Ekstremesportveko 2010

After two days spent in my car, I turned up to Voss, my summer location this year. Voss is sick, so many rivers to run on such a small area so there is always stuff to paddle, even after a full day of raft guiding. The summer almost never sets here, so it's not a problem to put in for the local runs around 9pm. I had been enjoying Myrdalselvi and Raundalselvi runs with the local crew and experiencing unusually warm Norwegian spring in Voss.

Voss is also hosting the annual Ekstremesportveko event, one of the biggest extrem sport festivals anywhere, attracting hundreds of athletes and thousands of fans and spectators. This is my favourite week in the year. The festival tent has always great atmosphere and is you can meet almost anyone from you friends all over the world. 

There are competitions and events held in BASE, Skydiving, Paragliding, Hanggliding, Multisport, Rafting, Big Air, Freeride, Kiting, MTB\ BMX, Climbing, Longboarding and also Kayaking. All the athletes and fans meet every evening the big festival tent to watch the today's video from the day's event, share stories and party big style indeed. 

This years Veko has been little different for me as I had also been working most of the week for Voss Rafting. This has turned the Ekstremeveko also in an endurance week, but I also managed to compete in few events. On Monday I entered the Hogri Ned multisport event. This race usually consist of skier, downhill biker and kayaker. This year, there has been not much snow in Voss, so the skiing part had to be abandoned and it looked like I will not have a team as my team buddies from last year could not turn up. One day before the event I got a call from John Indrebo, one of the local bikers and on Monday I was awaiting his arrival at the start. After slower hand over of the relay bib we became 3^rd overall. Cool, my first veko podium this year. 

The main kayaking event was held at the Mjolfjell race course. This had been a big chanche from the traditional Branseth course, which was out due to low water levels. 

Mjolfjell has been rising on the contrary so most of the competitors had been welcomed by a very sticky hole at the bottom of the section, which made almost one third of the field to drink a bootie beer by the end of the day. I had couple great training rides and felt pretty strong for the race. The first part felt very fast and on the track, but I got pushed behind the rock by the bottom hole and so lost any chances for the finals like many of the others who went through the “back door”. Anyway, it got all better for the team race as I teamed up with my ZET kayaks mates from Czech Viktor Legat and Jiri Kopecny and we managed to get second behind the Italian team.

 The rest of the Veko followed with amazing parties, great everyday events and loads of stories to be shared. Already looking for the next year. Thanks for the amazing competition photos by M. Kroupa 

Myrkdalselvi

Hey everyone. Few cool shots from one of my home runs this year. Voss creeking at it's best. Lowe Myrkdalsevi has become one of my favourite runs anywhere and it's only 30 mins from from my place. Packed with action and good whitewater. Yeehaaa. The pictures were shot last Saturday before the Veko. Good teaser for the action and great week, that is just about to start. We are pretty busy at work, but hope to get as much racing as possible. So far so goog. Stay tuned for more soooooon... (All photos by me, except of those of me, those are taken by andy Phillips).

Benjamin Hjort going for the boof

Andy Phillips- first drop

Benji- first drop

First slide of the triple combo- Benji

Mark Basso at the first slide

Benji- second slide of the triple

Mark at the third slide- just hold on and enjoy the ride, also good to go right at the bottom, hole is super sticky

Benji- second run double fun, 2nd slide

Third slide

From triple slide into a triple drop, Andy Phillips styling for the cameras.

Mark Basso at the so called Dirk Diggler slide

Andy Philips

This one is called Grandioso, one of my favourite drops anywhere

Me at the Grandioso, middle line

Boof it

This your ast take out drop. Sweet boof onto a slide with a big hole at the bottom and right hand turn at the lead out

Me at the last drop

Norway Raundal

Just a quick update from Myrkdalselvi an Raundalselva paddling with Benjamin Hjort, Dag Sandvik and Eirik Ovrreide. This river is in danger of being dammed which would destroy more than 40kms of an excellent whitewater.  Check out the movies taken by Benjamin Hjort and couple guys with pretty cool "model helicopter cameras". Amazing footage.


The River from FPV-Leif on Vimeo.







Also one photo on the Voss Kajakk Klubb webpage

Photos from Myrkdalselva and full report coming very soon. Also first party of Ekstremsportveko 2010 today.

Straightdownstriit 2010

Another weekend, another adventure. After getting back from beautiful Sessia Valley and leaving Italy, I spent just 5 days back home getting organized and left for some weekend fun kayaking with friends on Trnavka slalom course in Czech.

This is artificial channel under one of the bigger dams in Czech and every release always attracts many paddlers of different abilities to this site. This year

I came back to Trnavka after almost 3 seasons and was happy to meet many of my old friends. Fun times. For the fact, that Trnavka is a slalom course it is quite steep, technical and pushy, which was a great combination for me to try my new ZET RAPTOR. First of all, I was amazed how fast the boat is. It took me couple laps to get used to the boat's dynamic and different shape, but it was getting more predictable and easy to control after every lap, mainly after I tweaked the seat around a little bit. Trnavka is the longest artificial slalom course in the Czech Republic and also the hardest delivering solid class III- IV whitewater in concrete channel. Very good playground for testing a new boat. I was not solo with the same idea and so Marek Basta and had about 4 more Raptors for testing and free use and those were gone most of the time. So great 2 days of paddling, sharing stories, partying BBQs and also but not least sharing and discussing our feelings about the new toys. Good times.

After coming back from Trnavka I had couple very busy days getting a lot of stuff ready for my mission to Norge and by Thursday I was back on the road to Switzerland. Love to travel to new places to meet old friends. I was accompanied by Viktor Legat and Honza Lasko heading to Elm for the Straightdownstriit 2010. We slept over in Viktor's cousin place and rallied to the trainings rested and in good mood. Nothing better than sleeping in a real bed and having real coffee and good cake in the morning. Life get's even better.

The event tents

For competitors...

The event was held over three drop on WW4 stretch of the Striit river with the secong being particularly tricky forcing many competitors to roll. Next big trick was the ramp. This one proved to be very moody, sending people into rocks or onto each other. Ouch.

Honza in the training

...and on the ramp

Me, Honza and Viktor had all good qualification runs and went into the main boatercross event.

... rest time...

Honza was not very lucky with the ramp launch and the course did not offer many places to pass the opponent so unfortunately got knocked out nevertheless being one of the fastest kayakers of the event. Me and Viktor won our duels and went to next round.

Me in the race...

Viktor, leading his round

I had pretty unlucky collision at the start of my next run and after couple mistakes the race was over for me.


Viktor proved to his racing abilities and kept winning until he made a mistake in semifinals and finished 4th overall. Congratulations.

Chinese race, fun, fun

After the race we headed for a BBQ in the Circus Town. There was a party that followed the event, but Honza was leaving for TEVA games in Vail the next morning. This put us in a bit of time stress so after saying bye to all new and old friends and with promises of see you soon, we headed to Augsburg and the same night back to Prague.

Overall amazing event and a great occasion to meet friends, get some paces through good racing and enjoy the lifestyle we all love so much. I am on my way to Norway and the boys are going to represent at the TEVA games in Italy. Good luck hope to see you all at the Veko.

Photos will be added 2moro

Egua party tricks:)

Couple photos by Simon Westgarth from a day of sunshine and fun whitewater on Equa:) Full report and more photos soon.

Photos Piemont

Ok, time for a new update. Life;s been good. After coming back from Chile, I spent a great week of skiing in the French Alps followed by a week of coaching and kayaking in Slovenia with Gene17 and Simon Westgarth. Soca valley is beautiful and I spend a great week, paddling on the Soca river everyday. After the course was finished, I went back home to Czech to catch up and hang out with my friends and family. Despite the spring time the kayaking in Czech and Austria was on the low side. The usually month long window for kayaking on my local rivers narrowed to one week and some of the classics did not flow at all. Bummer. So there was not much paddling in the last month to be done. I went to the King of the Wave firs czech indoor kayak contest and spent a great day in the biggest aqua-park in Central Europe. Fun times :D

Finally after almost a month of flat water training and some sessions on slalom courses in Czech I was so ready to hit the rivers again. 

Having fun on the Egua

As a part of Gene17 staff, I am on the road again teaching kayaking in a beautiful Val Sessia valley in Piemonte. So stoked. Italy is awesome. 

The first week was little unusual due to very high water levels and loads of rain. This had changed the steep creeking course into a bigwater skills test course for couple of days. After those, the rain eased up a bit and the levels dropped enough to do some creeking. The rivers here are just great. You get great steep bedrock drops and slides in beautiful gorges with roman bridges. And that's not all. After a day of kayaking, there is always a cup of amazing cappuccino or italian wine followed by the best pizza in the world.

Campertogne- this village is my home for 2 weeks:) Check out all the new snow in the mountains

The Gene 17 van

***** staff accommodation love the amazing trailer. Mainly in rainy alpine weather:) Thanks Simon

Loading and reloading the boats of the roof- getting better everyday

Nick Horwood leading Ian down one of the rapids on Mastallone.

Mastallone boofing

Saming on Egua

Joe lining up for the first drop Egua

Egua, scottish style:)

Lower Egua

Egua

Office time:)

Gronda and Egua, check out the cool waving on the Ophion paddle. This my first trip trying those on the real whitewater and I DO like them. review to come soon.

Also thanks a lot to Kokatat and Snap Dragon for a great dry suit and the best possible gear out there. There is nothing else better then getting off the river in a rainy and cold day dry and warm. Cheers guys.


Here are some photos from the first Gene17 week in Piemonte Italy by Simon Westgarth. Great week of coaching, good kayaking, italian food and wine. Viva Italia. More to come... :)

Just a short note from a slideshow in Prague. Amazing event and many people followed by a great party. Thanks to everyone. More slideshows to come. Next maybe Pilsen and Mlada Boleslav.