Swiss Gold - Page 2
March 27, 2008 @ 1:46 PM
Nico Droz - Les Crosets
Tranquille, tranquille
Being rootless as I clearly am, I have no real reason to stay in Switzerland. So why do I? It’s certainly not the cheapest place in the world to raise my two kids, after all. But the answer is simple: the mountains. This area is the perfect place for people like me who shoot snowboarding. I consider the area I live in to be one of the best on this planet and within 100km there are about 50 resorts. I haven’t even been to half of them.
The riders I shoot are also special. I think the Swiss-French scene has a special flavour to it. I just think the riders are very humble and quiet. We always used to laugh back in the days because the French had all the mags and a bunch of well-known riders but most of them sucked and were nowhere as good as a lot of unknown riders in Switzerland. Switzerland has never really had any kind of magazine or anything and I think that if me and David Vladyka (now filming for Absinthe) hadn’t been covering this part of Switzerland it would still be unknown. That’s what I love here: there’s no ‘scene’ or anything, just a bunch of friends who love to shred and who are good at it.
If you’re into the snowboard “party” kind of lifestyle, then I would advise you to move to Innsbruck, which is pretty similar to this part of Switzerland only with nightlife. A lot of foreigners that come here find it really nice but quite boring as there’s not much going on besides the Montreux Jazz Festival in the summer and some obscure concerts once in a while. You can forget about après ski around here. But I think that’s what produces great riders. When people go to ride, they actually ride and don’t talk rubbish or use it as an excuse to pick up chicks in nightclubs.
To me, perfect examples of Swiss attitude are Fredi Kalbermatten and Nico Müller. You never hear these guys ramble on about something useless, or sport some kinda style. These guys just ride without wasting any energy in the lifestyle part of it. When they come to shoot, they don’t complain. They ride, and ride well.
