Chemnitz is a city where urban life takes place

Jörg Kaufmann

The TU in Chemnitz again. This time, we meet the maker of the week right on Reichenhainer Straße, in a building where research has always been conducted into materials, compounds and their use. And Jörg Kaufmann is a textbook engineer. Packed with documents and a bicycle fork, he storms up the stairs to our appointment. Smiling on command for the photographer is not his thing.
The company Silbærg, which currently brings the most innovative snowboards onto the market, has been around for three years now and is still more of a hobby for him than a commercial business. A balance to his doctorate at Chemnitz University, which is currently about to be defended. However, you can feel his enthusiasm for his product from the very first moment and innovations for the drawer are not his thing. Instead of selling his patent, he develops the key components of his snowboards himself with a few friends and has the boards completed by a renowned manufacturing company in Austria. And this in an industry that doesn't leave much room for experimentation. But Jörg Kaufmann is a doer who, as an engineer, is passionate about what he does, but doesn't let anything go to waste.

Silbærg - sounds a bit like "Silberberg" and the Ore Mountains. How long have you been a company?
Jörg Kaufmann: Yes, the name "Silbærg" has its origins in the word "Silberberg", we just wanted a name that had a connection to snowboarding and the Erzgebirge region. "Silberberg" is a bit of a mouthful, which is why we came up with "silbærg". silbaerg GmbH was then spun off from the Institute of Lightweight Structures at Chemnitz University of Technology in January 2011, where I have been employed since 2006 and am currently working on my doctorate. In addition to my normal day-to-day scientific work, I regularly worked with a team of students on snowboards and their improvement, so it was a logical conclusion to combine my doctoral thesis with snowboard development. This is how the A.L.D. technology for the snowboards came about. The product concept was so good that we won several prizes in 2010 and were able to found the limited company in 2011.

And what is the name of this technology?
A.L.D.-Tech. is the abbreviation for "anisotropic layer design" and stands for the physical effect of the anisotropy-related coupling effects of fibre-plastic composites (FRP).

That sounds like quite a scientific monster. How can you explain this simply to the user? What do you have on your foot with your board?
Anisotropy means direction-dependent and means that fibre composites have different properties in different directions. This effect can be utilised so that the snowboard also curves when it bends. When cornering, for example, every snowboard bends through the waist. However, unlike other snowboards, we utilise this deflection to curve the snowboard around its longitudinal axis. The edges are therefore actively pressed into the snow, which significantly improves edge hold.

Does that mean I stand better in the snow or on ice?
Exactly.

Does this work in the same way with carving skis? And do you want to produce them in the future?
Yes, the effect also works with carving skis and we have even built and tested a prototype. But Silbærg will definitely remain a snowboard brand.

Because the snowboard sells better?
No, for marketing reasons. Skiing and snowboarding are simply two different worlds. What will become of the ski is still up in the air. It's not exactly easy to manage such a product launch, also financially.

Do I understand correctly - you run Silbærg alongside your actual jobs?
Yes, all of the 10 or so freelancers at Silbærg still work in their "real" jobs. We are all passionate about snowboarding. We just love working on a project like this, which also comes from here in the region, and seeing how it develops. It doesn't hurt to "sacrifice" a lot of your free time for Silbærg.

Do you build your boards yourselves?
We make the most important part of our snowboards, the so-called A.L.D. semi-finished products, ourselves by hand in Chemnitz. These semi-finished fibre products have a very complex structure and consist of around 40 individual parts. It takes a great deal of expertise and experience to produce them to a very high quality. We then send the finished semi-finished products to Austria to one of the leading producers in the snowboard industry, where the Silbaerg snowboards are then manufactured.

I have the feeling that TU spin-offs have been springing up in recent years. Have you never thought about offering the patent to some big company?
Oh yes, a lot is happening at Chemnitz University of Technology in terms of spin-offs. The Saxeed start-up network is extremely active and supports the spin-offs very well. We have often thought about licensing or supplying other snowboard manufacturers with our A.L.D. technology and have also had many discussions. But due to the high quality and the high costs of manual labour, the semi-finished products are simply too expensive for other snowboard manufacturers at the moment. Especially as the industry is not doing so well at the moment.

Why is the industry not doing so well?
The basic problem is that there is too much product on the market and not enough snowboards could be sold due to the bad winter. As a result, from January onwards, a lot of sales are made via discounts, which is neither good for retailers nor for the brands. Customers are now trained to expect to get their snowboard equipment cheaply in spring and wait so long to buy. The result is that the products have to become cheaper and cheaper to manufacture and the quality often suffers as a result. After all, nobody has anything to give away.

Do you play this game?
No, we try to stay out of these discount battles. We manufacture high-quality products by hand in Germany and Austria and have a two-year product life cycle. It simply doesn't make sense to push products onto the market for half the price in mid-January. We simply want to achieve greater value and stability. If I buy a snowboard for EUR 900 in November and then find it on the market for EUR 400 in January, I feel like I'm being taken for a ride as a customer. We try to avoid that.

You are still employed at the university. Do you do nothing else there all day but develop snowboards?
I do other things all day long in a wide variety of projects and for a wide variety of industries. But one is my work as a research assistant at the Chair of Lightweight Structures and Plastics Processing and the other is Silbærg. After my "normal" job at the university comes my hobby and that is also clearly separated. We have also rented our own premises.

Are you from Chemnitz?
I was born in Stollberg and grew up in Bavaria and then came back to Chemnitz University of Technology to study. During my studies, however, I lived in Stollberg again and travelled into the city every day. After graduating, I was offered a PhD position at the Institute of Lightweight Structures and stayed here.

You grew up in Bavaria - does that explain your affinity for snowboarding?
I grew up in the Upper Palatinate in the north of Bavaria, so the journey time to the Alps is only three quarters of an hour less than from Chemnitz. But I worked a lot in a snowboard and bike shop on the side, so I've always been closely connected to the sport, but I also travelled a lot in the Alps for snowboarding - hence the affinity.

So why did you go to Chemnitz and not Munich, for example?
I grew up in Waldsassen, which is on the Czech border. There isn't much in the way of universities there. Regensburg is a bit further away than Chemnitz and Bayreuth can only be reached by road. Chemnitz was a really great alternative. As my parents still have a house in Stollberg where I could live for free, it was the perfect combination for me as a student. And after graduating, I liked it here so much that I simply stayed.

There is supposedly a lot of complaining in Chemnitz. There were projects like this indoor ski centre in Contiloch that never came to fruition. And there's the proximity to the Fichtelberg, which is far too small for snowboarding. How would you still encourage the people of Chemnitz?
For me and Silbærg, the proximity to Oberwiesenthal is one of the most important and most beautiful aspects of Chemnitz. In winter, we can be in the snow in less than an hour and have fun. In the evening you can meet up with friends back in the city. I can't do that when I'm travelling to the Alps from Munich, and the topic of "Contiloch" is also an exciting one and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it. My suggestion would be a wakeboard facility, which would be at least as innovative as the indoor ski centre!

What does urban life look like for you in Chemnitz?
I can cycle into the city centre in Chemnitz and enjoy some free time with friends in a bar or beer garden. There are also a few nice clubs with good concerts, nice and good restaurants and, for example, the Blume Open-Air as well as the whole electronic scene that is coming back to life, which I think is really good!

Does that mean that urban life is already happening in Chemnitz?
I'm almost in my mid-30s now, work at Chemnitz University of Technology and have a time-consuming hobby, so I need the weekend to recover from the week and not the other way round. But for me, Chemnitz offers enough alternatives for evening entertainment, I'm hardly ever bored at home.

Last week there was a big photo shoot in front of the Karl Marx Head. What was it about?
It was a promotional campaign for the Chemnitz trade fairs, where we will also be exhibiting our snowboards. But we also wanted to show which innovations in lightweight structural engineering and textile technology come from Chemnitz. Chemnitz has an incredibly strong historical connection with these topics and it's great that there is a lot of expertise in this area here again - especially with the Institute for Lightweight Structures at Chemnitz University of Technology. The shoot at Karl-Marx-Kopf was also attended by Mr Snow with the textile ski slope and the winch manufacturer Felix, which produces towing systems for gliders. All three products together made it possible to bring a winter feeling to the city centre. The campaign was great and the photos were well received by the press and promoted the Chemnitz trade fairs very well.

Are you staying here in Chemnitz?
It's definitely my goal. It's a nice, relaxed and cosy place to live in Chemnitz with lots of opportunities - you just have to seize them!