After a couple of seasons battling with a succession of injuries, Marco Smolla is back, healthy and filming again with Isenseven. We caught up with him at the recent Twisted Tricks session in Tourmalet to see how his winter’s been going and what we can expect from this year’s Isenseven movie.

Onboard: So Marco, good morning.

Marco Smolla: Bonjour!

OB: Is this your first time in the Pyrenees?

MS: Yeah, it is. It’s nice here. Before I didn’t even really know where the Pyrenees were exactly [laughs], but it’s nice, it’s pretty close to the sea, I hope we can go there tomorrow.

OB: Is that the plan?

MS: If the weather turns bad, which we don’t hope for of course.

OB: So how’s your season been so far?

MS: It’s been good. Pretty glad that I didn’t injure myself again this year, because I’ve just had two years where I was injured. That was kind of my main goal for this year. So, yeah, it worked out pretty well.

OB: Did you manage to get back to the level you wanted after those two years where you had those physical problem?

MS: Yeah. It worked out pretty well. I feel all good again, I’ve gotten used to snowboarding and being healthy again.

OB: Which crew did you hang with the most?

MS: I filmed with Isenseven, that’s pretty much the riders I hang out with most of the time as well.

Isenseven 2010 Teaser

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OB: So where have you guys been?

MS: Where? Mostly to the Alps. Like mainly in Austria, sometimes Switzerland, now here in the Pyrenees and I’ve been to Finland in December which was pretty interesting ’cause we went there at the end of December when it’s the shortest day of the year so there was only two to three hours of sunlight a day. That was a new experience. I’m going to go to Spitzbergen next week, which is an island far north from Norway, almost at the North Pole…

OB: Is that where you have to ride with the guns and everything?

MS: Yeah, right because of the ice bears and you have to have a gun if you go out of the village.

OB: How do you feel about that?

MS: Err, I just trust our guide I guess, he knows about it… [laughs]. It sounds pretty scary but I’m interested to see how it’s going to be there.

OB: What was your best trip so far this winter?

MS: The Finland trip I guess. It was kind of the first trip this season as it was in December and, yeah, it was a cool crew with Tobi Straus and David Bertschinger from Switzerland and the photographer Lorenz Holder from Germany plus some other guys. We only went there for 10 days, it was super cold – like the maximum was minus 30 degrees [laughs] – but it was such a good experience. We did reindeer riding and husky riding and skidoos and everything. It’s a nice landscape up there…

OB: And can you give us any insight into what’s going to be in the next Isenseven movie? From what you’ve seen, which riders have been stepping up and pushing hard?

MS: That’s hard to say. I must say I haven’t really seen that much from the other guys yet. I guess Freddy Evensen is doing pretty good again, but like David Bertschinger, who’s new to the crew, he seems really talented. I think he just got in to the whole sponsor thing a couple of years ago, so he’s pretty new and he’s motivated. We can expect something from him.

OB: So a little break on the beach after this session?

MS: It’s not definite but I would like to! I’ve got my surfboard here and my wetsuit and everything, so if it works out I’ll try to catch some waves.

OB: Well, we hope you guys can do that. Merci!

MS: You’re welcome.

Marc Swoboda. Frontside 7.

A horse shoe, a shark, 4 nations and some solid shred.

Finally the weather was with us in the Tourmalet area of the Pyrenees! A day with no wind and no nasty clouds was enough to get our Swedish crew motivated. Did they read our first report on the Twisted Tricks Maybe… Kalle Ohlson opened up the icy main jump, followed in his attemps by Sörman and Wilhelmsson.

Kalle Ohlson. Front 5.

Coin coin and De Le Rue shaping.

The Swiss-German crew composed of Swoboda, Smolla, Weber and Keller also had some joy on the horseshoe  (named in reference to the shape of the twin table), as did our hard working Frenchies – yes, I said that. Coin Coin loved a bit of switch back in his 5s and 7s, as his confidence returned at the same time as his eternal face mask. Local hero Mathieu Crepel showed up, he even took the jump once despite his freshly operated thumb, before heading off to some arty handplant shoot with photographer Jerome Tanon.

Cab 7 from Chris Sörman.

Jacob Wilhelmson. Backside 540.

Lunch was served on the spot – thanks to Ho5 – with some delicious and local lomo meat sandwiches, when Coin Coin prefered to perform some gnarly euro turns on the most old school board and set up we’ve seen in years. That’s also when the wind decided to come back for some fun. So no hitting the shark, or the wave, depending on how you wanna call it. The crew took the direction of the slopes for some mini shred on the local park, for the full pleasure of the tourists – mainly Spanish at the time of the year.

Crew.

Coi Coin Euro-carving.

The German crew will still hoist the flag of the Twisted Trick tomorow (Saturday), while the other riders will be called to other obligations. Let’s hope the weather will be friendly again, and if not, we take this opportunity to thank the infamous Ho5 crew, the resort, Nike 6.0 and Florent De Maria for the good times in the Pyrenees.

Adichat, as we say here ! Let’s hope the German-Swiss crew, for his first time in the Pyrenees, will find some waves on their way to Hossegor… Smells like springtime around here, eh ?

Our French Ed Youri fired in this short report of what’s been going down on a crazy set-up in Tourmalet.

Christoph Weber. Back 180.

The Ho5 crew have constructed a pretty creative set up here in the Tourmalet area: no less than 9 lines to get rad off for the crew of riders, including these dudes: Jakob Wilhelmson, Chris Sörman, Markus Keller, Marco Smolla, Victor De Le Rue, Knut Eliassen, Kalle Ohlson, Marc Swoboda, and Christoph Weber. Plus a back on form Gerome ‘Coin Coin’ Mathieu, who opened up the big jump today (Thursday) leaving all the others a little unsure as to what was doable or not on the ‘horseshoe’ like main kicker.

Victor De Le Rue. Front 3.

Marc Swoboda.

And then the action went down. I have to say, the image of the Frenchies taking it easy compared to the Scandis is long gone. At this session it seemed pretty much the other way round, with an over-motivated Victor De Le Rrue and Coin Coin ripping on main kicker (respectively countless sick rodeos from Victor, and swBS 7 and 10s from Coin Coin), Franck Moissonnier – Nike 6.0 host and team manager! – and local new comer Geoffrey Marcou.

Kalle Ohlson. Frontside 3.

Front 5 from Coin Coin.

Everyone had a pop under watchful lenses of the Pirates filming crew, except for Keller who took a pretty hard slam on the first day decided to save his strength for that Friday that is supposed to be the best day of the week. Another local, Dimitri Biau, stayed late at the spot to kill the hip and bag up some extra shots.

Jacob Wilhelmson.

Frontside air from Francky Moissonnier.

Special props also to Chris Weber, who dominated the shark tail with some old school backside air flavour… It was then time to bag up and take the ride back up behind the snowmobiles, to La Mongie. Tomorow (Friday) is announced as the best day of the week, and some of those riders are definately decided to kill the spot once and for all…

Swoboda, Keller and Smolla.

The crew.

The battle is still on.

Where: La Mongie, Tourmalet, France.

Twisted. (adj.) Peculiar and strange. Not of the norm. Used to describe persons or situations or things that are somewhat eccentric; maniacal, madness, psychopatic. Example 1: ”He had developed a twisted view of society after dating a kangaroo in the jungle for 10 years”. Example 2: ”Just what are you thinking up there in that twisted mind of yours when you look at me like that?”

La Mongie, Tourmalet – France. 23rd of March.

Here we are! In few days, the first edition of the Nike 6.0 Twisted Trick Tournament will finally take place in the Pyrenean resort of La Mongie, part of the Domaine du Tourmalet, from the 27th of March till the 3rd of April. 13 riders will take part to this session, based on twisted obstacles, freshly coming out of ho5′s Xavier Marcou and Christoph Weber’s minds.

The jumps concept is still secretly being held in the mountains up there. Let’s just say it’s going to be entertaining… On Monday, organisers Xavier, Christoph and Florent just had the confirmation that Gjermund Braaten & Markus Keller will also join the troops for the session, so everybody is super stoked with such a great riders list and we bet they just had beers to celebrate this.

The riders invited are:
Gjermund BRAATEN
Jakob WILHELMSON
Mathieu CREPEL
Chris SORMAN
Markus KELLER
Marco SMOLLA
Victor DE LE RUE
Knut ELIASSEN
Kalle OHLSON
Marc SWOBODA
Christoph WEBER
Teo KONTTINEN
Gérôme “Coin-Coin” MATHIEU

Check back soon for updates during the week!