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26.08.2021
KOLD shapes Twintips at Kitemana
KOLD Shapes Kiteboards now available at Kitemana
Twintips designed with nature in mind
Kold shapes is up and coming, progressive manufacturer of high quality kiteboards! Lead by former freestyle Champ Mario Rodwald, Kold shapes does not only stand out with its intensive work in research and development for each of their kiteboards, which results in high quality, well performing and damn good-looking kiteboards. Kold shapes also does put an emphasize on reducing their environmental impact where possible, to protect our playground in the future. We are happy that we can offer you now all the beautiful twintips Kold shapes has to offer!On top, Kold shapes has just released the latest edition of their most popular twintip: the Polar II Kiteboard! The Kold shapes Polar has been the most popular kiteboard yet by Kold shapes and we are sure the second version will be just as popular! The Polar II will feel familiar to you if you already enjoyed the first Polar kiteboard, but you will also feel the extra pinch of performance that has been added to this new version of the Kold shapes Polar twintip. The Polar II is an all-round freeride freestyle kiteboard with a soft flex that allows you to ride smoothly through choppy conditions, cruise in comfort but also pop and jump high! You can find out more about the Kold shapes Polar II here in our shop and at the bottom of this blog.
To introduce Kold shapes to you, we have collected some key facts about the brand here below and also met Mario for a short interview.
Mario Rodwald is the founder of Kold shapes. Mario found his way into kiteboarding in 2001 as a 10 year old boy, started competing early and won his first German championships title in 2005. For many years Mario kept competing, winning titles (3x European titles and 8x German Championships… the list is long) and helped his sponsors develop kiteboards and by that gaining valuable experience and insights in research and development. When traveling the world for kiteboarding, he could visit all those Caribbean turquoise water paradises there are and we dream of so often. There, he faced the tragic reality plastic pollution in our oceans regularly. On top, he realized he felt where is he´s at home: in the rough, stormy and beautiful cold of our Northern Hemisphere. All of that, his experience in kiteboarding, his environmental awareness and his identification with the beauty that lies in rough, grey, stormy conditions merged into his very own kiteboard brand: Kold shapes!
Interview with Kold shapes founder: Mario Rodwald
Kitemana: Mario, first and foremost, we are happy at Kitemana that we will stock Kold shapes from now on. Can you introduce us and tell us all the details about the development with your latest twintip – the Polar II? Who is it for, what so special about it and what are you most proud of in your newest twintip?Mario: As the Polar I already had such a large fanbase, we wanted to make sure that the core properties of the Polar I are also retained and improved for the Polar II. The Kold Shapes Polar II still has a relatively soft flex and slightly narrower tips. It is a very comfortable freeride / freestyle board - extremely smooth and pleasant to ride, especially for your knees. This means you can have a lot of fun even in choppy conditions and it is ideal for the North and Baltic Seas, where you mostly find chop at many spots. In addition, we have installed an anti-negative flex stringer. This is made of flax fibers, as sustainability is very important to us. This stringer ensures that the Polar II does not bend negatively during landings. This allows us to build a really soft kiteboard that is also suitable for freestyling. For the Polar II we wanted to strengthen these properties a bit. We increased the grip in the water for more precise turns and take off for larger jumps by deepening the central channels. Everyone who already knows the Kold Shapes Polar I will notice the difference. You can time your jump more precisely, ride more aggressively and thus jump higher and also work on new tricks. We are very proud of this successful overall package. With these features, the Polar II is suitable for large variety of kitesurfers. Beginners will be happy about the accessibility of the Kold Shapes Polar II twintip and the smoothness and later this kiteboard just won't get boring. Many of our team riders, who are also out and about in the wakestyle discipline, keep a Polar board in their quiver for their big air and kite loop sessions. They usually ride the Horizon for unhooked sessions, but the first rallies and handle passes can also be trained with the Kold Shapes Polar II.
Kitemana: Kold shapes puts a focus on producing more sustainable kiteboards. What is your mission here, how do you try to achieve this and what challenges do you face? Also… I must raise a certain question: How does sustainability go along with the use of carbon fibers, like in your beautiful and awesome to ride twintip named Ikon?
Mario: I originally founded the company Kold Shapes after I shot the documentary "Plastic in Every Wave". Then I really understood the extent of environmental pollution much more in depth. As everyone knows, the kite industry mainly manufactures in Asia, which means that long transport routes and plastic packaging are the general rule. So, I thought there are some approaches to make this more sustainable. Of course, you never reach an end state with this topic as you can always do more, but we try to do what we can and are constantly improving. As a first step, we have decided to choose production facilities in Europe, which is of course also our main market. Our products are manufactured where most of the customers and trading partners are located. This of course also saves us a lot of emissions, since the transport routes are shorter, but we can also develop products faster and during Corona we were able to produce continuously. So, this has some advantages for us. In addition, we can better implement plastic free packaging on our current supply chain. We pack all products in cardboard and wood. Other organic materials, such as flax fibers, are used in some of the products themselves. However, our Kiteboard Ikon is made by using carbon, which has a stronger impact on the environment. Here we can improve even further. One thing we already do and have been done from the beginning is to offset all CO2 emissions from production for all our boards and all foils. In the case of foils, we have now also succeeded in using recycled carbon. This is a scrap from the aircraft and automotive industries. Those carbon fibers are being processed and can then be used again for other products, like our Viking foil.
Kitemana: Kold shapes has achieved very high production standards right from the start. What is your secret to that and can you tell us more about the use of Flax fibers in your kiteboards, as this is a unique material used in kiteboard production?
Mario: Flax is an exciting material and we let ourselves inspire here from other industries. In the boom of electromobility, for example, thise material is becoming more and more important and finds application more often as it has properties similar to glass fiber or carbon. The cool thing is that it has good rebound forces and can therefore take in a lot of power. This makes it wonderful to use as a stringer in kiteboards. This also allows for a very pleasant flex pattern across the kiteboard. The best thing about it: it is a renewable raw material! This is why it is also used in our new Kold Shapes Legend Waveboard. Of course, this always requires a certain amount of effort in development when you use a somewhat more unusual raw material for the first time, but we are glad that we can achieve such good results with it.
Kitemana: Last but not least, the kiteboard industry (as pretty much any industry using raw materials) faces some delivery shortages. Should we prepare for some waiting time here and there if we want to ride your twintips this summer or what’s the situation like for Kold shapes?
Mario: In general, we have benefited greatly from the fact that we produce more locally than other brands. This enabled us in 2020 to produce even when the supply chains were interrupted elsewhere. We were also able to develop further, which also benefited us with the Kold Shapes Polar II. For example, we were able to fix minor problems when work was interrupted at other brands. Now, wer have been busy and still are producing the new Kold Shapes Polar II and now have a well-stocked warehouse. However, I am curious to see how the general availability of goods will continue and the boom in kite sport this season – with these factors in the back of my mind, I cannot completely rule out that some very popular sizes will not be out of stock for a short time until we will receive more stock again. We are producing at full speed and are very optimistic that the launch of the Kold Shapes Polar II will be a success.
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