In just over a week I’ll be flying out to India for a return trip to Meghalaya. In an attempt to pass the time I’ve put together a video of our first and second descents of the Kynshi river last year. In my mind the Kynshi holds the best whitewater alonside the most beautiful scenery that I’ve ever seen. I absolutely cannot wait to get back and see what other gems we can find.

The much anticipated 2013 World championships took place in Nantahalla gorge, North Carolina this past week.

The feature was created artificially and whilst being situated on a natural river the competition hole is created by a concrete “wave shaper”. This feature differs massively to that off the last worlds. Smaller, less powerful but far more retentive. The shallowness punished the stronger competitors who where forced not to plug hard for loops to avoid hitting the bottom and stalling out of the hole. However the retentiveness put many dream rides and combos into play which was fantastic to see.

The standard of paddling has once again grown and progressed. Along with the old school rodeo legends a new school generation of freestylers are moving up through the ranks and pushing hard for the top spots.

Matt Dumoulin had the most incredible ride I have ever seen in pre-lims but couldn’t quite replicate it in the semi finals and failed to make the cut to top 5, which just goes to show what a strange beast competition is and the that it is not necessarily the best paddlers that win. Junior team rider Brandon Hepburn had a similar scenario and finished in 11th place.

Team Pyranha represented well, Michael Patterson finished in a respectable 13th place. I finished in 9th place far from happy but content at my first worlds as a senior and keen to fire it up in Spain 2 years from now.

However, our junior rippers really shone, Local girl Rowan Stuart stood apart in the junior ladies category, by performing the hardest scoring moves ever seen in a junior ladies final, and took home a gold medal.

Thomas Richard. The junior french ripper, and in my opinion the next Matt Dumoulin, took a well deserved 2nd place with some flowing rides.

A huge congratulations to all the competitors but especially to my freestyle fish family and many thanks to Pyranha for making such an incredible boat.

Also to “coach” David Fusilli who spent many hours stood on the side of the river restraining himself from running the green daily.

See you on the water,
Bren

In the early to middle part of the summer, the pacific northwest is the place to be in the USA. After most of the rest of the country has run out of water, the cascade mountains still have plentiful options due to the glacial and spring fed rivers. In the heart of the cascades is the columbia river gorge, which hosts a massive variety of different rivers and waterfalls flowing from both sides of the gorge, off Mt Hood on the Oregon side and Mt Adams on the Washington side. Here is a little video of some of my favorite drops I got to run this summer! Even though this was a very low water year out here, and the southeast had the most epic summer paddling conditions ever, I am still very glad to have made the move out here and been able to experience a ton of new rivers of different styles, run some sweet waterfalls, and do some traveling as well.

Puchbowl Falls

Hope you enjoy this video!  Northwest Summertime Waterfalling

Churrr

The Freestyle World Championship begins, FINALLY!!!!

After training hard for the last several weeks and the added stress that comes with it, I am SO ready to compete, SO ready to see where I stand with the rest of the world. Luckily I have had some good friends and fellow Pyranha paddlers to keep me company in the eddies.

Rowan and myself talking about anything but freestyle

This year has been good for Team Pyranha, we have more boats than ever at Worlds. This is partly due to Mr. and Ms. Jed, and of course all of us getting so much better over the last year or two. Team hopefuls include Rowan Stuart, Bren Orton, Brandon Hepburn, and myself. Rowan and Brandon are on the junior team and they are both at the top of their game right now, Rowan is killing it, hitting mcnasties and Phonics’ that most the other Jr. women can only dream about. Brandon has the hole dialed in and has a good chance to podium. Bren and myself are in some of the toughest competition around, as there are more possible World champs in the mens heat than any other.

Rowan mid-dcnasty

Phonics n stuff

Pyranha has blessed us with some amazing carbon fiber Jeds that are really making an impact. We are flying higher and swinging the boat around at break-neck speeds, these boats are lighter, faster, stronger, and better looking than any of the competition. Pyranha is the only company to support its athletes this well and we couldn’t be happier. Its a shame so many people buy into the hype of the “other company” , but as Pyranha begins to take over the podium people will surely notice.

Fusilli coaching me from the sidelines

Demshitz of Amurica

There are lots of other people competing in the Jed, many of them from other countries and maybe not on the “team”. However if you are in a Pyranha boat you are like family and we wish every family member the best of luck to go out and crush it this week.

As the competition heats up we will keep the world posted on the happenings, and for now GO TEAM PYRANHA!!!!!!!

Thanks to Pete Delosa for the pics

Back in February a friend of mine named Fredy from Switzerland informed me of a multi-day paddling trip to southern Siberia being organized by Tomass Marnics and asked me if I wanted to go.  I thought about it for roughly five minutes, called fellow Pyranha paddler Tony Gianfagna and immediately started searching for plane tickets to Irkutsk.  Before we knew it, it was August, our Russian Visas had been issued, and we were on our way.

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