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| The upper gate is waiting for some action. |
Well after leaving for Gerlos Wednesday 2 weeks past, and drooping in what can only be described a short spring/summer stint riding all sorts of slush in fog and bluebird as well as evacuating to Hintertux to get a cool off at -3 (yes it was -3 at 3200…since it was 18 degrees in the Valley) it was time for Fieberbrunn again. FYA I also managed to FINALLY get may STANSTON park-skies a binding… the one I wanted.. but cheaper ๐
Left: My beloved Orpler wall +Hintertuxer Gletscher , Right: Whats left of the tux Halfpipe
I was staying with my old man and “evil twin” in Gerlos. My original plan was to go to Fieberbrunn and photograph an report on the next stop of the FREERIDE WORLD TOUR. With the gnarliest warmfrant hitting the northern alps the competition was postponed that friday till the past weeken. I already settled that it would not be worth it and I should use my remaining day to hit the HOTZONE park at Gerlos. I also hadn`t received any additional info for my accreditation since as usual I was so busy that I remembered to send it of on like Wednesday while on the autobahn on my way to Gerlos at a Gastop…
So I woke up on a Sunday morning, packed up, and hit the Park. It started snowing a little and fog came up. Killing time I did tons of runs on the BMW XDrive Gaintslalom course thinking “What the hell at least I can win a car :P. So at noon it was so fogged up that the camera system stopped working and I decided to head back home. I considered crashing Innsbrucklyn but kinda wasn’t in the mood for some odd reason… oh well.. of to Ljubljana I thought.
But then while driving I passed Mittersil where one turn makes you go into the Fieberbrunn direction and I took it XD.
Upon arrival a ton of stuff was already going on ๐ The EXPO and viewing areas were bustling with crowds and a powderski test was under way. Business was apparently running nicely ๐ I quickly grabbed my Photo stuff took my trusted powder skies and went up the mountain.
THE FACE
It was clear that the contest-face would be the Wildseeloder NE face. When I got up at first everything was clouded up and it was raining. Total crap.
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| The starting gates. Now there are two ๐ |
I went back down to check out some EXPO stuff but then seeing, that the clouds were starting to break up I returned to get a few nice shots of the entire contest face.
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| People still partying at the top well after everyting is postoponed |
The face is awesome and next time the conditions are ok I am still planing to hit that. Unfortunately last time we were here the conditions were also not optimal and we had to stick to the Cablecar runs. But hey the winter is not over yet.
I also spotted some of the organizers doing checkups on the face where a nasty wet triebschnee avalanche had gone down. So saftywise the thing was a total no go for saturday!
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| This feature of the face is gonna be very interesting to watch. |
I made a little POSTER of the face from the upper Start gate all the way to the finish you can get here ๐ !!
EXPO
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| The Stage and the EXPO |
So when I headed back down to the bottom the EXPO and the side program were in full swing. Niederlenders were already drunk as hell watching the bikini girls dance in a snow globe and some of the contestants where having a beer. Ski-tests were busy and people were buying merchandise.
And that’s what I liked about the EXPO idea. Think of it as a mobile trade fare that targets your demographic. For an incentive *sponsoring or buying space* you as a business get into direct contact with the customer, get valuable feedback and prestige associated with such a high profile event.
It`s a good wake-up call for all the old school marketing methods seen at the FIS races where you basically invest a SHITLOAD of money just to put you logo on a banner. Here it adds the additional social interaction aspect that freeride goods manufacturers need to bring there massage across.
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| Busy was the skitest XD |
Sure we like Brands but functionality trumps brand loyalty and functionality has to be brought to the customer. You have to show your potential buyers that your gear is up to the task and can withstand the rigors of the mountain extreme.
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| The Hitradio OE3 Pistenbully laying down the beats ๐ |
This is a aspect very different from traditional alpine races, coz Hans Autonormal is not going to go buy the most expensive Atomic Raceski coz Marcell Hirscher rides them. He is gonna go buy the cheapest piece of salescrap at the local Hervis and instead treat himself to an excessive amount of beer at the race venue… and that is something the organizers understand well. Ok we to treat ourselfs to the beer, at least the once that drink it ๐
So we had The North Face, SCOTT, GoPro, Majesty, Dakine, ABS and ARVA as well as a few others showing there stuff to onlookers. It was kinda like a small ISPO for the end-consumer.
Juniors
There was one more event next to the main thing that was on hold. The juniors competition. After all the FREERIDE WORLD TOUR also needs to make sure the next generation is up to the task and therefore next to the main tour there is a 3 stop juniors tour. Also the kids can take the points they make to the tour when they turn 18 and get to spend the days with the pros, learning about riding, safty, line choice etc. Unforitonaly thnx to the overcast this competition was also suspended.
Well so much for a little intro on all the things going on around the competition!
The competition since whent down on Saturday and a 20year old Silas Chickering-Ayers von ๐ Check it out.
PS: On a side note I also finally managed to solve my Goggle problem, so one could say that this trip from Gerlos – Zillertal – Tux and then Fieberbrunn was a lot about upgrading my age old gear ๐
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| These should work fine XD |