The art of the obstacle: UNIT Parktech

A pioneer of snowboard and wake obstacles reveals his history and greatest challenges

To say that Johannes Degenhardt and UNIT Parktech build boarding obstacles is a bit like saying that Mozart wrote the odd jingle. From his early days boarding in Bavaria, to his current projects creating parks in Russia, China and New Zealand, Johannes Degenhardt has been exploring ways to push the boarding envelope.

Creating UNIT Parktech

"we want to take Wake The Line to the next level"

Back in the late-'90s, Degenhardt and his friends went riding in the Northern Alps. “We asked the lift guys for shovels and went to build our own kickers to session. We would do this three or four times a year, getting more professional each time. Then they asked us to build the snow park, which was the first snow park in Germany in the late-'90s. After I finished school, I spent three full seasons building the park (Fellhorn Funpark in Oberstdorf, Bavaria), which was a really successful project. I’m still in charge of it. That was my first contact with the snow-park industry, and it’s still our biggest project in snowboarding."

From there, it wasn’t that big a step to wakeboarding: after a stint working as a lifeguard at a Cologne stadium pool, he saw a chance to bring his ideas and engineering to wake ramps. Their first wakeboard and wakeskate tournament, Wake The Line, was held at Cologne's historic Stadionbad, and, soon after, it all really kicked off. "Three years ago we decided to start selling obstacles to cable parks – first in Langenfeld and Duisburg. The past three years have been really successful for us, especially selling obstacles for Wake The Line events."

Inspiration and challenges

Where do UNIT get the ideas for their obstacles from? Johannes explains that it's a mixture of pro advice and he and his team's own personal preference: “The first inspiration was definitely from features that I like riding myself. Then secondly I talked a lot to the riders and asked what they like to ride. Right now I don’t do that many designs by myself as we have a lot of good people on the team that are a lot better than me - they're pro wakeskaters and wakeboarders, so I trust them”.

"The first inspiration was definitely from features that I like riding myself."

Working with snow, ice and water presents the UNIT team with a range of extreme challenges when they design and install their bespoke pieces, meaning that what they use to construct them needs to be of the highest quality. “[With snowboarding] it’s minus 20 in the day and plus 20 in the day, this means a lot for the materials. We have steel edges on snowboards and skis so the obstacles need to be strong enough for the steel edges. Then we have a lot of wind on glaciers and ski resorts so you have to think about that a lot.”

“In the water you have the temperature as well but especially with the measurements with the obstacles, they’re huge for wakeboarders because you go much faster on a wakeboard than on a snowboard. You have much longer rails in wakeboarding, like 20m and 6m for snowboarding. More power and weight is applied on the anchor and screws with wakeboarding features."

Personal favourites

UNIT's recent Wake The Line event in Cologne saw the unveiling of a brand-new obstacle designed especially for the event: the Relentless stairset. And as it turns out, it's Johannes' favourite. “For wakeboarding, definitely the Relentless floating pool with stairset as this was by far the biggest challenge for everyone involved and attracted some of the best riders in the world. For snowboarding it goes a little bit back to the roots; everybody is using stuff you can find on the street like down rails, double kink rails and picnic tables. Personally I like the super basic stuff in snowboarding. Right now these are the top selling stuff in our range, the street stuff.”

Riding worldwide

Wake The Line and Fellhorn Park have given UNIT Parktech an international profile – and not just in the traditional snowboarding haunts of Europe and the US. "For snowboarding, it’s Air & Style in Beijing, China – the second this year held in the famous Birds’ Nest stadium. This is the biggest challenge to deal with, the Chinese Olympic committee over there. It's the biggest snowboard event in the world. We have some really good wakeboarding projects, like in Russia, in the city of Ekaterinburg. I just love building parks in places like this because nobody knows about our park business just from our video content, and they respect the park a lot so it’s a really good experience to see the kids happy. We’re also in Iran, and built a snowboarding park in the North Island of New Zealand, which was a challenging project, but one with a happy ending."

"it’s a really good experience to see the kids happy"

Changing the face of wakeboarding

Finally, we ask what the future holds for the company, including the incredible impact System 2.0 is having on wakeboarding. What makes it so special?

"It’s essentially a straight-line cable system, but it’s portable so you can set it up anywhere: swimming pools, public pools, etc. It’s cheap, it’s designed specifically for wake sports, and it gives a continuous ride so you don’t have to drop the handle or stop after one pull down the rail course. I think in the next 10 years, 80% of wakeboarding will be on the 2.0 system. As for us, for UNIT Parktech, we want to take Wake The Line to the next level: a creative park with the best riders in the world. We want to do a qualifier series, five or six qualifier events, give everybody the chance to compete. Now it’s an invitational event – but we want to take the qualifier events all over the world and give everybody the chance to qualify. This is one of the biggest challenges for the future. For snowboarding, it’s Air & Style. We have Air & Style in Beijing, Innsbruck and Munich, and we’re looking for one in the United States."