
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.
Step 3: Work with Park Crew
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…!”
Step 4: Ride with Team
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….
„Wängl Snow 2011“ Movie: