Brand Focus - Apex Custom Snowboards
Sometimes you just don’t see what’s sat right in front of you; this is true of Apex Custom Snowboards. I’d been talking to a friend about wanting to film in a snowboard factory over a couple of Radlers (Shandy to non-Euros), he suggested that I drop local snowboard manufacturers Apex Snowboards an email. I’ve been hunting down small independent snowboard brands for the site for the last three years and despite being less than an hour drive from my front door Apex has not once appeared on my Radar.
Nestled in the mountains overlooking the small Salzburgerland town of Hollersbach the Apex Snowboard’s factory might have some of the best views of any factory on the planet. The tight and winding mountain road that snakes up to the factory’s stunning location is telling of Apex’s scale. I should imagine Apex is about as small as an independent snowboard manufacturer can get. Run and operated by Bernd and Peter originally an electrician and carpenter who have turned their passion for snowboarding into a profitable and much respected cottage industry. Apex began building and selling snowboards to the public in 2005 from the garage adjacent to Peter’s family home; however Peter and Bend had been building snowboards for themselves and friends long before Apex the company began trading. In 2011 Apex is still based in the same garage but the business has expanded into an additional outbuilding as their collection of machinery increased.
Being keen freestyle and freeride snowboarders Apex’s original snowboard output had focused on these board genres but the wheel of chance was spinning and a fortuitous encounter of female Austrian Boardercross legend and Obertauern local Doresia Krings and a friend’s Apex snowboard would change the course of Apex’s future. Impressed that a snowboard of such high quality was being put together by hand in her own country let alone Kanton, she got in contact with Peter and Bernd and the rest as they say is history. With several World Cup Boardercross wins and consistently strong results from riders using Apex boards the company’s reputation soon spread, inevitably it wasn’t long before World Cup Slalom competitors came knocking.
A quick teaser to the main video article.
Currently Apex produces around 200 snowboards a year, in the grand scheme of things this output is miniscule, but their operation isn’t a cookie cutting assembly line. Each board is meticulously shaped and assembled by two craftsmen who know their onions. Stock boards are a rarity at Apex as nearly every snowboard that leaves is customised to the customer’s unique specification. The scope for customising your board is almost a little bewildering, picking-up one of their boards and hand flexing it is completely pointless because Peter and Bernd can profile the core and arrange the board’s reinforcement to create the flex you want. If you like boards to flex more between the bindings for easy short radius carves and stiffer at the tail for stomping big drops consider it done. Graphic customisation is a given, what’s unique about Apex is the fine details to which the customer can pick and choose from a whole list of custom tweaks from the bevel on the board’s edges to the stance width and even the pattern and depth of Stone grind on the base. You get the impression that nothing is too much trouble for Peter and Bernd when it comes to creating a customer’s dream snowboard.
Apex Snowboards article video pt.1: Bernd from Apex and Rich from Snowboard-Review.com show you around the factory.
For such a small outfit Apex’s range of “out of the box” snowboards is pretty substantial. The Vador is Apex’s directional freestyle board, it has a slightly firmer than middle-of-the-road flex which of course is customisable and a fairly aggressive sidecut. Sandwiched between the inoffensive sublimated graphics and lightning fast sintered 7900 grade die-cut base are a hand crafted wood core and triaxial fibreglass and carbon fibre weave laminates. If you’re an all-mountain snowboarder who likes to hit big transitions in the park and deep in the backcountry this is the board in the range for you. Like all Apex snowboards the board profile is a snappy traditional camber. Next-up is the Classic, a shallower radial sidecut, a longer more floaty nose uplift and a shorter tail kick are the trademarks of the Classic. As I mentioned earlier, Apex’s boardercross specific competition snowboards are paying the bills, Apex have two shapes the standard Boardercross Pro and the Boardercross Pro+, the Pro+ being the more race tuned shape with a considerably longer effective edge, very low and short kicks and the additional of a Titanal, a layer of metal sandwiched into the snowboard’s construction for increased torsional stiffness and its exceptional dampening properties. The Boardercross Pro sticks to a more traditional freeride shape meaning it is more versatile for when you just want to hike a line in the backcountry or blast about in the sidecountry. Both the Boardercross Pro and Pro Plus have a progressive sidecut and use a faster Graphite Sintered base. The Apex range concludes with the Slalom and Giant Slalom Fast+ boards, directional Hard Boot race boards which are available with Apex’s Flex Plates and Board on Board technology, a pivoting and sliding riser plate that allows the rider to retain a powerful leg position through hard carves.
Apex Snowboards article video pt2: Bernd talks through the 2011/12 Apex “off the shelf” board line
Currently Apex has distribution partners in Australia, Russia and Korea and has recently signed with a distributor in Japan, but Peter and Bernd aren’t looking for world domination or to even grow their business quickly, since the start their company’s growth has been organic and sustainable they want to keep it that way. In 2011, 6 years since they started Apex Snowboards Bernd and Pater are building some of the best handmade snowboards on the planet in one of the most beautiful locations in the Alps and collecting a growing list of satisfied customers. They are living the dream and it shows in the boards, which are complete labours of love. To find out more about Apex check –out the website apex.snowboardcontest.com
Posted by Rich Ewbank in Features.
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