Events

Red Bull Station Riots 2017 – Jibbers Light Up Nesselwang

[Øivind Fyske rode hell for leather the whole day and deservedly bagged first place. Photo: Lorenz Holder]

The Red Bull Station Riots in Nesselwang, Germany, celebrated another hammer-laden edition last weekend with some of Europe’s heaviest jibbers taking the epic Snowpark Nesselwang set up to pieces. Norway’s Øivind Fyske bagged the important ‘Best Line’ award for his onslaught of borderline madness, but the whole day was loaded with some of the most cutting-edge jibbing you could hope to witness.

Since 2015 Red Bull have been supporting the Snowpark Nesselwang to host what’s dubbed ‘The Station’ – a predominantly urban-themed section of their already legit park (they’ve even got one feature built to look like a police station) that’s been serving up the goods to shredders from Allgau and beyond with one of the sickest small mountain setups in Europe.

Having never been to this corner of Germany region before, it was surprising how Scandinavian the vibe is there – Nesselwang is effectively the first mountain that rises out above the rolling plains, so the view from the park is of a surprisingly flat landscape. But, as Scandi snowboarders will tell you, when it comes to hardcore riding it’s the facilities, not the view, that counts. And it was hard not to be impressed by what the Snowpark Nesselwang crew have created there.

[Below: Süd Tirol’s Max Zebe has an excess of style. Photo: Lorenz Holder]

[Above: Ethan Morgan was twirling 450s off this bad boy. Photo: Lorenz Holder]

Occupying a good half the length of the Stellenbichllift, Snowpark Nesselwang is a long-ass park littered with all manner of jibs, jumps and obstacles to cut loose on both day and night. For a mountain that – with a grand total of three lifts that we counted – is tiny in the grand scheme of things, it’s a seriously impressive bit of freestyle investment that seems to be paying dividends with the local community of snowboarders.

And for the second edition of the Station Riots, they’d invited some of Eurojibbing’s finest to come and throw down on this all-time setup. Jesse Augustinus, Ethan Morgan, Benny Urban, Kevin Trammer, Simon Pircher, Max Zebe, Marc Swoboda and more were just some of the pros that awaited the qualifying riders in the the semis of the Best Line contest. It was a jam-style format – none of your ‘three runs and done’ rubbish here – with the guys getting multiple runs in a certain amount of time leading to an inevitable onslaught of action to blow the minds of the crowd.

At least three tricks in one line had to be landed through the contest setup to count, and from the get go it was clear the judges were going to have their work cut out for them. Max Zebe was slinking his way down with his trademarked style, Swoboda was living up to his ‘Smooth Grinder’ hype by lazing his way through switch runs, Benny Urban and Ethan Morgan were winding up the rozzers by getting busy on the police station, and Øivind Fyske had clearly drank from the Halldor Helgason cup of snowboarding and was going all in on every run… it was rapid fire riding and it was great to watch.

[Below: Marvin Salmina was putting down eye-popping combos down over the rainbow bridge. Photo: Lorenz Holder]

[Above: Michi Mayer flips the filth the bird. Photo: Lorenz Holder]

As the sun began to dip, casting a surreal glow over proceedings, the finals got underway. For a while it looked like last year’s winner, Kevin Trammer, might well make it two in a row, but there was strong competition from Fyske, Morgan, Marvin Salmina, Max Zebe and Benny Urban. Nothing could be taken for granted. It was hard to keep up with the runs – the judges were sat on a tower for a reason – but it was clear that Øivind had been flying fast and dangerous through the top section, and then he’d be charging over the police station with 50-50 back 5s over the whole thing, 50-50 to back rodeos over the cannon, and 50-50 transfer 50-50 back 180 offs over the rainbow bridge.

The dude was going all in, and when the winners were announced it was a visibly stoked Fyske who took top honours thanks to this line: Cab 270 to Regular on the Elbow Rail, a Frontside 270 to Regular over the Z-Rail, a BS 360 to 50/50 on the industry feature, a 50/50 to backflip indie from the Canon and a final Frontside boardlide over the rainbow bridge.

Props again to the crew who pulled the Red Bull Station Riots 2017 off, and you can be sure that having had our eyes opened to the heavenly glory of this corner of Germany, we’ll be back in Nesselwang again.