After a professional snowboarding career lasting 20 years, Franck Moissonnier (aka Franky Moiss) joined the Decathlon snowboard team in 2018 as technical partner.
Who is he? what does he do? How does he do it?
Find out about the great contribution Franck Moissonnier makes to the Decathlon snowboard department.
FRANKY MOISS, SNOWBOARD TECHNICAL PARTNER AT DECATHLON
During his professional career, Franky took his first step into co-developing boards with several well-known snowboard brands.
From his 20 years as a pro, he has developed the knowledge, requirement and perfection of the product.
This valuable expertise has been called up a fair few times to test equipment for specialist snowboard stores.
Franky is involved from the very beginning until the product goes to market.
He brings all his expertise to draw up the brief, participate in testing the first prototype, supports the team on making improvements until approval of the final version.
He may also be called upon to support simple product changes with the aim of improving its use on the snow.
Over the last 4 years, Franky has provided feedback on the snowboard range by advising on the flex adjustment of the park and ride board for example.
Along with the design team, he then co-developed the ENDZONE 500 boots, the ALLROAD 900 board, the 100 beginners board, the splitboard, a future carving powder board and just recently Enzo Valax’s future freestyle performance board.
For Franky, the snow test is an essential step of the snowboard or snow boot’s development process.
It’s also the most important step to his eyes as it will reveal the result of the previous long design effort.
The snowboard prototype workshops are located within the design team offices at the heart of the French Alps. The board cores are machined and pressed and then the different prototypes are compared on a bending bench to lock in the design before undergoing snow tests.
To have these workshops available to the design teams is a real asset as far as Franky is concerned and allows them to be more efficient.
Having Franky on the team during the snow tests is a real opportunity. His experience, expertise and requirement mean that the product can be adjusted to the very last detail with the aim of offering all riders accessible and high-performing equipment. Yohann, product manager
Let’s take the example of a freestyle board test.
The brief is very precise with the aim of designing a board at the top of a freestyler’s requirements.
The objective of the snow test: to check that the board’s behaviour aligns with the plan envisioned by the design team.
See how Franky took to testing this board:
Testing a snowboard’s torsion reports on its tolerance. The tolerance requirement varies according to the board’s programme. The brief on this board was for a freestyle performance board with high torsion. To test the torsion, Franky will bend the board on the flat.
His debrief: "It felt good, the board has enough high tension to forgive the mistakes and errors of its freestyle programme.
Whatever the board type, the glide quality must be impeccable.
To test it, Franky will first glide on a slight slope with only the base in contact with the snow. At this stage, the idea is to try not to carve a turn but to test the base with simple pivots.
His debrief: "The board pivots and stops easily, the glide is easy and lets you manage the speed easily on the approach to rails or kicks"
Once the flat glide is validated, Franky can test it on curves. He starts with small turns then get longer little by little. The easier the glide, the easier it is to play with the board which is the most important feature of a freestyle board.
His debrief: "Very easy on small curves, less so on bigger ones. That's good as that’s what we’re looking for in a freestyle board, which above all requires management of small curves to adjust its speed before passing the modules. A short radius also lets you get quicker rotation on the kickers"
This step involves passing small module-type rails or light kicks in order to confirm the first impressions, this time in a park.
His debrief: "After a few runs in the park, you feel good on the board. It is stable, with a good pop... Now let’s see how the board behaves on big tables."
Last but not least, testing the board on a big kicker. It’s at this step that Franky can really validate the board flex and shape.
His debrief: "Very stable landing, it’s great!"
FRANKY MOISS, SNOWBOARD TECHNICAL PARTNER AT DECATHLON
Co-design means learning collaboratively with the aim of innovating and improving the design and performance of our products.
We try to give value and an active role to every actor who can bring value to our products and our sport. To do so, we listen and involve riders and enthusiasts to adapt our products to their needs and riding feeling.
In the co-design process, we begin with our user’s needs and keep going until the prototype to then finalise the snowboard product development in all its complexity.
Wedze snowboard’s technical partners are part of the co-design approach and help us to reach our dreams of technicality, accessibility and performance.
