The British Universities Kayaking Expedition team have been back for a little over a month now, and here´s a short video of what the team got up to in Venezuela over the summer.

BUKE 2011: Venezuela

River notes are also now on the teams website.

After the debuted at Gauleyfest, it made its way around West Virginia with some team paddlers. Then I got my hands on it, paddled it, and gotta say its the sh@#. So easy to pull thru on anything and went huge in holes and waves. I cant wait till this boat hits production. Here is a little teazer of the boat.          The new Jedeye

It always starts with a journey

Our trip started in Nottingham, where Tom and I live. A kit list was made and we left at midday on Friday. A quick drive and we arrived in London at the White Water Canoe Centre where Pete Scutt works. After an afternoon in the shop we headed to the local pub beside the Shepperton Slalom Site followed by a curry.

The next morning we were back in the shop watching the rugby, myself very over-excited about the coming week and not really knowing what to do with myself till 4:00. However, the time did eventually come and we began our trip to Dover and the drive to Europe, our destination, Sickline!

We arrived on Sunday afternoon with sore backs from the journey. After a quick inspection of the course we were changed and raring to go. This was the first time I had seen the Wellerbrucke section at race level, and to no surprise it still looked rather big. With help from all the GB guys here I had my line set in my head as well as following Graham, Pete and Tom down.

My first run was pretty clean, and filled me with confidence, I went straight back up for another few runs. We all got off the water buzzing with how we paddled. No huge beat-downs were taken and most of us felt really positive about the course. We then got some food and headed to Crazy Eddies.

Crazy Eddies

Crazy Eddies is possibly one of the coolest most random places I have ever been to. It is an old raft centre, where many raft guides still live. It’s comprised of a central building with a full industrial kitchen, of which only a small electric oven hob combo, and a fridge works. Another room with another walk in style industrial fridge is, again not working, and a table where we eat, chill and most importantly drink tea.

There is also an assortment of old train carriages, which are very Harry Potter style. You can even imagine the dementors coming down the corridor. These carriages have doors to each, converted “bedrooms” which have fold out bunk beds. The window seals are perished and doors squeal but still I really enjoy sleeping there for the quirkiness of the whole place.

Middle Oetz and back to the Venter Ache

In the morning we headed up to run the Middle Oetz with Seth as our guide. It was a really fun run, with nothing too difficult at this water level. It certainly kept you busy though as the rock-gardens were super long and tight. After this we went up the valley to the Venter Ache, my favourite run to date. Unfortunately I had only ever run it in spate, and at normal water levels it wasn’t anything overly special. It was still great to paddle through the deep gorges in the sunshine, and there were enough features to make it enjoyable and a fun run.

We finished the day back on the Race course on the Oetz with a few quick runs down, and an unfortunate snapping of my paddle just above the two largest drops on the course. A bit of C1 down the drops had me on a nice clean line though. Thankfully.

Race Prep is Important…. But so is relaxing

After a having to abandon a plan to run the Risbach we had to decide what to do with the day. The thought of a day just on the race course was not so appealing, therefore we went to the local bike hire, and rented some Giant DH and free-ride bikes. I had not been on a DH bike for a few years, since I sold mine. We got the ski lift up, and had our first run down, a definite walking track. It was super steep and not really wide enough for a bike. We ended up finding some single track road, then nailing it down the mountain roads overtaking cars. The second run down we found some fire road tack where even the open corners seemed tight due to a lack of berms. Towards the end we found a nice little section of DH which really got the adrenaline pumping. A few minor crashes were had within the group but nothing major. The day ended, again with a few runs down the race course.

The reality of racing

So it came to Thursday, as I awoke the race nerves came apparent. It was a strange feeling knowing that this was actually a world champs. We had a short paddle in the morning including a run down the Infamous upper Wellerbrucke, which is one rather scary dirty run. The evening had some nice lines going down from all the GB paddlers. We had a race meal that evening which consisted of numerous pieces of meat and a few potatoes. I got an early night and started psyching myself up for the next day.

Qualification

The prep leading up to the race for me was pretty thorough. I had not done much training on the qualification course due to the top being so technical, a mistake on my part as I had not understood how challenging qualification was going to be. Anyway, with advice from Pete Scutt, Craig Aires and Rob Harris, I thought I knew my lines well. I waited in queue for the start, eagerly awaiting my time to climb down the steep bank to the small eddy by the start beam. I sprinted off the start, and as planned hit the hump of the first drop nailing the boof and landing on the left pile, I sprinted towards champion’s killer. I hit the right boof and landed perfectly and powered through the small gap below. At this point I had thought the hard work was over and it was just keeping to the “easy lines” however through the middle section I made contact with a few rocks which slowed me down significantly. My time had me 3^rd in 1^st qualification.

Second qualification was very much the same again hitting the same rock. I rushed up after my times to watch the other GB competitors. Tom Wakeling, one of the fastest GB paddlers unfortunately backlooped on champion’s killer therefore this year did not have the chance to race in the final. Congrats to Pete and Anton who also made it through along with myself.

Finals day!

The moment I had been waiting for, sitting at the top of a 6 meter seal slide looking down upon the swirling waters below. A cameraman was placed just where I wanted to be at the top of the slide, which meant I had to just hope that I would be ok sliding further right. The light went green and I shifted my weight over the edge, the boat began to slowly tilt, then speed down the rock towards the small yellow plank. I shot off down the river as my hull boofed nicely off the flat surface below. I knew this was the first key part to my race. I then picked up the pace through the first section flowing with the S around a rock then a hole, a quick boof and I was on to the flat section in the middle of the course. I sprinted towards the compulsory left channel. I hit it with a nice line and then paddled for the middle route where you come all too near to the undercut that has claimed so many peoples runs. I got the double boof and then sprinted towards the second to last drop. I hit the hump and again, as in quals landed on the flow and gripped it. On approach to champion’s killer I was just praying that it went to plan. Unfortunately it did not and I backlooped. I finished 8 seconds behind the Russian I was against, who went on to win the quarter final stage.

I finished 34^th, very happy with my performance in the race. I can’t wait after another hard years training to go out again and hopefully get a better seeding!

Thanks for reading,

David

After spending five days in the Kern drainage (see previous post), on our sixth day in California we broke camp early and began driving north. It took a bit longer than we expected, but by mid afternoon we met up with another truckload of southeasters in the town of Three Rivers to discuss our next move. Almost everything in the Kaweah drainage was still too high, but Greg Garrard and Chas Lemley suggested that we join them for a run on the Shatner Ranch section of the South Fork of the Kaweah. They had made the run the previous day and assured us would still be at a good level. The S.F. of the Kaweah wasn’t really on our radar, but with the opportunity to join up with a solid crew who had done the run the day before, we quickly agreed and followed Greg to the put-in. A look downstream from the bridge at the put-in gave us a preview of the continuous boogie water that would characterize the entire run. [To get an idea of just how continuous, check out some helmet cam footage shot by Austin Nickell HERE]
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For the 5th time in a row the adidas sickline extreme kayak world championships took place in Oetz/Austria at the weekend again. Great weather, perfect water levels and organization and especially the impressive list of world class kayakers made the event as amazing as every year.

As I finished 3rd in 2010, there was a quite a bit of pressure on me. My two qualification runs were all right, putting me in 12th position for the head-to-head final on the more difficult section of the river. I was able to win my first duel against Tomass Marnics, although we both had big problems at the so called “Champions’ Killer” (see picture above), the last drop before the final sprint. This took me to the next round against Michele Ramazza. Apparently, he had a really solid run, but I struggled at the last drop again. That was it, too slow, no super final (top 15) for me this year. I finished 22nd in the end. Well, I’ve already analyzed my mistakes and am looking forward to next year, then racing in the new Pyranha Shiva! Even if this was certainly not my best extreme race so far, I enjoyed paddling the Wellerbruecken-stretch of the Oetz River anyway.

Just like last year, Sam Sutton took home the WC-belt with an outstanding final run. Mike Dawson finished 2nd, Germany’s Paul Boeckelmann 3rd – congratulations to all of them! 7 paddlers finished within only one second, which meant some really tight racing and absolutely no room for mistakes.

For more information, full results, the (re-)live webstream of the super final and more photos, please visit www.adidas-sickline.com.

 

Here are a few pictures from this summers Playboating course in France. Water levels were not that great but we made the best of it and alot of fun was had. Sadly we didn’t get any photos of Lowri’s Standing-up-on-the-wave-attempt, its safe to say she failed and got pretty wet!!

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