JOB SATISFACTION
When Matteo won the title that was the ultimate satisfaction for me. It is important to have positive tests in the magazines for sure, because they have an impact on the market. But when you have a top rider like Matteo send you a whatsapp message saying that the new Isonic is ‘the best board ever built for slalom’, you cannot be happier than that. When I heard Matteo won the title this year we had a big party in La Torche. I was there at the event and we went to a restaurant and had a great evening. The day after I had to leave early to go back to Thailand. I had to drive 1400 kms to Nice airport and it was not pleasant! Carting the test boards round the world is exciting aside from the check-ins at the airport for sure. Turkish airlines are no problem but all the others are always a mess! It can be difficult but for me it is worth it to be able to test with the team riders at different locations.
2018
The 2018 rocker line is the same as 2017, we will stay safe. We changed the vee and concave on the new 2018 boards but I can’t say in which direction until they are released. The outline has been modified again to make the board more lively but without losing control! I cannot divulge too much detail now but we are very happy with the result. Our new 137 is a dream to get planing! You close the sail and you plane already! You don’t need to pump too much. The new 107 handles a bigger wind range as you can put an 8.6 on it! It performs amazing without losing any performance on the 7.8m.
CONCAVE/ VEE
Vee helps make a board more comfortable. When you have a big concave, it helps your board fly even more if you use it correctly. The combination of the two is a difficult job and we do a lot of testing on how to combine the two to obtain the best results. This can also disappear easily in production because of the Cobra tolerances, so you have to make the boards work in a certain way so that one millimetre will not make a difference, otherwise forget it!
