PaddleFest is organized by Mountain Equipment Coop every summer in order to give visibility to watersports in general. For Quebec City’s MEC, we have a terrific site near downtown with huge beach and stuff, next to St-Lawrence river. What was different this year?…the store agreed that it wasn’t the best spot to devellop the whitewater part so they asked me to set something up at a different place.

The Tewksbury section of the magnificent Jacques-Cartier river has what it takes for this kind of event ; calm/moving water for initiations, short class II/III for technical courses and nice stretch of class IV for a friendly boatercross, less than 20 minutes from the city! The local raft company (Rafting Valcartier) offered us their big put-in as the main place for exposants.

This first edition showed that whiterwater is growing up in Quebec area. All the classes were full (we even took lil’ more than the max capacity) for initiations and technics. 12 paddlers did the race and had a blast! Hopefully the first edition to a future classic!

After a good time in Sjoa the Team bus headed to sweden to visit a great event in the little town of Dala floda. James Venimore is the organizer of the “Masters of the Water”. If you want to compete you have to do three different kinds of competition. First a downriver race in a Pyranha “Speeder” boat, a freestyle session and at the end a boatercross. But the most important part of the day is for sure to have fun and a good time with nice people. So it didn´t amaze that one competitor changed his boat to an inflatable crocodile :-). At least i managed to become 1. in the boatercross and 3. place in the overall ranking.

Liz Forshaw accomplished the 4. place in the overall ranking at the women category. Good work !

After a good and relaxed paddling day, we visited the famous party in Dala Floda to see the “Burnt out Punks”. A bunch of crazy people doing a fantastic fire show with a lot of entertainment. If you ever get the chance to see them, do it, it´s really good and funny.

All i can say is, that it was pretty nice to be in Sweden and join this event. I hope i will make it again in the future…

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Hi all

Well over the last few week here in Norway there has been the Voss extreme sports week, Valldal summer games and Sjoa Fest. It is a pretty cool time of year to be a kayaker in Norway there are always great rivers to run, someone to paddle with and drink beers with…

The highlight for me after been stuck on a oil rig for a couple of extra days because of bad weather, was making it on the first flight back to Voss it time for the kayak races during Extreme sports week.

My favorite race of the event is is the Brandseth team race, where a team of three kayaks race down the legendary Brandsethelva which is full of long slides and drops.

Mike Abbott, Allan Ellard and myself where super stoked to paddle our way into second place even with no training, behind the super strong and well trained team of Sam Sutton, Michele Ramazza and Fillipo Brunetti.

Here is a Video Clip to give you an idea of the thrills of one of the coolest races in Europe.

This is a pic of something a little different and fun, surfing the Bulken wave that runs out of the bottom of the lake in Voss.

Having seen the great memories and photos paddlers have been uploading on www.pyranhafest.com to celebrate 40 years of the Fish, I was inspired to dig out some old photos on a recent visit to see my parents!

I was surprised at how many photos I found, taking me right back to 1997 when I was still at Primary School and my parents had sent me off to the local canoe club, Dereham Canoe Group!

As I continued to rummage though the boxes, it felt amazing to re-live my experiences in kayaks over the years. Challenges that seem so easy now bring back that feeling of stretching our comfort zones to extend the exciting reality we can create for ourselves on rivers!

I hope these transport you to the brilliant years when we were just starting out in kayaks and maybe to share some of yours over on the PyranhaFest site!

The picture above sums up these 10 years of fun! Read on to see the individual photos and stories behind each boat…

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Every year all the paddlers in norway head to one special place, the mighty Sjoa river festival. For sure one of the coolest and most relaxed events in the kayak business. As last year the Pyranha Team Van made in 2011 a stop in sjoa and  enjoyed good whitewater, nice people, exciting races and for sure the amazing “Pimp & Ho” party.

Some Pyranha Team members as Anton Immler, Andy Philips and Tom Parker  made their way through the qualification run straight to the extreme race on the Store Ula and the amazing “Sweet Rumble”. The Ula had not much water but the race was good fun to watch and the results were pretty close together.

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Matt Young chasing the race leader after Poop Chute

Over the years the Black River Festival in Watertown, New York has developed a reputation for being one of the most intense weekends of paddling and partying anywhere.  There is a race, a demonstration of ridiculous antics with pool toys at Hole Brothers (The Floateo), and one heck of a rockin party at Hudson River Rafting Company.

 

Chris Mo gettin down with the Great White Caps

As we were getting ready for the race to start, it was clear that this was going to be one to remember.  The race was extended this year to include the whole river.  It would be about a 30 minute race, and people were pulling all sorts of weird long boats out from everywhere.  2 Speeders were in attendance.  When the gun went off it was absolute chaos.  Try turning a 14 foot long boat around, with 30 of your friends trying to do the same thing is no easy task.  

Topo Duo gettin shot out!!!

 

Tony G. finding out that long boating takes concentration

The Floateo made myself and the other judges laugh really hard.  I am always impressed by everyone’s dedication to this fantastic event.  We rocked out to some awesome live music from the Great White Caps til the wee hours, then woke up and caught a few rides in Hole Brothers before heading home.

 

These guys showed some commitment in the floateo

After getting 2nd last year The Pool Bus stepped up and won it all in 2011

Right now I’m recovering from the weekend and resting up for Ironman Lake Placid.  After that it’s on to some relaxation on the Selway with the Fusion.  Stay tuned…

 

Special Thaknks to Sandy Payne, Brian Murphy, and Caroline Emanuel for the photos.

The British Universities Kayak Expedition 2011 team are in Venezuela! We´ve paddled two rivers since we got here on Saturday evening – the Sinaguise and the Canagua. For more photos check out the team blog – http://www.kayakvenezuela.co.uk/team-blog.html

This past weekend I got to spend time in  Ohiopyle  playing on the Lower Yough with my mom and friends.

Thanks to Wayne Gman for the photos

Although the level was kinda low, I was able to catch some awesome surfs while there (:

Can’t wait to get out there again!!!

This year the freestyle world championships were held in the small german town of Plattling.

The hole is set on the edge of town just downstream of a railway bridge, Free camping was provided on the flood plain next to the hole.

Myself and Adam Ramadam decided to head out a month early to get some practice time in, when we got there the level was 140, not a nice level to be paddling a carbon boat. The first time we paddled there I was tentative about doing any moves that were going to hit the bottom, I mainly worked on mcnatys and phoenixs whilst adam set about finding a deep (ish) spot to loop, Being a c1 paddler Adam doesn’t have to worry about smashing his feet on the bottom and becuase he paddles a plastic boat he doesnt have to worry about scratching/ breaking his boat. After multiple hits to his boat adam insisted that he’d found a deep spot . . . he hadn’t.

I hit the bottom on either the bow or stern of my boat at least once a day for the first 3 weeks while i was there sometimes it was just a tap other times a realy hard hit. The carbon Molan however held up realy well, which is a tribute to the great job that the guys at P & H did in making it, and was one of the few carbon boats not to break in the time we were there.

After a month training in low water, the official team practice began, this week also saw the water levels rise which finally made a good hole. This was probably the only part of the competition I didn’t enjoy as we got 3 minutes per paddler to practice in our team slots, and either had to paddle really early or really late to get extra practice time in, I didn’t enjoy being told when I could or couldn’t paddle but watching the other teams team trainings was interesting !

Junior mens was meant to be on thursday but got moved to wednesday due to a “supposed” storm coming in.

My first ride started of well with the biggest loop I’ve ever done (video below), unfortunately the same loop ripped the ratchets through on my straps so I had to do the rest of my ride with out straps, Lots of running around trying to find spare parts for my straps ensued, huge thank you to all the guys that helped me out !

I made it through to the final with rides that I was’t happy about, When it came to the finals I was in 5th place I could only improve on my placing so I decided to go all out, After watching videos of my rides with entry moves I realised I was losing about 8 seconds in-between my entry and my next move so I ditched the entry move and went straight in with a left mcnasty from the eddy which seemed to work well for me. My second ride felt really good, I didn’t get the orbit or back loop but I guess you cant have everything and its nice to left with something to work on for the next competition (video below)

GB had an amazing success rate, with Claire O winning the Women s freestyle and squirt, Pringle winning the mens, Gabby Bates and myself placing 3rd in the juniors, James Benns placing 5th, James weight in his first year as a senior placing in the top 10, and Jamie Austin coming second in the squirt boating.The full results can be found on the ICF website.

It was nice to get a medal, but I think ultimately I got so much more out of my month in platting than just a medal.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to the guys I spent my time in platting with, to my sponsors Palm, Pyranha, Mitchel Blades, Strom Supplements, Paddle Works,  and sweet water coaching, The river crew for letting a small annoying 12 year old tag along and flail around in his play boat, the Gb team and coaches for all of their help and to all of my friends and family back home !

Thanks for reading,

Cya on the water,

Bren

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/15609608

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/15544476

Hi people!

Some days ago i finished my trip to California. In 3 days I’m leaving to Siberia for the 8th time in my life. For sure this is one of the best places on Earth for kayaking with some really good rivers and amazing nature. Will try to create the movie about this place together with my friend Stefun Pion. Check out his last video –>>

More photos and video from California on my blog –>>