Hi Folks!

It is around 10 days since we are visiting some Caucasus countries in order to investigate all these rivers, what would be suitable for the first part of summer’s Ride The Planet project. Rivers are sick, water is high and weather is good. More photos here —>>>

Last week the annual Teva Race – now called “Eporedia Active Days” – took place in Valchiusella and Ivrea/ITA.

The individual competition consisted of a downriver race down the shallow and rocky Chiusella River and a sprint and boatercross race on the slalom course in Ivrea with better water levels.

One of my two downriver runs was pretty bad – I was ending up on way to many stones -, which placed me into 15th position after that stage. Honza Lasko (CZE) won, Michele Ramazza (ITA) came 2nd, Pavel Andrassy (SVK) 3rd.

Fortunately, I was able to catch up a bit in the sprint race where I got 6th (Sam Sutton/NZL was 1st there, Jakobus Stenglein/GER 2nd and Honza Lasko 3rd) and in the boatercross, which was as much fun as almays. Finally I ended on the 8th rank, which is all right after my weak start in the downriver race. Overall, Honza Lasko won the event, Sam Sutton came 2nd and Filippo Brunetti (ITA) 3rd. Congratulations!

The team race couldn’t have been any worse for the German team, consisting of Jakobus Stenglein, myself and Markus Hummel. Last year we were able to win this competitions, but this time we had no chance at all after a popped off spraycover at the very first rapid. That cost a lot of time! The English team took the title, leaving France and Italy on the 2nd and 3rd rank, respectively.

My team mates and I had a great time paddling in Italy, especially when we were meeting up with the Pyranha Team Van crew there. I hope they’ll enjoy their further tour! See you on the river!

The second event in the Youth freestyle series took us the the Nene whitewater course, in Northampton .

The nene is possibly the smallest course we have in the u.k running on just 2-3 cumecs it funnels it’s way down a series of small ledge holes untill it hits a wooden ramp and the excitement really begins – Pool A consists of a reasonably big pour over and whilst not being famed for it’s freestyle prowess it does dish out a fair few beatings in between moves – great fun to watch.

The event followed the usual Youth freestyle format of some chilled out coaching in the morning, followed by a competition in the afternoon. However due to the weather/easy to swim course/coaches and parents wanting to cool down – the Nene is also host to a search and rescue ball game, a team of 5 kids has to rescue the balls that are being recirculated in the pour over.

The results for the Nene can be found here - http://www.youthfreestyle.co.uk/attachments/article/44/Nene%20Club%20Results%202012b.pdf

Check out the video below,

See you on the water,

Bren

The Boater Chick Festival has come and gone and a recap is in order. This is the first year that Pyranha has been a part of the BCF and I hope to be part of pyranha continuing to sponsor this event. The setup of this festival is a bit different than what I have seen before; everyone camps out and then wakes up in the morning to decide what boating is in their future which can range from a guided river run or various clinics. I was the instructor for the Intro to Playboating clinic. I grabbed the van loaded full of Jeds, Varuns and Shivas and met the ladies at the Tuckaseegee River in North Carolina.

Being my first year, I had no idea what to expect. A few ladies took me up on my offer for a demo and myself and 15 women hit the water to get in some beginning freestyle moves. I was also learning as I’m new to the Jed and this was a great chance for me to really figure out the edges and the balance point of this bad boy. There are no big features on this river and this gave a friendly feel to surfing, spinning, rolling and even a little swimming! At one spot I do believe one of the girls tried a loop for the very first time which is always scary and exciting at the same time.

I could not have been more proud of these women. The standout to me was a woman I got the chance to interact with on the shuttle; she is 69, learning all about her new pink Varun and absolutely being an inspiration to women of all ages. Thanks ladies, I had a blast out there!

Recently the Pyranha Van took two of it’s lady coaches (Me – Fran Kohn and P&H paddler and coach Kate Duffus ) and a load of demo boats and headed up to Bonny Scotland for the (mostly) annual Scottish Women’s Paddling Symposium.

This was only some of the ladies who had signed up for a sunny day of whitewater.

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