The Extreme Sport Week just took place in Voss Norway this past week. The athletes also call it ’Endurance Week’ for a good reason: 9 days of hard paddling and heavy drinking! I am finally back home for a rest, a huge smile still hanging on my face from the insane great creeking, the competitions and for the crazy people you meet from all disciplines of extreme sports…

The Burn was incredibly well represented there: in fact the majority of all creek boats were Pyranhas On thursday, the creek race took place on the Branseth river: short section of drops and slides in an easy access cristal clear water canyon. Team Pyranha had 4 boys in the finals: Allan Ellard -6th, Lars-Georg Paulsen -7th, Per Christian Pedersen -8th, Andy Philips -10th. In the ladies final, I took the 2nd place behind Mariann Saether. Follow this link to last year’s video to get an idea: http://www.ekstremsportveko.com/?page=3&show=62&filmdir=70

On Friday was the Team Race down the Upper-Lower Branseth. Team Pyranha boys Allan Ellard, Andy Philips and Mike Abbott won the honors, a respectable 21 sec in front of the second team!! Boys, you rock!! Finally but not the least, on Saturday was the Head to Head competition down the Strandelve. Again, Team Pyranha killing it, ladies side this time: Liz Bell took the 3rd and I came in 1st The rest of the week went to finding new stupid things to try… For ex: Pierre, UK paddler and a good friend, tried a flair down Money drop…

Now off to Canada to freestyle…

So after paddling the cauterets waterfall (bousses), we droveover the border and crossed to Spain. We spent the night in Valle del Cinqueta, an amazing deep valley with a great river

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Demshitz are wrapping up our Colorado tour. We leave Colorado this week for a trip to California before heading back east, so we decided we needed to go get scared again on Yule Creek. (more…)

Sup world. Cody here from Pyranha and Huckin Huge (huckinhuge.com) reporting from Japan!

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We recently got to hit the Canyon Creek in Oregon and the Canyon Creek in Washington, as well as run some fun drops on the East Fork Lewis. You can check out the full report at www.RiverGypsies.com.

Here are a couple of nice pictures taken by Trip Kinney on Canyon Creek, Washington:

Andria on a nice ledge.

Leland on the falls.

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July 12th at CKS team Pyranha (Demshitz) would like to invite you all to a Paddle with the Bro’s kayak clinic at CKS in Buena Vista CO. Jared Graham and Myself will be meeting all Demshitz at CKS at 9:30am.
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This past weekend, The “Oh Be Joyful” Race in Crested Butte Colorado held the LVM Giant Slalom Rocky Mountains qualifier for the World Championships later this summer in Asheville North Carolina on the Green River. The OhBe race is a great course for the giant slalom; tricky gates above and below the 20′ were serving up good entertainment. (more…)

Last week I went paddling with some friends. On monday we drove to Saut deth Pish, a nice park and huck in la vall d’aran (spain). We ran the drop lots of times and took some good pictures however we had a grey day.

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After a month of paddling in the Telemark area of Norway we had paddled some great runs. Unfortunately our last trip on the Homerun section of the Mår ended in Hospital when Ed snapped his arm above the elbow on the 4th drop.

Homerun is a classic section of 5 waterfalls and is one of our favorites so we didn´t want to leave Telemark on this note. so myself Mark drove back and met up with Olav to give it one last run before moving on.

We had a great day with blue skies and good water levels. The first 3 drops were super smooth with no hard landings. Obviously the 4th drop was a little nerving after what happened to Ed the week before, but after lining up and taking the hit it was plain sailing down to number 5 and the take out.

So now i´m on my way to Voss where again surprise surprise the levels are high, should be fun!!

A sleepy village [OK technically the UK’s Smallest City] called St David’s is home to dozens tourist sea side shops and dozens of tea shops full of old people, a kayakers haven? Well yes actually, it’s also home to some class surf breaks and the UK’s largest off shore tidal race - The Bitches…

Hampered by random sea fog, the plan of taking Sarah, a Bitches virgin, out on a small tide [intermediate level] kinda fell apart, so we went rock hopping and Dolphin spotting [yes in the UK!] whilst we waited for the 10ft visability to improve in the Bitches channel [100m away we were kayaking in brilliant sun-shine - weathers weird!]

The Fog left, the sun came out, the swell and the tide picked up to leave us with the best way to sample the Bitches, and evening tide, in the sun, 7m tide difference with some swell thrown in just to make it interesting…

Soul Surfing
Ben

The 60th annual Fibark Festival was this past weekend in Salida Colorado. Tons of competitors and spectators showed up to participate and watch all the exciting events that took place throughout the 4 day festival. (more…)

This weekend saw the second round of the Plastic Fantastic Alpkit Kayak Series held at the Tryweryn in North Wales. The event included a freestyle on the NRA wave followed by a Boto X down Bala Mill Falls as well as the usual party on the saturday night (including sumo!!).

Me lining up a blunt on the NRA Wave in the Rev M: Photo by Jo Meares

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Demshitz are up to no good. Traveling around Colorado paddling and partying. Making stops at the now infamous Glenwood Wave and running Pine Creek rapid and the numbers on the Arkansas. Having fun in the REV with all the good surfing to be had. Check out this video and see for yourselves.
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Me Mcnastying the rev in the muncher.

So last weekend everyone, headed down to the teeside whitewater course to compete in the youth freestyle…… (more…)

Team Pyranha was out in full force for the Mountain Games.

The first day kicked off with The Homestake Creek Race. I was able to lay down the fastest time on run one and the pressure was on for run number two. I ended up crashing a bit on the last drop which caused me the seconds I needed to end up in first. I am still stoked to have finished in second, the field of competitors out there was stout. Dave Fusilli finished in 9th, and the Seilers rounded out 18 and 22nd. There were around 60 male competitors this year, I can’t wait for next year.

For Freestyle and 8 Ball results (more…)

Mariann Saether, Tyler Curtis and myself were holding a freestyle camp for kids under 18 this weekend. Grettefoss near Kongsberg in Norway was a perfect place to hold such an event. A fantastic time for us, roasting in the warm sunshine (unsual at this latitude!!!) and tones of improvement from the young crowd; this is a good start for the tallented paddlers. Check out: www.youngboaters.com

Mid-May was quite exciting… took off work quickly to go and play; Teva Extreme Outdoor Games in Italy was first… Northern Italy is surrounded by high peaks and lovely valleys where the wine yards grow and the rivers flow. The Teva event in Italy is not as commercialized as the one in Vail Colorado, yet it keeps its charm in a way and presurves the natural state of our sport and brings back the real reason why we all showed up. We were mainly there to have fun

A lot of good boaters showed up, both men and women, and despite from the relax ambiance, the competition was fierce on the water. More and more slalom paddlers from all over Europe are starting to compete in Extreme kayaking as well: time for the athletes to push the limits further. The competition was divided in 3 days and 4 disciplines: Extreme descent, slalom, sprint and boatercross. 2 creeks were used for those races, with roads following the water: perfect for the locals to cheers us up!!!

I arrived late myself and didn’t get to see the stretch too much before the start. But I felt strong and dam happy to be out and play. With a bronze in each discipline, the smile easely followed me to Austria… here in the boatercross final…

Austria was hosting the European Championships in Rafting in Wildalpen this year. With over 20 women teams and 36 men teams, this was officially the biggest international competition of the kind. Well organised, good food and wicked bands at night: the event was a must! It was also incredible to see that the sport keeps on growing that much. Most of the teams who showed up were professional teams that have trained together for a while. Surprinsingly, our young Norwegian team actually did very well for the little time we had trained: bronze in Sprint, 5th in Slalom and 7th in Downriver…

The Seilers and I headed to Lyons CO for a sweet creek race and a little freestylin. Here is a video from the event:
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With summer rains down in the South East, the river Thames has come up and the UK’s premier playspot, Hurley weir has been on a classic 3 gates.

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Well I’ve been hanging out on the Nile now for about a month having a great time being in the warm, with sick paddling and a great crew to hang out with.

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