Spring sprung and it’s now deep into another hot summer here in the southeastern United States. I was a great winter/spring of paddling, but as usually my photo and video updates are running about 6 months behind, so lets back up for second. In early December I spend a couple great weeks in the Grand Canyon (see report here).   After getting off the Colorado River on Dec 18^th, I headed south to Mexico to enjoy some warmer weather and warmer waters (see report here).   When I returned home in January I found the entire region in a deep freeze. (more…)

For a second time, ADRENAGLISS TEAM meet near Toulouse to do the show.

Mtb, skateboard, montainboard. Everybody jumped in water !

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This year we were fortunate to have another beautiful day to paddle the Skykomish River outside of Seattle, WA.  Thanks to Aquasports for promoting this event.  There was a great turn out for the paddle session.  We were stoked to have a bunch of people trying out Burns and Molans.  After the river, Charles put together a fun evening with pizza, beer, and a Dashboard Empanada Premier.  THANKS GUYS for a great day.  We had a lot of fun!

Check out the rest of the photos

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The first peak uk sausage sizzle took place last weekend at Holme Peir Pont, nottingham. It was a great event with a good turn out from the Pyranha team, Seth Ashworth was throwing his usual huge loops and godzillas, to read more about the event and see some pictures check out Seths blog – http://sethskayakblog.blogspot.com/

Cheers,

See you on the water

On Saturday Marlow Canoe Club hosted the 2nd BCU Freestyle League Event, held at Boulters Weir. The results of the summer league will determine the British Champion and count towards GB team selection for 2011 World Championships.

It was a great day to be out on the water in the sunshine. Pyranha paddlers Jamie Burbeck and Bren Orton paddled well, winning 1st place in their respective categories.

Matt Tidy even took a break from his hectic work schedule  to come show everyone that carthwheels are still super cool.

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Well, Italy was obviouslythe place to be in May. Four separate blog posts from for separate Team-Pyranha paddlers in the last few months. I’ve heard plenty of people rave about the place in the past, and have been desperate to get out there for a while now.

Photo: Jim Pullen

Fortunately I managed to find couple of days spare leave from work at the end of May, persuaded two willing partners in crime and set about planning a 5 day mission. Initial plans for a fly-drive were scuppered as a result of an inconvenient Icelandic volcano, so we investigated the driving. 17 hours each way wasn’t going to be pretty, especially given the short duration of the trip, but it was possible, so we hit the man-up button and booked a ticket for the Eurotunnel.

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Today Demshitz met up at  Bob’s hole on the Clackamas River to paddle with a great crew of people from the area and Alder Creek Canoe & Kayak shop.  With the hot temperatures, it was a perfect day to spend on this fun and beautiful roadside run outside of Portland, OR.   Waiting for my head wound to heal, I was extremely jealous as I sat reading,  sweating, and taking photos on the river bank.

Here are some photos from the day.

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Last Sunday the 2nd edition of the Eiskanal Boatercross as part of the Slalom World Cup took place in Augsburg. Organized by Jakobus Stenglein and Arnd Schaeftlein and supported by Teva, Sandiline and OptimalRad (local bike shop), 32 men and 6 women from 6 nations participated, including several national slalom team members. Wolfgang from Kanu Treff provided several Pyranha kayaks for those who couldn’t bring a boat. After the ramp start, a course with various possible lines promised exciting fights for the first prize - a mountainbike worth 1000 Euro! In the end it was Paul Boeckelmann who won in front of Hannes Aigner and myself (all GER and paddling in Pyranha Burns!). Louise Jull (NZL) took the first place in the girls’ class, Jacqueline Horn (GER) and Luuka Jones (NZL) the second and third, respectively. A great event with lots of spectators that everybody is looking forward to next year!

ramp start

Jakobus racing

competitors

All photos by Marianne Stenglein, thanks!

Well another year another trip to Yule for demshitz.  Yule was a good bit lower than we have experienced on previous sessions.  I am not sure I liked it as much, however that could be because I crashed so big that right now my ribs still hurt.  This was about 4 weeks ago.  You will see why.  We are in Big Fork MT right now getting ready to head further west.  Saturday is a boat with the bros session at Alder Creek followed by a Dashboard Empanada premiere.  The very next day will be a similar situation at Aquasports in Redmond Washington.  Come Paddle demshitz!                  Yule Creek video HERE

We’ve had a super diverse last week on the road including some CO creeking, a wedding, a day and a half of driving, playboating in Missoula, and some fun MT creeking and river running.  Here’s a lil’ photo update.

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Check out HuckinHuge.com’s newest film, HAYMAKER sponsored by Pyranha and presented by Kayak Session Magazine!Our travels took us to Puerto Vallarta, BC, Cali, Oregon, Washington and even Hawaii.  Check out the official page and trailer HERE!  Enjoy and look for the Karnali in action on some monster whitewater throughout the flick!

CHECK IT ALL OUT!

Hi folks!
Last weekend me and my friends Peter Malkin, Carleton Goold and Nathan Hunkapiller checked the Royal Gorge of American river. Such a great place!

I didn’t run the big stuff because of my freshly broken rib(4 weeks), but anyway it was an amazing trip!

Check the rest of the photos >>

Having spent the last two seasons in Norway I had been informed by a number of reliable sources that everything else is just training for BC. Well to sum up creeking over here the word ‘adventurous’ closely followed by ‘awesome’ seem most appropriate. On the whole most runs are steep, continuous and committing just the way we like it! Plus on arrival I was quickly informed that this season boasts the second highest snow pack on record, 16 metres on the tops. So hopefully the season will be a long one accompanied by juicy flows.

My good friend Maxi Kniewasser, a fellow Pyranha paddler (who nearly all the photos have be shot by) has been showing me down the local runs, upper middle Cheakamus the Ashlu and of course the Callaghan (which is just 5 minutes away from our pad). The Callaghan is the ultimate after work run, full of awesome boof, technical rapids and of course the classic 6 metre waterfall.

One thing which seems to be common on all runs is the presence of at least one rapid named 50:50, or a name of a similar meaning. My favourite quote from Maxi which precedes these drops is pretty classic and usually starts with “no one really understands the line down this drop”.

After spending 2 weeks in Whistler soon the time came to venture on are first mission. The location decided was Hood River, Oregon, for some action on the Little White Salmon and the Salmon River; both of which certainly did not fail to impress! Perhaps one of the most exciting carnage stories is one participated in by myself.

We came to the last drop which inevitably was one of the previously talked about 50:50 style rapids. Having a quick scout from river right, the line from what we could see looked pretty straight forward, but given the line was on river left meant we couldn’t see much more than the rocks blocking any other line. But anyway, I went first ended up boofing the first drop, boofing the second followed by digging in the anchors to pull me past the hole. Then wham, my paddle jammed in the rocks my hands ended up pinging of the paddle and off I went, now upside down and paddle less. With a swift hand role; which with hindsight simply delayed the inevitable, I was now heading backwards down a salmon weir; an attempted backwards hand boof was not surprisingly unsuccessful. Side surfing a man made weir, with no paddle, for future reference in not the best plan and eventually results in ejection. Also I would like to thank all the locals for info on water levels and perhaps more importantly the local yummy mummy who showed us how to party hood river style!

The new large burn has been the boat of choice by both myself and maxi for the season and wow in all seriousness I can confidently say its the best boat I’ve ever paddled. Its fast, boofs sweet, easy to correct and my favourite, it planes perfectly when boofing into eddies and landing drops. Well done to everyone at Pyranha for coming out with this master piece!

Peace out

Me on the Ashlu

The wheels

Me eating s*** on the little white Oregon

Maxi styling the waterfall on the Callaghan

Maxi on the Elaho

Me just after the waterfall on the Callaghan

Top boof Callaghan

2nd to last drop on the Callaghan

Si on Old Dirty Bastard (Callaghan), one of theose 50:50 at best rapids

Me on the Little White Salmon, Hood river

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!!!!