While Nicole has been keeping all you Pyranha fans up to date on the going on of the Colorado tour, I’ve been struggling to find somewhere to upload the video I made from our Glenwood Wave sessions a couple weeks ago.  Well, I’ve finally found somewhere to connect to the interwebs for long enough to get it uploaded.  Hope you enjoy it.  Oh yeah, I got a helmet cam a few weeks ago too and have been having fun shooting new and different angles.

Team Pyranha at the Glenwood Wave

Here are the promised photos of the Teva Extreme Outdoor Games 2010:

Team Germany scouting

 

Boatercross

 

Sprint

 

Downriver Race

 

Slalom

All photos by Uwe Eichfelder, thanks!

Well the last couple of weeks have been hectic to say the least . . . I finished school, did my GCSE’s, turned 16 and travelled to austria for the european championships.

Thee weeks leading up the euros seemed to drag on forever but it was well worth the wait.

The competition took place in Lienz, Austria. Lienz is a truly beautiful place filled with good play spots, good people and even better ice cream. Infact it would have been perfect had it not been for the “british weather” – I sincerely regretted packing only shorts and t – shirts.

The competion started on thursday. With the help of the coaches Ross Montandon and Sam Ward, I paddled  the best I did the entire competion. Lee pyke easily made it through the premlims with some huge loops, fast cartwheels and precise split wheels. The junior mens score sheet for the premlims can be seen below.

Friday, was devoted to the mens premlims due to its huge amount of participants. I got to see some big names in paddling throw down and also saw some of the lesser know paddlers tear it up.

Saturday, was the semi finals. I had some okay rides and made it into the finals in 4th place, Lee pyke threw some huge loops and fast cartwheels and also had a pheonix monkey attempt, unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough to make it into the top 5 and he finished in 9th place.

Saturday was the final day of the competition. I paddled reasonably well but caught an unlucky flush with one of my mcnastys leaving me in 3rd place.

 

Watching the mens finals realy inspired me,  it made me want to boat at such a high standard and it also made me want a carbon boat . . . realy, realy badly.

I’ll upload some photos of me and Lee paddling as soon as I can.

See you on the water,

Bren

I traveled in Italy 10 days. ICF  Slalom races, runed new rivers, and raced THE TEOG 2010.

Third in long race, i did a crazy run in extreme twenty race. See the next photo…

Outch !!! Bad landing, back injured, and paddle broken. But it is not over for ” pink helmet” .

I finished my run in C1 mode ! And i don’t have the last time. Awesome run.

After the long race by team by nation. Everybody came to Ivrea for next races:

– Two sprint runs. Two slalom runs. One slalom run by team. And teh ultime race, the Boater cross.

-4th in sprint race. 45th in slalom (aie aie aie ???!).

The last day was for me.

Qualified in final run i was the first to touch the last point. I win !!!! sweet.

If i wasn’t unlucky in slalom. sure i was on overall podium.

That’s for next year.

Cheers, Eric

Last week the Teva Extreme Outdoor Games 2010 took place in Valchiusella and Ivrea/ITA in order to find the new “Freeride Worldchampion”. The kayaking event – which was one among many others, including mountainbiking, bouldering, paragliding and running – consisted of a downriver race, sprint, slalom and boatercross. Around 65 paddler took part in this well-organized competition with pretty good water levels. In the end it was Mike Dawson from New Zealand who took home the title and the prize money. Germany’s slalom expert Fabian Doerfler got second and Dejan Kralj (SLO) third.

I was quite happy with my result, being 6th in the overall result. A couple of times off the line in the long downriver race and in the sprint didn’t allow anything better.

The Kiwis also won the team race, which was a seperate competition, followed by the Slovenians and the Czechs. Team Germany 2 with Philip Baues, Uwe Eichfelder and myself finished 5th.

The highlight of the event with most fun to watch was definitely the “King of the Falls” race, in which a difficult, short stretch (about 1 min.) with a 10m drop in the middle had to be run. Again, Mike Dawson dominated the field and won in front of Dejan Kralj and Honza Lasko from Czech.

Altogether we certainly had some great days of paddling and racing in Italy and are looking forward to being back next year!

I’ll post some photos of the action within the next days!

After some heavy rains we got sweet levels on the home run. Creeking Ämån

We finally all got together in one place.  Dave Fairweather, Dave Goadby, Beth Hume and myself. The plan was to do something as a group, that would allow us plenty of time to chat, plot and plan. Naturally something paddling related would have been great, but with the lack of water (Its the summer now, don’t you know!) and not having the funding to allow us to head over to the Alps for the weekend, we decided to come up with something a spot more relaxing (?) we headed to the Peak District to go climbing.

The Team + my wife in action at Froggatt Edge. Dave is just finishing Sunset Slab (HVS 4b) that Becca led, Dave G and Beth have just climbed Sunset Crack (HS 4C).

The reason for this get together? – Yes you’ve guessed it, we are heading out to Japan!

I had agreed to idea of heading to Japan, after a slightly drunken conversation with Dave Fairyweather at last Decembers Gene17 weekend. Over the following  few months, with emails and text messages bouncing back and forth, we finally ended up getting our little team together to all met for the first time! We at least thought that it may be a good idea, even though by this point we had already booked the flights. And thanks to my step-sister Sally, we had already secured a baggage allowance upgrade.

Dave Fairweather just after taking his first big led fall, most probably at the shock of us all finally getting together.

After the climbing we all headed over to Beth’s parents house in Nottingham ‘to do some planning’ what this really turned into was mucking around in the pool and an acclimatisation session in the sauna. Followed by a few beers and a BBQ. When we did get up the following morning, we did manage to get some things organised, deciding what kit to take, and the general areas to visit, and most importantly our mode of transport when in Japan. All that we need to do now is work out what rivers to visit. After that the 2 ‘real’ paddlers went to HPP for a couple of hours of squirt and play-boating, while both me and Dave Goadby went off for a Sunday afternoon visit to see our respective parents.

Dave showing Becca what squirtboating is really about.

Acclimatisation session

Tune in next time and we may even have some kayaking images to show you!!!!

So far this year, it seems like I have hardly paddled at all. Particularly with the lack of water,well when I’m not at work that is, it seems that I have just been out on the usual lower water venues – The Tryweryn, The Dee, Symonds Yat and the mighty Knightwick weir on the Teme.

Playing on the wave at Knightwick Weir in Z-one. Photo Alex Bourne

Out coaching some of my Long Term students on the Dee. Photo Emily Goodman

The secret testing of the new Two person Playboat 😉

While out on the Dee, running a Moderate Water Endorsement assessment, we happened across fellow Pyranha Paddlers – Sara James and Rich Brooks testing a new design. Video Rob Wykeham-Martin.

I also helped out on the Pyranha stand at The Leam Boat Centres Demo day, in Leamington Spa, a place that I hadn’t visited for a while, so it was good to catch up with Matt and Jenna. There were a lot of people milling around after advice on kayaks and equipment. But there was also a camera club out on their annual photography competition, one of the titles was colourful, so here was my entry.