If you only watch the big pipe contests you don’t always get a feel for just how smooth some of these riders really are. And on our national team there’s definitely no lack of style. So it’s cool to see guys like Jan, Pat and Hitsch working with filmers and photographers to translate their vision. If you haven’t seen Transitions, you can check it on the home page, or scroll to the bottom of this interview to see what we’re talking about. He makes pipe riding look damn good, so it seemed like the right time to have a little chat with him about it.

Hey Jan, what’s the story behind Transitions?
I didn’t really plan the whole thing in advance, but I rode a lot of pipe last year and had some really good sessions. After all the contests were over I was still motivated to film some new things in the pipe and that’s how the shots from this edit came together.

It seems like a lot of the more stylish pipe riders like you, Hitsch and Ben Ferguson have been trying to show off a different style of riding where there’s more focus on style and flow and less focus on tech. Do you think we should change anything about the way that competitions are judged so that we can see this sort of riding more often?
I think pipe contest snowboarding is going in a good direction. You see tricks like air 2 fakies or alleyoops more and more. Judges should give more points on new runs with new variations and less to standard runs. Style tricks are often more difficult than 1080s. Doublecorks four meters high look pretty impressive, but a stylish alleyoop 360 four meters high is way more difficult. In my opinion I think the judges should care more about this.

There’s a long tradition of great pipe riders from Switzerland. Who’s been your biggest influence over the years?
When I was about 8 years old Gian Simmen was my Hero.

Today I like Hitsch’s pipe riding the most.

Are you already starting to focus on the Olympics or do still have another season before you have to start thinking about that again?
No, I’m not thinking about the Olympics yet. It would be really nice to ride at the US X-Games but its hard to get an invitation. I also wanna shoot some new stuff in the pipe again this year…

As far as competitions, are you just concentrating on pipe these days or do you still ride some slopestyle?
I’m not gonna do big Slopestyle contests anymore, but I will always take some laps on the jumps.

I think its sad that pretty much every contest rider concentrates on one thing. But it’s almost impossible to be very good at both. All these triple corks, 14s and 16s were a good sign that I should probably just ride pipe contests for now, haha. I wouldn’t be able to do both.

Do you have some plans already for this season?
I’m going to do about 5 contests this year. The Laax Open and Oslo X-Games for example.

Afterwards i’m going to film with the Nitro crew.

Ah, nice! That’s rad that Nitro will be making another movie. Are there other big “Transitions” going on in your life now that Nike is out of the picture?
It was hard for me because Nike and Swatch dropped me in the same year… but snowboarding is still snowboarding and we all love it because of this.

Thanks for your time! Anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks to Chris Page, Blume and Stephan Maurer for filming.

Thanks to Laax for the edit and thank you for the interview.

Any time… also a big thanks to Filip Zuan for the great pics. Be sure to check out his work and some of his recent book projects here.